Five Reasons Why Windows Phone Is Not Dying?
- HTC Titan – You can say what you want about OEM shortchanging Microsoft & Windows Phone but HTC released a hellacious 4.7in monster of a phone. It can even be argued that it is the platform’s first legitimate flagship phone. The sheer size of the screen and slimness of the phone will draw consumers in. Not to mention it comes preloaded with a cross platform video chat app (Tango), includes a Front Facing Camera and DLNA equipped there is a lot to like about the latest HTC offering. Did I mention that its slimmer than the iPhone 4? That’s pocket gold right there. Then consider that HTC held a consumer event to introduce the phones and they have achieved instant word of mouth advertising no company this side of Apple could achieve. HTC has the 2nd best marketing team in the business behind Apple. They have said recently how impressed they are with Mango and I think that has played a role in them really seeing Windows Phone as a major player in the smartphone game moving forward.
- Size Matters – Who’s has the single largest software and service ecosystem in the world? It darn well isn’t Google or Apple. Microsoft FTW! What’s even better than a huge ecosystem? Devoting the resources of the largest tech company in the world to a few focused products and services. Ballmer has gone on record as saying they are trimming the fat and putting their resources to the things that matter. You can clearly see the impact Apple’s success has had on Microsoft. They are under pressure, they have been swallowing their pride and they are learning from the best. Yes, I a windows phone user and advocate, just referred to Apple as the best. Jobs was the master of making you believe their product was the end all, be all of technology. Did I mention that Microsoft and Nokia software engineers are hard at work folding each other’s services into the mother of all service ecosystems? Do you want an even bigger clue as to Microsoft “getting it”. Microsoft stores coming to a city near you!
- User Satisfaction – Gil’s article What Should Microsoft Do To Save Windows Phone? fail to mention that Microsoft should find a way to capitalize on the extremely high Windows Phone user satisfaction rate. Remember how effective and compelling the Microsoft “I designed Windows 7” ad campaign was? It was an enormous success. They need to find a way to capture and showcase a user’s story while presenting the expanded capabilities the Mango update brings. Microsoft is taking a measured approach and not rushing stuff to the platform. They aren’t blind or deaf they are just taking things in measured, composed steps. This leads me to..
- Mango – This is a sizable update that improves the experience without being jarring to the user. There is no relearning how to do things you were already doing. Users are just presented with expanded options and capabilities. Skype is on its way, I predict Pandora is on its way too. Many other apps that weren’t possible pre-Mango are now possible and we’re going to see a flood of new apps that take advantage of this. A very welcomed and reassuring aspect.
- Developers – Developers are the lifeblood of any sustainable platform. Have too few and your platform shrivels up. Have a lack of communication and responsiveness and they get pissy. Developers are funny that way, they like to have their ego stroked and be told how important they are. Microsoft has this covered. Brandon Watson, Joe Belfiore and the rest of the Windows Phone team are very visible. Watson is a serial entrepreneur that gets what the platform needs on a grassroots level. He is driving discussion in areas nobody else thought to do. Yes there are a lot of crappy and clone apps in the marketplace. Tell me a sizeable platform that isn’t guilty of this. It is inevitable and very necessary. The frustration that comes from experiencing bad apps is what gives rise to the great apps.
I’ve been through enough struggles and came out the other side to know the steps it takes to succeed in a rough environment. The playing field might change but the rules don’t even if they are renamed. Say what you will but I’d be perfectly happy with my Surround for the next year once Mango arrives. I’ve seen enough of the hands on and demos to know Microsoft is on the right path. Alan Kay once said the best way to predict the future is to invent it. Microsoft is carving out the future they see by creating their ecosystem and stabilizing a platform that is serving as not an end all be all but a piece of their much larger and powerful puzzle.
Disagree? No problem just make sure to leave a comment and make your voice be heard. We’re all grown ups here.
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muranilewis
22 Comments
I love my HD7 but the TITAN isn’t enough of a leap forward for me to consider paying out for the phone until I actually see it in person.
I bought the HD7 when I had the HD2 and it only took me 2 mins of using WP7 to decide to buy.
This time I am waiting to see if Samsung or Nokia knock HTC out of the park with their own WindowsPhone7 offerings. – and these new devices all have to compete with whatever apple are going to launch as their iPhone 5 – there was no innovation on the os so it’s down to the hardware.
