Missing: Microsoft's iPod platform

By Dave Winer on 1/16/07; 10:53:32 PM.

Something that's remarkable to consider. As closed to developers as Apple is with the iPod and now the iPhone, it's pretty amazing that Microsoft, a company with a long tradition of offering developer platforms, hasn't managed to offer a product that's even worth considering by developers as an alternative to the non-existent option of producing software for Apple's mobile devices.  

It's even more remarkable if you consider that Apple's product wasn't an early product and has been on the market for over five years. Plenty of time to catch up even if Microsoft was caught by surprise. Charles Fitzgerald, one of the few old-timers still at the MS used to say it was a "scrappy" competitor. I wonder what adjective Charles would use for the company today.  

Techdirt: "Copying the technology is just one aspect to competing, and if the market is dynamic, by the time you catch up to whoever you're copying, they're way ahead of you."