An article on the Wireless News Factor makes for interesting reading, if a little depressing if you look at it the wrong way. Entitled Shutting Microsoft Out of the Wireless World, it looks at how attempts to block Microsoft's access to wireless markets are likely to fail.

Acknowledging Symbian's advantage in that anybody who is anybody is backing the suporior Symbian OS, it says that Microsoft's position as the enterprise's preference will make it the likely choice.

This is a very narrow view and sounds like an excuse for Microsoft's failure to achieve even a modest amount of success in the consumer market. Sure, the iPaqs and the Casios are in the boardrooms, but the man on the street is using Nokia, SonyEricsson and Motorola.

With problems plaguing the Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002 (MSWPS2K2) and even Microsoft unsure about the quality of the OS, it looks like Microsoft is going to have to keep concentrating on the board rooms.

If this article is anything to go by, that's the place where Microsoft rules the roost.... only, it doesn't. It is still struggling against Palm who has the lion's share of the PDA market.

So, Microsoft can't beat Palm in the enterprise and it can't beat Symbian on the street - maybe it should give up on mobility and stick to making wordprocessors?

Not according to the analyst mentioned above because "Microsoft has the inside track because it owns the PC desktop". However, the only way Microsoft can keep that advantage is by breaking other technologies, making sure they won't work on Windows. But with more and more devices supporting open standards such as SyncML, they'd be cutting off their nose to spite their face.

If the only market that mattered was the enterprise market, this article might make more sense, but the world is bigger than that.

What do you think?