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Windows Mobile bets on whiz kid

"We're more likely to take a chance on someone who is really smart rather than someone who is an experienced manager."

Richard Rashid, Microsoft's senior vice president for research

With Windows-powered mobile devices lagging behind the Palms and BlackBerrys of the world, the Microsoft Corp has brought an electrical engineer from China -- a master of the strategy game Go -- to put them back in the race.

He is Zhang Ya-Qin, 39, an experienced computer systems researcher who helped start Microsoft's Beijing research laboratory in 1999. He was tapped in January 2004 to come to Redmond, where Microsoft is based, to lead the turnaround of the Windows Mobile software business, which has hemorrhaged money for years.

Now the first results of Zhang's efforts are scheduled to be unveiled at a conference on May 9 and May 10 in Las Vegas, at which Microsoft plans to introduce the next version of its Windows Mobile software, code-named Magneto, with new productivity and multimedia features.

Industry speculation is that Microsoft has been fashioning the software as a "RIM-killer," a reference to Research In Motion, the Canadian company that dominates the corporate hand-held computing market with its BlackBerry.

That claim elicits a polite demurral from Zhang, a one-time math prodigy who entered college in China at 12 and graduated first in his class before going to the US to earn his doctorate.

Magneto will test what Zhang said was his attempt to create a new focus on quality software -- a break from the Microsoft practice of emphasizing a cascade of new features in each successive product release.

"Now the first thing is quality," he said, adding his second priority is building partnerships for the Windows Mobile business, which has so far failed to replicate Microsoft's impact in the desktop computer world.

He will need all the skills at his disposal if Microsoft is to prevail in the mobile-software arena.

Although revenue from its mobile and embedded software -- that is, software for devices other than PCs -- increased last year by 58 percent, to US$247 million, over 2003, Microsoft nonetheless lost US$224 million in the category last year. That was the third consecutive year of losses and a performance that would almost certainly have destroyed any independent competitor.

Microsoft has made inroads into the software market for hand-held devices and more limited progress in finding customers to use its software in so-called smart phones. They include Motorola and Samsung, along with some lower-profile handset makers that allow cellular carriers to brand their own phones. But Microsoft faces challenges in trying to replicate the PC business model in the world of mobile devices.

It must contend with cellular telephone operators who control sales channels as well as technical specifications for products. And it is coming late to the software market for smart phones -- cellphones with PC functions like e-mail, multimedia, Web browsing, instant messaging and games. On that front, it faces powerful competitors like Symbian, owned by a consortium of cellular handset makers, and PalmOne and PalmSource, the scrappy Silicon Valley companies behind the hit cellphone organizer called the Treo.

"I haven't seen anything out of Microsoft that makes me believe that they're going to have any magic sauce," said Andrew Seybold, a veteran industry wireless and mobile consultant who publishes Outlook 4Mobility, a newsletter.

The choice of Zhang is also an intriguing window into the strategy and values of Ballmer and Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman. In contrast to many of its competitors, Microsoft is a company that values IQ points over years on the job.

"We're more likely to take a chance on someone who is really smart rather than someone who is an experienced manager," said Richard Rashid, Microsoft's senior vice president for research.
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