This morning, the New York Times had an interesting piece about the shift in cellphone momentum away from Microsoft to Android and the iPhone. The story refers to Windows Mobile as 'foundering,' which won't bring much happiness to Redmond. Of course, Microsoft already knows that they're quickly becoming a non-player in the smartphone market.

What's of interest beyond the basics is just how far the Windows based phones have slipped in terms of customer satisfaction. Quoting the story: "Indeed, a J. D. Power & Associates survey found that Windows Mobile had the lowest satisfaction rating among customers of any smartphone operating system. The iPhone has by far the most satisfying software, the study found. Android is a distant second, followed closely by BlackBerry's operating system."

"Windows Mobile scored below average on every attribute, said Kirk Parsons, director of the study, especially in ease of operation, speed and stability."

That was my experience -- I had two Motorola Q phones fail. They tended to lock up frequently, and one had to be replaced. I was on the Verizon network, which was very good, but when the iPhone came out the thought of having something designed to work well with a Mac, and something that had a certain well-thought-out elegance was just too much of a lure.

Microsoft owned the smartphone market for years, so it is a mystery to me why they fell so far behind. The entry of Android, and especially the new models, is welcome competition. Most cell phone makers are migrating to the Android platform, which doesn't require licensing fees. The iPhone design isn't for sale to anyone, and seems to be doing just fine. Apple could fall into the same somnambulant stupor that Microsoft seems to be in with smartphones, but the Android offerings should keep them scrambling. We'll all benefit from that competition.

What phone did you drop to get the iPhone? Do you think Apple will stay ahead? Leave a comment below.

Why? Because the iPhone sucks up network bandwidth on a rather massive scale. The article, available online, tells a story most iPhone users already know.

AT&T was unprepared for the massive assault on the 3G network from phones that stream audio and video, and surf the web at a rate far higher than other smartphones.

The piece quotes AT&T Wireless exec John Donovan saying "It's been a challenging year for us. Overnight we're seeing a radical shift in how people are using their phones... There's just no parallel for the demand."

That won't make AT&T customers any happier. A recent survey by Pricegrabber found that 34% of those that responded say they aren't buying an iPhone because it is on AT&T. Many current customers say they'd like to be anywhere but AT&T with their iPhone, but it's likely that a mass migration to Verizon or some other carrier might cause the same problems there.

One issue is that AT&T just isn't communicating very well with customers who are paying a boatload of money for data and text messaging. AT&T could easily (but not happily) drop rates a bit, or eliminate or reduce the high charges for texting. They could apologize to customers for the flood of dropped calls and lack of 3G service in big cities like New York or San Francisco.

Instead, there is stoic silence. No guidance on tethering or MMS release dates, nor communication of any kind really. AT&T already has a pretty big PR problem, and they seem determined to make it worse.

I contacted AT&T today about tethering and MMS, especially since the New York Times article says AT&T is 'postponing tethering.'

The response, from Michael Coe at AT&T, says they have never specified a date for tethering, and when I asked again about MMS there was simply no reply. Update: AT&T has just responded with an MMS date. Quoting Brad Mays of AT&T Wireless:

The date is September 25th, which does indeed fall a few days past the official end of summer. It was important to give our customers a positive experience from day one. We support more iPhone customers than any other carrier in the world so we took the time necessary to make sure our network is ready to handle what we expect will be a record volume of MMS traffic. We truly appreciate our customers' patience and hope they'll understand our desire to get it right from the start.

The service will be enabled with a software update on the launch date. Customers can obtain the update from iTunes, just like all other iPhone updates.

As for tethering, by its nature, this function could exponentially increase traffic on the network, and we need to ensure that some of our current upgrades are in place before we can deliver the expanded functionality with the excellent performance that customers expect. We expect to offer tethering in the future.

Given all the other good publicity the iPhone has been getting, it won't come as any great surprise that the J.D. Power survey released today says:

Apple ranks highest among smartphone manufacturers with a score of 791, performing particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design. LG (772) and Samsung (759) follow Apple in the rankings.

Other interesting findings are that smartphone users send an average of 17 emails a day, and 82 percent report that they use things like address books and to-do lists to stay better organized.

The survey included 2,648 smartphone users who owned their phone for less than 2 years. In general, smartphone users are increasingly satisfied with their purchase, compared to prior surveys. Users queried listed these attributes they wanted in a smartphone, in order of desirability: ease of operation, operating system, features, physical design and battery function.

A holiday survey of shopper satisfaction with e-retailers ranked Apple as number 4, with 78% of customers pleased with purchases made on the Apple website. The survey was conducted by ForeSee Results and FGI Research.

Only two online retailers scored above 80 percent, with Amazon and Netflix tied at 84%. QVC.com ranked third. The survey is intended to be predictive for how companies will do in 2009. Retailers losing some customer confidence included Circuit City, Gap, Home Depot, HSN, Neiman Marcus, and Overstock.com.

Larry Freed, President and CEO of ForeSee Results, said that too many e-retailers aren't paying attention to metrics like customer satisfaction and he said "that's just not playing to win in this economy."

Apple is down 1% from last year's rankings. In general, Apple does very well in surveys that measure customer loyalty, product reliability, and service and support.

2009 could be a tough year for brick and mortar and online retailers, so every little bit of customer pleasure really helps translate into sales.

Ok, Generation Y, which brands do you trust the most (for the record, "Generation Y" is comprised of people between the ages of 21-27)? Outlaw Consulting asked that question to a group they referred to as their "...most forward trendsetter* panelists" across several US cities, and Apple topped the list.

According to Outlaw, brands that the subjects viewed as "straightforward" were viewed favorably. Also, plain packaging that seemed to "...avoid excess" scored well. That seems to be consistent with Apple's famed "out-of-box experience," wouldn't you say? Other brands in the top 15 include:

• Trader Joe's
• Jet Blue
• Ben & Jerry's
• Whole Foods
• Vitamin Water

As a representative of Generation X myself, let me say, "Vitamin Water?!? It's just water. I'll never understand kids these days."

*Read: The crazy ones.

[Via Macsimum News]