Walk a mile in your customer's shoes...

...and if they are new Nikes, run like hell, goes the old wisecrack. I wish Microsoft would drive a mile or two in their customer's car. 

I just bought MS Streets and Maps 2007 - it came bundled with a Pharos GPS receiver. Works fine if you want to drive with your laptop open. Oh, it has a few flaws - like does not automatically reroute (those who have driven with me know I am pretty bad with directions - and like any good man I do not stop and ask if I am lost). It warns you but you have to reach and manually reroute. Yea, at 50-60 miles an hour. But the maps, major destinations etc are great if you are a passenger or you can print ahead of trip. And flights on Southwest become more interesting (unlike some other airlines Southwest does not have any TVs to watch your trip progress).

It allows you to selectively export maps to your Pocket PC Mobile phone. This is where the problems begin. There is no application to open the maps on the mobile. And the GPS receiver only comes with a USB cable.

So, I have had to additionally order the 2006 version which did have Pocket Streets (which I should have but the receiver  it bundled had a older SIRF chip)  but has been taken out of 2007. And I had to order a separate Bluetooth dock for the GPS receiver. Hopefully my Cingular 8125 can soon behave like a Garmin.

Here is Microsoft making a major push in to mobile devices and telephony. And probably the single most useful application for a number of consumers in that demographic is location directions and location awareness. So why make it more difficult, regressive and disintegrated?

This could be a killer app for MS - some day.