The smartphone wars are a global, multi-trillion-dollar decade long fight.

We are in year 4.

Meaning...much will happen, much will change and no one, no platform, no device, no company can yet be declared the winner.

But Microsoft continues to look like it will be the loser if it doesn't start taking the smartphone seriously. And, and this is almost unfathomable to me, they still have no strategy!

As I predicted years ago, and as has now been confirmed, smartphones are outselling PCs. This will never again change. Apple's Mac is growing (much) faster than the "PC" industry.

iPad is destroying sales of new/cheap PCs.

And still I cannot purchase a quality Windows Phone phone in the US. 

How can not *legions* of employess at Microsoft, up to and including Steve Ballmer, not be unceremoniously sacked for this?

It's as if six months after Pearl Harbor, the US fleet chose not to engage the Japanese Navy but instead said...just you wait. In 18 months we'll show you who's boss!

Microsoft did *not* strike the iPhone when it was launched. Nor when it opened the App Store. Nor with 3GS. Nor with iPhone 4S. Nor with iPad. Nor with iPad 2.

Except for Samsung, *every single Android handset maker* is hurting. Motorola can't make a profit, despite all the love that has been lavished upon it by Verizon and Google.

Giant Sony continues to flail.

Blackberry -- dominant in the enterprise -- is in freefall.

HTC, once the mighty king of Android, a little Taiwanese company that long ago befriended Microsoft, and had dreams of becoming a global brand, is being utterly decimated by Samsung, once also a Microsoft friendly and who sends cash to Redmond for every single (tens of millions) of Android devices they sell.

Still Microsoft has no response.

How can this be? What has Microsoft been doing for the past ten years? Where have all the billions of shareholder dollars they've spent gone?

In Microsoft's home market of the United States, nearly every single new smartphone customer purchases a Android (57%) or an iPhone 34%). Almost none of the remaining 9% goes to any Microsoft/Windows device.

Microsoft's plan?

Zune.

Yes, that Zune. 

If you are one of the very few people to go into a Microsoft Store, wherever the hell those are, and get yourself a Windows Phone, Microsoft will give you a year's free Zune Music Pass.

That's straight up fucking embarrassing.

Ameica should be absolutely ruling the smartphone landscape! We have Apple and iPhone, Google and Android, Amazon and Android, Twitter, Facebook, Paypal.

In fact, we are! Sadly, however, Microsoft -- even in 2012 -- remains lost at sea.

After reading this from NextWeb, I may commit to Bing on my iPhone:

I’ve been tiring of Google’s shenanigans in many areas of search lately, especially the way that its Google Search + Your World changes have driven some of the best search results further down the list it coughs up.

So I decided to take Bing for a spin, changing it to my default search engine for a month or two. What I found was that it actually could be a very solid alternative to Google for a large portion of iPhone users, and that it might even be a better fit for the majority of those than Google is.

In almost all cases Bing was able to produce results for these searches that were just as relevant as the ones that Google was giving me, but were presented better. 

Think I"ll give Bing the month of February and test this bold NextWeb claim. If true, though I suspect it's not, than Google is in for a world of hurt.

Same results, better presentation will almost certainly win out.

Is it a good thing that more Microsofties are joining Apple than the reverse?

This one is, according to NextWeb, and it probably means something:

Apple has named former Microsoft Product Marketing chief Robin Burrowes as the head of App Store Marketing for iTunes Europe, becoming the latest games executive to join Apple’s ranks. Burrowes worked at Microsoft for seven years, where he was responsible for product, business and marketing management of Xbox LIVE across the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.

Burrowes was one of the main figures behind the promotion of Microsoft’s latest Xbox dashboard update and previously worked for MSN and UK retail store HMV. His LinkedIn profile suggests that he joined Apple in January, to help the company promote its iTunes service and App Store across Europe.

As MCV points out, Burrowes isn’t the first high-profile British gaming figure to make the jump to Apple. The Cupertino-based company welcomed former Nintendo PR boss Robert Saunders early last year, adding former Activision, EA and Xbox PR boss Nick Grange to focus on PR for its hardware products.

"Help promote its iTunes service and App Store across Europe"? If that's true, than it's a step down for Mr Burrowes.

Though I suspect it's not true.

Apple may not have been quick to understand the power of the app with respect to the original iPhone, but Apple and Steve Jobs most definitely understood the money in gaming.

These hires, no doubt, point to an even more aggressive push into the gaming industry. Apple may not be planning on a console, for example, but we should assume they are interested in making games more social (e.g. multiple iPhone/iPod users competing as a group), and enabling more awesome games developed that leverage the iPad, say, than have specific functions iPhone users can engage with while mobile.

And, yes, something cool built into the mythical Apple Television.

Promote iTunes in Europe, my ass.

Darrell Etherington examines Level 3's purchase of 1,300 iPads. These are pre-loaded and handed out to each of Level 3's sales team:

2012 will be a breakout year in terms of actual iPad deployments, just as 2011 saw a huge uptick in pilot programs. If that indeed comes to pass, we should see Apple easily beat the 40.7 million iPads it sold in 2011.

The stories we read about the (eventual) rise of the Android tablet may not be terribly relevant, even if they finalliy come to pass. Rather, it's the shockingliy rapid growth of the iPad -- first in cosumer markets and now, perhaps, in the enterprise.

Apple sold 40 million iPads in 2011. Say they sell 60 million in 2012.  That's 100 million iPad 2 or iPad 3 in two years. In those numbers the humble iPad "toy" will be a force that legitimately challenges the 25 year hegemony of the Windows PC.

