The month ahead: Will Droid do damage to the iPhone's mojo?

>> Sumi: Hello, I'm Sumi Das for ZDNet. Smartphones, more conferences and the fast-approaching holiday season, it's all coming up in November. Joining me now to talk about the month ahead is our Senior Editor Sam Diaz, Sam thank you for being with us.

>> Sam: Sure, thank you for having me.

>> Sumi: You and I spend a lot of time talking about the iPhone here.

>> Sam: Just a little, huh?

>> Sumi: Yeah, but we're not gonna do that today we're gonna talk about a different Smartphone, the Droid. I've seen the commercials.

>> Sam: You like it?

>> Sumi: I do like the commercials --

>> Sam: I do.

>> Sumi: the idon't commercials caught my attention, idon't do Widgets, idon't take pictures in the dark. What are they trying to achieve?

>> Sam: Well, clearly that's a lower-case I --

>> Sumi: Right

>> Sam: that you're seeing there.

>> Sumi: They're thumbing their nose at Apple.

>> Sam: Absolutely --

>> Sumi: Just a little bit.

>> Sam: so the idea that the iPhone doesn't do everything. Now, here you've got Motorola and Verizon coming together with Google's Android version 2.0, it's an upgrade version of the operating system. There's a lot of excitement around it. You know, Android is expected to be the mobile phone and operating system in 2010, multiple carriers, multiple manufacturers, really gonna make a big splash. You know, this starts here with the holiday season with Droid and there's a lot of excitement. I'm excited about it. I'm very anxious to see it myself.

>> Sumi: You ready to switch from your BlackBerry?

>> Sam: I think I am ready to switch from my BlackBerry.

>> Sumi: Really

>> Sam: I do have iPhone envy that's not been a big secret but shy of switching to AT&T I'm gonna stick with Verizon and check out Droid.

>> Sumi: Okay, the conference season will continue this month with the Sales Force Conference otherwise known as Dream Force. Can we expect anything new? Hasn't it sort of all been done with the Cloud computing at this point?

>> Sam: No, Cloud computing like other computing it is evolving, you know, and we're actually seeing some announcements ahead of the game here. So, for example, some news the other day from Sales Force and Adobe they are launching the Adobe Flash platform inside of the App Exchange. So, basically, what you've got is developers who are able to use Adobe Flash to enhance those apps for businesses. Still plenty of excitement. I think there's still gonna be a lot of stuff to see at Dream Force this year.

>> Sumi: Okay, and then Windows 7 has been out for a few weeks now. Can it have an impact on the holidays? Is it that good?

>> Sam: Well, you know, I think it could have a little bit of a blip on the holiday season. I mean what we're really hearing about Windows 7 is that the big push and the big growth is gonna come from the corporate spending. You know, businesses are very -- there's a lot of pent up demand for businesses and so Windows 7 is, you know, very much welcomed but we're not gonna see that sort of spending until 2010.

>> Sumi: Right, corporations don't necessarily get their employees Windows 7 for Christmas.

>> Sam: And not out of the first week that it's out or anything like that. But I think, you know, consumers -- there's definitely some interest out there so we'll see some of that. A lot of competition for the holidays. I mean mobile phones we just talked about Droid, you know, obviously the iPod's still a big seller out there. So, I mean it'll be interesting to see what Windows 7 does for the holidays but I wouldn't be, you know, placing any bets on, you know, some great big growth.

>> Sumi: Yeah, I curious to see how this holiday season shapes up for the tech companies.

>> Sam: Yeah, it could be a pretty interesting season.

>> Sumi: Keep us posted okay?

>> Sam: I will.

>> Sumi: Thanks Sam. For more you can go to Blogs.ZDNET.com.

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