No BlackBerry Crisis For The Window Mobile Crowd

I’m a Windows Mobile phone
user. We are few, but we are proud. I saw a number at SES last week, as our
numbers are growing. We nod to each other quietly and share tales of rebooting
several times per day. But Windows Mobile users, our day has come! We survived
when the BlackBerry
crowd went down!

See, here’s the deal. Those with BlackBerry’s depend on the system itself
sending stuff, like pushing email, to my understanding. OK, Windows Mobile can
do that. There’s some awful system Verizon gives you to push mail to my phone.
But why bother? Rather than push, my phone pulls. I set up Outlook (the Windows
Mobile version) to log into my mail server and get new mail when I want it. I
don’t depend on Verizon — I don’t depend on BlackBerry. I stand independent!

Think of it in Web 2.0 AJAXilcious tagging terms. BlackBerry’s are like old
style "channels," where content providers were going to push stuff to you
(c’mon, remember Pointcast?). Windows Mobile is like feeds, where you pull what
you want, when you want.

OK, if my cell phone company goes down (Verizon in the US; T-Mobile in the
UK), then I’m screwed. But as long as I’ve got a signal, I’ve got web access and
email access on my phone. Which, you know, is only damped by the fact I reboot
it five times per day. Oh, and it’s so sluggish that if you call me, you’ve hung
up by the time the phone goes through this process:

1. Call comes in
2. Phone thinks hmmm, maybe I should ring
3. Pause
4. Phone starts to ring
5. I push the answer button
6. Phone thinks hmmm, maybe I should show caller ID
7. Phone starts flipping through 2,000 contacts in Outlook
8. Pause
9. I push the answer button again
10. Phone finds the caller ID, tells me who is calling
11. I push the answer button again
12. Phone says hey! He wants to answer this call
13. I push the answer button again
14. Phone ponders my initial answer request
15. I push the answer button again
16. Pause
17. Phone decides to let me answer the call
18. You hung up back at like 12 or 15

Like many smartphone users (of both the Windows Mobile and BlackBerry
variety), I ironically carry two phones — one that’s not smart but lets me make
calls fast.

Still, there’s hope. Really.
My Vario MDA II in the UK rocks. I so need to blog more about it. I never
have to reboot. It’s snappy and responsive. Still bigger than I’d like. Still
want a version with a
dedicated keypad. But it’s getting there!