Today’s mobile tech quiz question: How much does it cost to license a closed mobile OS? According to sources at Microsoft, it costs OEMs $15/device to use their new Windows Mobile 7 OS. This person does his/her best to explain that $15/device is much cheaper than Android open source model, but it sounds a little desperate. The bigger question is why publish this info. There are only a limited number of phone manufactures in the world. Why not talk directly to them about it? What is the point of sharing this info with the tech world? Strange marketing indeed! 

I received an offer to publish ads through a tourist agency. Nothing unusual there, but they did have a new service that I had never seen offered before. Below is a quote from the agencies marketing literature. (I am not going to mention the agency’s name to protect the non-technical in their marketing department.)

Mobile Tag

Half and Full Page advertisers: link your ad to a mobile tag and instantly interact with our readers! Use this platform to transform and promote your unique offer, incentive or feature.

What is a Mobile Tag?

Microsoft Mobile Tags are small, colorful codes that connect your print ad to the digital world. Users with Internet-enabled camera phones can simply snap the Tag on your ad and instantly receive additional information about your product. Reporting is available 24/7 to track the number of scans your tag is receiving!

Microsoft has done it again. Despite dozens of different organizations coming together to create an open source and/or free option with QR codes, Microsoft ignores the standards and creates their own version that is free-for-now but exclusively owned by them. Travelers to Asia and Europe are already familiar with “mobile tags”, better known to geeks as QR codes. These codes are being heavily pushed by Google with the Android OS.

As Allen Stern points out, the biggest problems with Microsoft’s Mobile Tags, besides ignoring what the rest of the industry is already doing, is that it transforms the 2D QR-code-like grid into a colorful mess of triangles. While the QR code can be easily printed in black and white, the red, yellow and green triangles of Microsoft’s mess will require 4-color printing. This is no small deal for companies since it represents an increase in cost.

At Geogad, we love TeleAtlas. TeleAtlas supplies map data to Google, which has created tools to allow Geogad to incorporate this map data into the Geogad site.

TeleAtlas keeps stepping up the usefulness of their product. They are now incorporating more map data for the walking traveler visiting big cities. Of course, as TeleAtlas and Google release all of this great info over the next few months, Geogad will help you to find it. Just relax, and we will deliver all this great map info to you to make your trip as enjoyable as we can.

Meanwhile, you already can take the Geogad Mobile Tours for popular destinations like San Francisco, New Orleans, and Vancouver. And of course, you can take these tours when you are on the go on your mobile cell phone.

Sometimes it is just amazing to hear the things that come out of the mouths of Microsoft marketers. It seems that the spotlight on the new iPhone is making Microsoft cranky. Since Microsoft Windows Mobile is already on so many phones (no mention of how hard these phones and their special features are for people to use), Microsoft does not see any need to try to create their own phone.

For just one minute, let’s try to forget all about Microsoft’s effort in the MP3 market with Zune and how that has turned out.

So officially, Microsoft is not creating a phone because they are focused on making quality proprietary software since the money in mobile is in software. Meanwhile, Nokia has just paid a fortune to open source Symbian - because the money in mobile is in software. And Google is creating their own open source mobile OS called Android - because the money in mobile is in software. And J2ME is already open sourced by Sun ages ago - because the money in mobile is in software. And Apple has just broken its usual rules by providing a free SDK for the iPhone - because the money in mobile is in software.

OK. Whatever.

Does anyone get the feeling that Microsoft is a little confused? The best line from the entire story which really shows how confused Microsoft seems to be is the quote from Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business senior vice president Andrew Lees:

We want to give our customers choice.

Microsoft….giving the customer choices….

OK. Whatever.

I think what he really means is that Microsoft has no choice but to let the customer chose.

Nokia has purchased the last part of Symbian that they did not own and are going to make it open source. I guess it just shows that many big companies are realizing that they just can’t put together a really good piece of software on their own. Or maybe they realize that it really does take a village. But maybe what they are really realizing is that they will make more money if they focused on the part of the business chain that they excel in and that brings them the most revenues, not the most headaches like maintaining a complex OS.

So … Microsoft, is it time to open source Windows yet? If you have finally seen the light, please open Windows XP. Then let’s really think long and hard if we want anything from Vista bolted on.