No way will I ever go back to Androd or iOS. – used all (iOS on iPad and Android on HD2) and it’s WindowsPhone7 all the way – just wish it got some more momentum behind it with top of the range hardware and innovation from manufacturers and not just sticking as close to the minimum chassis requirements laid out by Microsoft when they were old specs to start with.
Source on Skype being “on its way” please?
Tango’s lovely, if you don’t mind yourself or care about whether your friends would mind handing over all your contacts to a third party company whose name we confuse with an operating system update.
@Doug Simmons: Just for you Simmons. Skype coming this fall: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/13/microsofts-joe-belfiore-confirms-skype-coming-to-windows-phone/
Well the inclusion of Tango means the front facing camera can be put to use immediately. Is that not important?
Who’s to say Facebook won’t update their app for Mango to includ the skype integration? One can only wonder.
GREAT article.
I LOVE my WP7, and would never even think about trading it for an iPhone or an Android phone.
None of these reasons can be taken as proof that Windows Phone is not dying. They provide strong indication that Microsoft doesn’t want it to die, but speak nothing of the health of the platform. I’d have to say that the platform is in trouble at the moment. Sure, there is good hardware available. Yes, they have deployment, support and development tools and services down to a science. The OS itself may be everything people here say that it is (don’t know – haven’t tried it – I’m an Android user). The truth of the matter is that it takes (will take) more than great product to break into this market. It’s going to take some clever salesmanship and top notch marketing to get the product out into the open, to raise awareness and build public interest in the product. Microsoft has failed to execute on these points. Abysmally. Since it launched I have yet to see a single Windows Phone product in the hands of a consumer. I’ve seen thousands of phones, and none sport the Metro UI.
So basically, you hit the nail on the head with your point about the Windows 7 campaign. They need to pull one of these out of their hat for Mango, because Mango in and of itself won’t make the platform take off. I may be looking for a phone some time in the fourth quarter, and I’ll probably go Nexus Prime. It does what I want. I hear WP and Mango is supposed to be a great alternative, but I’m not interested at the moment. And that’s Microsoft’s fault.
fuck apple and google
I absolutely love how peoples argument always ends at “I’ve never seen anyone using it” as if that is the end all, be all to show the device is dead.
Gimme a fuggin’ break… you like what you like, get over it, and yourself. Letting a mobile device reveal your insecurities is not a good look.
Wp7 has not offered me the device I want yet. Minimum 5″ screen.Samsung Note type. Or I am thinking about the ugly dual screen Sony Tablet P. Just want to see what the early users have to say about it first, since I won’t be buying till 2nd Q 2012.
So lets get some cool stuff for me. How many times do I have to say “it is all about the device” well that and, not I OS, I liked the look of the iPhone 4, but wouldn’t pay for it. Growing tired of android too (just a lttle though) Mostly the browser. And typing.
Peace.
@Doug Simmons: yea…i tried to be the adult here and respond to this using my android atrix 4g shite…you know what happened? the browser FC. FC is android lingo for force quit or fucking sucks! either way…fuck google.
mr.lewis… #1 is not a reason for anything to go any where. the titan is lackluster at best.recycled design, spare parts and f/2.2 does not save a platform. i am sick and tired of htc.
@Sean D – Relax a little. In part, you’re preaching to the choir. You like what you like. Your phone is best for you if it does what you want it to do. I prefer Android, but that doesn’t mean I think iPhone, WP or anything else are no good. Android is good for me. iPhone is good for my family. WP is good for you. I don’t know what you read into my post, but honestly,… no insecurities here.
However, my comment of the observed lack of WP devices in the field still stands. Sorry if you don’t like it, and it’s not a rub on the quality of the platform. It’s just numbers – just business. My little world is certainly not the final word on the industry as a whole, but I work in a high tech industry, and associate with quite a few people, and within that sphere, WP has a 0.0% market share. And if a lot of other people are saying the same, would this not be indicative of a serious problem?
@Nexus Koolaid: who owns the market share in your sphere?
Good points.
Still, the only parameter that really counts is sales. Sorry. That’s the way life is.
BTW, I’m the first one who will be happy if WP7 will succeed. I love it!
Still, iPhone is the most popular smartphone out there. I found it today using a simple test that simply cannot fail:
http://www.mobilespoon.net/2011/09/what-is-most-popular-smartphone-in.html
Murani: I was hoping for a source, you know, from Tango or one of Microsoft’s websites, not a link to Engadget. But you don’t have one so nevermind. And no it’s not really important, Tango making a WP port. It’s not well-known enough to matter. And, because it’s not Skype, don’t expect Microsoft to drum up enough noise over its existence to save the platform. There will be no TV commercials with WPs featuring Tango the way Apple used Facetime, unless they’re vaguely hinting that it’s Skype maybe.