This year Steve Ballmer will let it be known that 2013 is his final year. 

And despite all he's done, he may not even get to be the one that chooses his (early) retirement date.

Back in 2009, early 2009, before you all were talking about or even knew about Android or ecosystems or 4G or iPad or Windows Phone, I wrote:

the smartphone is the computer

Catchy, I know.

I also publicly stated that both Office and Windows would be dead -- or effectively marginalized -- by 2016.

On the big stuff, even those bloggers that read my daily haven't caught up. But they will. The signs are simply becoming too obvious to miss.

From uber Twitterer @treetsman, a reminder of just how bad the PC market -- Mac excluded -- has become:

PC growth vs. Apple is even worse than reported. To see why, let's look at the chart from Gartner for US "PC" shipments, where the conclusion is that Apple growth increased 20.7% while PC growth declined 5.9%. 

Apple's (i.e., Mac) data is included in the same total to which it's being compared. In other words, Apple's stellar year is propping up the "PC" (i.e., non-Mac) numbers, making "PC" shipments look better than they really were.

If you truly want to know how Apple did in the US on its own against "PCs", you must subtract it from the latter's numbers. Here's what you get: 

Total 4Q11: 15,854,964

Total 4Q10: 17,342,605

4Q11-4Q10 Growth: -8.5

The originally reported dismal "PC" growth of -5.9% becomes an even more dismal -8.5% without Apple's numbers propping it up.  

I don't know.

I do know that I've said on multiple occasions that the app is superior to, say, the "tile" or to a more integrated, 'holistic' method of data and media and personal interaction.

I say this based on experience. Our brain seems to function better with focus. An app focuses our intent, our actions.

Indeed, I believe I'm still the only analyst out there that has stated that no one else seems to be picking up on the extremely divergent UI *design* issue of our time:

singluar focus vs multi-tasking

Apple today is iOS and Mac. With the iOS, the app reigns supreme. It is, almost exclusively, an isolated application with a focused task or intent: send a Tweet. Update Facebook. Take a picture. Play Monkeyball.

Windows Phone, by contrast, proudly delivers more and more (real-time) data across various services and applications, putting each in front of you. This is coupled with integration of various services, unlike the iPhone which to date, only allows Twitter to have nearly complete access at the system level.

Only, the same thing appears to be happening on the desktop, yet no one else is picking this up. The new/upcoming Windows, like Windows Phone, embraces multi-tasking, placing a great deal of information and services front and center. Mac, on the other hand, appears to be (slowly) trying us to focus on a single application; Pages, say. And Mac OS encourages us to fill the screen with the single application we (need/want to) focus on.

Most people, I assume, would choose the Windows construct. Perhaps that is the wrong choice. Per Live Science, our brain appears to embrace compartmentalization:

Now a new study suggests that it's the very act of walking through a doorway that causes these strange memory lapses.

"Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an 'event boundary' in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away," said lead researcher Gabriel Radvansky, a psychologist at the University of Notre Dame. "Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized."

"When we are moving through the world, it is very continuous and dynamic and to deal with it more effectively, we parse things up," Radvansky said. Neuroscientists have begun imaging the brains of people crossing event boundaries and, from these studies, are just beginning to piece together how the brain performs this function. "There are a lot of [brain] areas that light up at different kinds of event boundaries."

Mental event boundaries are useful because they help us organize our thoughts and memories. But when we're trying to remember that thing we were intending to do… or get… or maybe find… they can be annoying.

Since way back in 2009, both Windows and Office have been on my Technology Deathwatch list.

Then, I was considered mad. Now, I'm considered behind the curve since the deathwatch list of technologies uses the year 2016 as its benchmark.

For me, it was simple. Mobile, hyperlocal, social. Those would be, I was preaching back then, the core elements of all personal computing, communications, applications, media and content.

Neither Windows nor Office were built for such a world.

And such a world is approaching, fast. Year after year now, we see the numbers that reveal that Mac is growing -- from its small base -- but also that all the other big "PC" makers are shrinking.

Despite billions, Windows Phone barely registers above statistical noise when looking at market share (or profits). 

Now this: per AllThingsD, Apple will sell 48 million iPads in 2012, possibly more. While the Windows tablet, for all the buzz, remains non-existent.

“We believe this significant refresh will likely help drive higher iPad sales and help further differentiate from arguably the only real competitor in the market, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and not to mention the myriad of Android offerings out there,” says Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu. “We are currently modeling 48 million iPad shipments for calendar 2012.”

For all his numerous strengths and talents, Ballmer is lost. As I've said before, he will be out by no later than the end of 2013. At the latest.

Greg Stirling on Siri and how the smartphone is leading the development of multi-UI gadgets:

Companies like Google and Apple are "market makers." They may not be first with a technology but their inclusion or the use of a particular technology can have a dramatic impact on its acceptance and adoption. 

Voice on the Xbox and the emergence of speech as a front in the “smartphone wars” both create new momentum for voice interfaces and even a kind of “speech imperative.” 

Apple TV (allegedly coming soon) is also supposed to integrate Siri. Indeed, there's a convergence of speech (and gesture) UIs with APIs and apps across an array of platforms: mobile, TV and in-car. The smartphone experience and its various metaphors are informing a host of consumer experiences beyond phones. 

Yes, it pisses lots of people off when I or someone else says, essentially, that now that *Apple* offers this technology, this service, this feature, that it is ready for mass adoption.

But it's true. 

And in this instance, it's awesome. Siri, touch-interfaces, Kinect for Xbox are all remaking our gadgets and how we interact with them, with content and with each other.