MS On The Record: Carriers CAN Block WP7 Updates – Update Coming Soon
Paul Thurrott has MS on the record regarding Windows Phone updates. The end result: MS pushes the updates but the carrier can block it for up to one cycle for testing purposes. They also state that they are working with carriers to prevent delays and presume that if there are delays then the consumers will go ape sh!t and get the carriers to let it go through. By the way, it’s clear that this is regardless of if it’s a small update or a large one (through Zune). AT&T chimed in and said
AT&T has changed its testing processes to match the needs of the market, and the needs of Windows Phone. We plan on continuing to follow the new model going forward with regards to software update. [i.e. will not turn off software updates to force device upgrades.] We will churn things around more quickly than we did in the past. Updates extend user value, and make for happy subscribers. We are jointly incented.
The last bit of info is when the first update is coming and Microsoft corporate vice president Joe Belfiore said "We are shipping a compelling update very, very soon".
Good stuff
Related Posts
About The Author
So hopefully MS can release a large update and if the carriers don’t respond within a reasonable time can ship a very small maintenance release (maybe just to add or remove a sentence somewhere) and force the carriers to release the desired update. I think this is a poor move on MS’ part to give _any_ control over the updates to the carriers. They don’t do it for any other OS’, they shouldn’t do it for WP7.
Time will tell, but as Paul mentioned, he’s skeptical.
I agree. Aside from Microsoft adding something that would undermine a carrier or bring a carrier’s data channels to it’s knees, I don’t think an update is any of their business. Sure the carriers can have input, but veto power – no way.
I wonder if AT&T actually “tells” Apple what they can and can’t do. Sort of like trying to tell Walmart how to run their business. Good luck with that one.
Hopefully support for the Greek language is included
i don’t think we should say MS is doing it wrong here… there are a lot of carrier based software put into the phone which you can’t currently get on the market place at present. things like at&t uverse, and navigator. i am in australia and the telcos here don’t do much except for telstra, so i don’t care, and i know that vodafone don’t give two hoots about windows phone yet because they’re all android… just wait till they have to deal with 5 different versions (it’s at 3 or 4 now isn’t it? 1.6, 2.1, 2.2 [and soon to be 2.3]) so that will be a lot of fun for them.