Windows Phone 7 in trouble? MeeGo DOA?

If I believed in conspiracy theories, I’d say that Windows Phone 7 is a failure six months before its expected availability. And the Nokia-Intel MeeGo operating system will be dead on arrival, if it’s ever released.

Windows Phone 7: Microsoft seems to be investing in alternatives Let’s start with Windows Phone 7. Touted earlier this year as the successor to the much unloved Windows Mobile platform, Microsoft has gone largely silent on Windows Phone 7 since then, all but ignoring its great hope to stave off the iPhone at its recent TechEd conference. (And according to a recent Cnet report, Microsoft is sticking with its earlier decision not to include copy and paste — sheesh!) In the meantime, Microsoft has announced three other mobile operating systems.

If Windows Phone 7 is meant to be the break-from-the-past successor to Windows Mobile, as Microsoft has said, the all-new mobile OS that brings Microsoft into the 21st century, why has Microsoft released Windows Phone (the poorly received Kin phones) and now the Windows Embedded Handheld OS?

A Microsoft spokesman told me that Windows Embedded Handheld OS was meant to provide continuity for enterprises using specialized Windows Mobile 6.5 devices. Windows Phone 7 won’t run Windows Mobile applications, so developers had two choices: Switch to Windows Phone 7 and rework the apps to the modern operating system, or keep using their specialty legacy devices.

Windows Compact Embedded 7 is meant to let hardware makers create specialized devices, from signature readers to set-top boxes, based on Windows technology such as Silverlight. Most enterprises wouldn’t develop their own apps for it, though they theoretically could. Windows Embedded Handheld is meant as a successor to Windows Mobile for handhelds and possible smartphones that let businesses use their existing Windows Mobile apps, which are often homegrown.

Where does that leave Windows Phone 7? Allegedly, as the broad-based Microsoft OS for consumers and businesses that is supposed to ship this fall (a Microsoft video says October, but the company won’t confirm that). The two Embedded operating systems are meant for specialty uses, and the already-released Kin operating system is aimed at young adults purely for socializing.

Confused? You won’t be alone. It gives me no confidence in Windows Phone 7 that Microsoft decided to create a separate consumer operating system for kids and a separate “continuity with the past” enterprise operating system for specialty and legacy handhelds. That makes Windows Phone 7’s role “other,” which is usually the first character the monster eats.

Microsoft positions all these mobile options as a strategy for covering varying needs. It feels to me like it has lost faith in Windows Phone 7 and is creating some backstop bets.

Update as of July 1: Today, Microsoft confirmed it has killed the Kin phone as part of a refocusing on Windows Phone 7. That’s a wise, if belated, move and offers a glimmer of new light for Windows Phone 7.

Intel invests in Android, while MeeGo limps along Intel is another company that seems to be hedging its bets — or is quietly backing a new horse — on the mobile operating system front. This winter, it dropped its Moblin mobile Linux effort and joined with Nokia to develop a new mobile OS (MeeGo) that merged Moblin with Nokia’s in-development Maemo, the intended successor to Nokia’s lackluster Symbian operating system.

You can tell from that description that neither the Moblin nor Maemo efforts were moving with any urgency. There’ve been plenty of conferences but little tangible result.

And now word is out that Intel is porting Google’s new Android OS 2.2 (Froyo) to the x86 chip architecture this summer. That can only mean Intel sees Android mattering greatly in the tablet and perhaps netbook markets, so Intel wants to make sure its Atom chips can power those devices. (Android was developed for the competing ARM-architecture chips, such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon in the HTC Droid Incredible and the Texas Instruments OMAP3630 in the forthcoming Motorola Droid X.)

The speed at which Intel is moving on Android, compared to the snail’s pace development of MeeGo, is telling. If Intel thought MeeGo were a significant OS, it would be pushing that effort along. Instead, MeeGo is following the molasses pace of most standards efforts: The first core platform release for MeeGo came out in May for netbooks, and the first core release for handhelds is supposedly due this month. Yesterday, Intel released a video of a “pre-alpha” MeeGo for tablet version that demonstrates touch capabilities. (MeeGo won’t support touch interfaces in a core release until October.)

The MeeGo group plans to roll out incremental improvements to the OS every six months. That means it could be years before there’s a broad and flexible enough foundation for users, hardware makers, and software developers to commit to. Nokia recently said its future N series handhelds will all be based on MeeGo, so we could see by 2011 if MeeGo has enough meat on its bones at initial release to matter, as well as if anyone other than Nokia will use it.

When will the borrowed time run out? It’s been four years since Apple reinvented and reenergized the mobile space with the iPhone. That’s a long time in technology.

For Windows Phone 7 and MeeGo to just get started is already an iffy bet. Confusing the market with multiple “mobile Windows” options seems a sure way to lose that bet in Microsoft’s case.

Developing MeeGo in incremental stages over several years also seems a sure way to lose, and Intel’s speedy action in porting Android to x86 tells me that Intel already knows the MeeGo bet will fail.

It’s taken Android two years to get close to par with the iPhone. When it started the market was still tentative and exploratory, so there was more tolerance for incompleteness. Microsoft and Symbian have been living on borrowed time, after wasting years with Windows Mobile 6 and Symbian/Maemo, respectively. All signs are that the borrowing is continuing with Windows Phone 7 and MeeGo — not good. Not good at all.

This article, “Windows Phone 7 in trouble? MeeGo DOA?,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Gruman et al.’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile computing at InfoWorld.com.