That said, putting the Skype logo on the sales slip in the stores, that’s important. Putting a paragraph on the sales slip that Microsoft bought Skype so the natural progression of things suggests that eventually Skype will be integrated with WP at least as good as it is with the iPhone — and hey, how about that, I’ve got it on the Android market — that won’t help the situation significantly. But maybe if you include the Engadget URL….
And because making Skype work in WinPho requires resources, it requres time and money that they’d otherwise be able to spend elsewhere, given how low Microsoft seems to prioritize Windows Phone, I think it is not unlikely you will continue not to see Skype on your phone quite indefinitely. I hope I’m wrong, because that would help a little.
Your article and Gil’s got people like Ramon focused on that the platform ought not to be failing which is why it won’t fail, rather than conceding that receding market share into the margin of error territory even after a year, as short as a year sounds like, it’s long enough to get the idea of its viability as a third contender. Neither I nor Nexus Koolaid will have better lives, from a mobility standpoint, if your platform fails. I can’t speak for him but I know I want you guys to hit double digits but the way things are going that just doesn’t appear to be in the cards. Need some BIG changes. Nexus Koolaid and I share the position that you didn’t come up with enough changes, but let me run through your list again:
1) You got a decent phone coming up.
Big deal, so does everyone else, and how is having a decent phone on the horizon make a difference of not only having had decent phones hit before, but taking a year and counting to get another good crop of phones? So your Titan not only has to be a good phone, it has to make up for the general impression people may have that if you go Windows Phone, be prepared to have to wait a long time for another decent phone to hit, if being able to upgrade your phone more than every couple of years is a concern of yours.
2) Microsoft makes other stuff, integration and whatever.
Big deal, how is this a new thing and why is it suddenly going to change your receding market share?
Murani, are you with us on the stats? Do you not accept the situation as somewhere between obviously failed, arguably failed, heading in the direction of failure, anything like that? It’s not just building up steam that we need to let the thing do, something big needs to change.
Like what, Simmons? Like giving out a ton of these things for free, like changing the name, like using your patents and your size not to bully other OEMs into paying you to use Android (which they happily will because it’s so profitable that ten bucks a phone is worth it just to get your dogs off their backs) but to STOP them from using Android.
Guess what Susan, that ain’t happening, it’s just too lucrative a business for your boys whereas WinPho is money down the drain.
What else… Fully divesting from the platform and making it Nokia’s problem rather than sort of in between (or leveraging them somehow to make it an actual priority, not just an experiment in the one market in which they have no presence), or just giving up, or just let the thing ride on the periphery of relevance but sending you guys an email that that’s their plan so you don’t continue riding with this false hope.
3) User satisfaction.
Again, we need change. Your users, clearly, have always been quite satisfied (except with how Microsoft appears not to care about the platform).
And no, I do not remember any marketing efforts being “effective.”
4) Mango
Really? A Windows Update is all you’ve got? Five hundred features that do not include something like Facetime (Skype)? No solid instant messaging client other than IM+? Turn by turn? Email/mms videos? C’mon buddy. Oh wait, nevermind, you’ve got Pandora coming! Well shit why didn’t you say so!
That said, again, I don’t think its limitations like this that’s holding the platform down. Windows Phone is damn good, trying to make it better is becoming less helpful to this end. Need some out of the box thinking.
5) Brandon Watson
Well I’ll give you that, Brandon Watson’s a good guy, judging from his Tweets he’s helpful, did the webOS thing which in addition to a couple developers joining up rather than going to Android and iOS like the rest it generated some press, he got the CNET gal to do something and maybe played a roll in the Katy Perry concert. But if you were on a camping trip with him, Murani and Brandon and maybe Eric, having some beers and fishing, shooting the shit with each other, I bet you he’d reveal his frustrations with how not too many people other than himself and Eric at Microsoft are working too hard to make things happen for the platform that their developers earned in terms of producing a quality product. I feel for them.
Developers? Everybody’s got developers now, who cares, what’s new.
I cannot find anything in the list you produced that feels like a convincing indicator that things are going to change and I still believe that not changing things, but just continuing to go sideways, will result in anything other than continuing to go sideways.
