The folks at Google and
Apple must be snickering. The eWeek report today of Microsoft blaming Yahoo for a mobile "data drain" bug affecting a small number of Windows Phone 7 devices is hardly the kind of publicity
either company needs in relation to mobile.
Microsoft had spent weeks investigating complaints of its shiny new smartphones "devouring" user's data even when not running apps
or Web surfing. It fingered Yahoo Mail as the culprit for a glitch in syncing up with the Windows Phone Mail client. Haven't these two got enough trouble trying to compete in search and mobile
without tripping each other up?
The report issued by research firm Canalys yesterday showing Android had overtaken Nokia's Symbian as the top-selling smartphone platform in the fourth
quarter had less encouraging news for Microsoft. "Windows Phone 7 devices appeared too late in the quarter to take full advantage of holiday season purchasing," it stated. "As a result,
Microsoft lost share in the United States, from 8% in Q4 2009 to 5% in Q4 2010."
So Microsoft finally launches its upgraded, heavily-promoted answer to iOS and Android last year -- but
still manages to lose ground. 2011 will provide better insight into how well Windows Phone 7 is received by consumers, but Microsoft blew the chance to fully capitalize on the big-selling holiday
period to get a running start. And trailing so far back in the smartphone race, it really doesn't need any data-sucking glitches to scare away potential customers.
The irony is that
Yahoo and Microsoft are partners in an alliance to challenge Google hegemony in search, both on the PC-based Web and in mobile. That's not going so great to date, either. Yahoo's search
revenue in the fourth quarter was down 18% from a year ago -- and the Yahoo-Microsoft tandem has hardly made a dent in Google's search dominance.
Meanwhile, Google said late last fall
said its mobile operations are generating an annualized run rate of $1 billion in revenue compared to who knows what for Yahoo. In the company's fourth quarter conference call, CEO Carol Bartz
said Yahoo was at a disadvantage "since Android is loaded with Google search." But she added that the Web portal still has a lot of upside in mobile through its applications, operator
alliances and global presence.
But other recent reports, including one in TechCrunch, have focused on how mobile photo
startups like Instagram and picplz have stolen a march on Yahoo property Flickr when it comes to capitalizing on the spread of cell phones. But if Yahoo Mail can't even work right on the phones of
its closest high-tech ally, maybe that's not such a big surprise.