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It’s no secret that Thurrott is a critic of Windows Mobile, he frequently talks about it on his podcast with Leo LaPorte.

I find this post on Daring Fireball interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, what do we think Microsoft meant by the iPhone “validating” their approach? The first thing that comes to mind is that in their worldview, opening the App Store is analogous to Microsoft having Windows Mobile development partners. This is despite the fact that they don’t seem to have a unified store, and from what I hear many phone vendors try to hide or protect the user from the Windows Mobile interface by a kind of “skinning” of the interface. Anyway, you would need a lot of explanation on Microsoft’s part to understand what is meant by that statement, and I think that most realistically they didn’t mean anything, that it is more of a public relations statement than a statement of belief.

Second, Gruber states:

But if that’s truly the mindset of those leading Microsoft’s Windows Mobile team, that’s delusion, and they’re pretty much dead. Microsoft’s response to the original Macintosh, Windows 1.0, appeared by the end of 1985. Their response to the iPhone is nowhere to be seen.

But Gruber knows that Microsoft doesn’t, and I don’t think can, move with the kind of speed it could in 1984/1985. Microsoft passed the point of too many lines of code, too many employees – or more importantly, too much management and too many M.B.A.’s making decisions- a long time ago.