Enjoy the Titan, looks pretty sharp. Seriously, WP is a great platform, I honestly believe that and I swear to you that it would please me to see it succeed and it dismays me how hard a bunch of guys worked on it only to end up where they are. I like the thought of may the best product win even if you’re late to parties or have a dull brand too. I’d also like you in the club rather than it being just Apple and Google.
You’re a leader, you’ve got that in you. Maybe one thing you could do to help Windows Phone is to ask people like Ramon to cool it and talk about something else because he’s not being helpful.
You’re aware of that, right Ramon? That you’re just trying to fire shit up with me and some other guy and other haters, rather than even attempting to come up with something that will lead Windows Phone out of apparent failure? No, you’re not aware of that?
Come on Murani your list-making on this topic isn’t complete, let’s come up with a few more items before we call it a day. I love WP and I love you (though I fucking hate Microsoft — especially that Horatio guy, what a dick).
If I had a $ for every blog article that proclaims WP7 is dead and the resulting response article….. Just enjoying my WP7, watching people have heart attacks hoping WP7 will fail, fun.
Exactly efjay, though also watching people have heart attacks insisting it will succeed is another thing you’d find profitable. Just enjoy your WP!
MS has always had the potential and infrastructure to succeed in the mobile world but as you can see, THEY HAVEN’T!!!! One reason this crap may fail is because kids hate MS phones. Their biggest complaint is that you need money to buy any app. If you don’t think teenagers are important to mobile phones, ask RIM. If you grow up with a product, the chances of staying with it through life are greater than changing to something else that is more expense to own.
MS is not inventing anything for their mobile platform future. They are piggy backing on the consumer desire for mobile devises and hope they buy their product. MS had their chance to do something big in the mobile world and they blew it. As they can see, it’s harder to play catch up.
One way you know when MS phones are being accepted by the masses (and not just the MS nut lickers that read/post to this site) you will see more mainstream apps and commercials for those apps. Apps like for proboard forums, UPS, PayPAL, TV quide, NBA, NFL, MLB, Craigslist, etc. If they have any of the previous app, my apologies, but anyone can admit, MS phones do not have common simple apps that are available on other platforms. Games and music is fun, but when I want to transfer money via Paypal (not Dwolla), going to a PC is not the best option for the average busy person.
MS can throw money at any project they want but they can not make a consumer buy their mobile merchandise.
The question “will they fail in the future” is still out for debate. Until they do succeed, I wouldn’t buy their crap unless you want a draw full of old MS mobile stuff lying around. If you are long time reader of this site, I’m sure you have a space somewhere for your old MS phones and maybe a empty space in your wallet for buying software they no longer support. I’m glad I got most of the paying software free/illegal. Good luck with all of that.
@RowdyC:
“I’m glad I got most of the paying software free/illegal.”
*sigh*
As for WP7, I certainly don’t think that they’re going to magically turn around a negatively charged market share into the number one or two spot anytime soon, but maybe it’s possible?
What WP7 needs is a ‘perfect’ device. It needs one that is completely optimized for the software. The only reason that iPhone has the #2 spot vs #1 like Android is because there’s a new Android phone launched every other day. WP7 devices aren’t as numerous, and certainly not as popular. Apple sells one phone (well fine, one new phone, and sells the older model at a much lower price) that is completely optimized for their OS. It’s their ‘perfect phone’. Android’s ‘perfect phone’ is the nexus lineup. What’s WP7s? And does ANYONE other than people who read WP7 blogs know which one it is?
@Chris L: android is the only smartphone os out of Android , iPhone and windows phone on networks like metro pcs. So basically people aren’t choosing Android over the others they are simply buying what’s available to them. Speaking of situations like no contract networks specifically.
I think it isn’t going to die – it’s just not going to take the place of Windows Mobile 6. Most power users of Windows Mobile 6 will move on to Android.
::AB
@Albert Bunn: That was a huge issue when Microsoft showed off Windows Phone 7. The power users/flashers were pissed that their favorite power use feature wasn’t there and that it was going to be ridiculously hard to flash ROMs and customize the WP7 the way they were accustomed to doing. Tons of them swore that they would sooner go to Android than stick with a platform that they felt abandoned them.
To be fair I still say you make your decision based on the masses and not the techies. Microsoft has long game type of money, windows phone isn’t going anywhere. Heck, all they have to do is wait out RIM for third place.