So Many Windows Phone Rumors, So Little Truth
There have been so many Windows Phone rumors over the past week and on this site we’ve been mostly silent about them, and that’s intentional. Some of them are just silly, most of them have no facts to back them up and most are a waste of time.
For example, the Sony Windows Phone stood no chance at bearing fruit. The version of OS it was running was nearly a year old and since then Sony had inked a deal with Android. It would also require Microsoft and their Xbox to play nicely with Sony and its PlayStation and it’s not happening while Microsoft is trying to build an ecosystem. Of course, PlayStation doesn’t use XNA either. Well none of this matters as this one has already been debunked.
Then we get the rumor that Mango isn’t going to be released until 2012. “Mango will be finalized by the end of 2011, and while Microsoft recently promised to ship this release to customers by the end of the year as well, my sources tell me that schedule is a near impossibility.” Well it’s not impossible to believe that rumor to be true, it just doesn’t line up with other rumors and beyond that, Microsoft has been showing off Mango for some time. They had the thing on stage a month ago running IE9 and multitasking already. Say what you want about the speed they move at, but it cannot take a year to move from its current state to the actual devices. I’m dismissing this one using simple logic.
How about the $1b spent on Nokia? Well we know in the past that Elop said “In fact the value transferred to Nokia is measured in B’s not M’s”.” He’s noted that it’s not just cash but it’s intellectual property and shared ecosystems. But $1b? Crazy, right? Well what is Nokia paying for the deal? Well they need to kill their entire stream of revenue from Symbian, sell off Qt and essentially wind down their business. At the same time they need to share their navigational data, ad revenue and marketplaces with Microsoft. So maybe they’re paying Microsoft by providing so much IP. It’s likely that for the property that Nokia is giving to Microsoft, Microsoft is giving them a lot of free WP7 licenses, but I wouldn’t get overly worked up over a fixed number from either side. Both companies are taking a big risk and spending a lot of money on this deal – some in cash and some in other forms. In the end, maybe a big number that sounds lie a big deal but it’s unlucky to be a single number that puts the entire (un-inked) deal into perspective.
OK and what about the rumor that tomorrow the Focus gets the preNoDo and the NoDo update? It could happen, right? No US carrier even has the pre-NoDo update and considering that Samsung has the worst track record of getting updates internationally it’s hard to imagine that it’s the first device/carrier to get NoDo. So fingers crossed but really, I’m seriously doubting this one.
Rumors make great bait for clicks and I know you can get away with blog posts without fancy things like facts, but let’s try to stay closer to being journalists and further away from rumor mills…
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Actually the pre-update update had been partially rolled out in the US though the Samsung devices seem to have the most failures, possibly the only ones. Even today tweets were going out on the current Samsung update errors. 🙁
While I tend to agree that getting the long-awaited update tomorrow is on the “less likely” side it is still possible. Right now I just wish I knew where my device stands as far as ever getting an update. For all of the promise it has definitely not materialized the way we had hoped as early adopters.
I never said it would not come out, I just don’t believe that it will come out this year. MS has never to my knowledge hit a projected date when it comes to mobility.
I think the whole “not this year” rumor was from Paul Thurott, not you, Doug. I read his opinion earlier today that he didn’t think Mango would get to the users this year. Another rumor contradicted that so who knows… I just hope that MS will finally start shipping regular updates – maybe monthly or so. This one is way overdue and apparently was ready last year but blocked by the OEMs, not the carriers, for more testing time.
Of course, we can still say that June 30 is “early 2011” and not technically be lying. I don’t think it will be quite that bad but the update experience has been non-existent for me so far.
Have to ask, what are YOUR sources for saying no US carrier has the pre-Nodo update? Seems like as everyone else is, none of what you say can be backup up with any hard facts so how is this post any different from all the others?
@efjay: I hadn’t heard any reprots of anyone getting them but I’ll do something the other guysa ren’t doing. I changed my post (while keeping the original text) to correct it.
As to generally debuniing rumors with rumors, if there’s a specific point you want me to source that I noted just ask. otherwise, it’s fighting speculation with logic…there’s no more proof for one version of rumor over another at this point though and that’s the point. There’s too many rumors out there and it’s just getting silly. For every rumor there’s an anti-rumor at this point…not fact, just another rumor.
The whole mango update is silly. DavidK is right to point out that Microsoft has already shown off multitasking and ie9 a few weeks ago. I thoroughly respect Paul Thurrott but he will tell you he gets things wrong sometimes.
How is it simple logic that Mango must come out this year? A simple copy paste update that was supposedly ready in January has still to be released. And in Feb 2010, MSFT showed off their new os, but it wasn’t formally launched until late October. It is entirely possible that we get Mango this year, and I am rooting for that, but that we could end up being one carrier test hold from 2012 is completely plausible.
@efjay:
So wait a minute, what US carrier did allow the Pre-NoDo update? I havent heard anything about the Focus receiving a Pre No-Do update. Just the Omnia 7. So where’s your sources? I don’t say that to point fingers, I just say that because I haven’t seen it.
@The Fight:
AT&T allowed it. That’s one of the reasons we know that the Focus has issues w/ updating on some firmware revisions. Check out Twitter to see what’s going on and do some searches on the Focus updates. It’s out there. Of course, it’s not out there for everyone. I haven’t seen any sign of the update. Paul Thurrott, a big WP7 advocate, hasn’t seen it either, but it was attempted to go out. The first round was ~ 90% successful for Samsung users. The second round was more successful, but there’s some odd error coming up that doesn’t result in a “bricked” phone, but does mean that the upgrade fails.
I think there are even some articles on this site discussing the Focus failures and what to do about it. I know those were on some of the big gadget sites.
So join the crowd of Samsung users waiting on an update. I get the feeling that MS is trying to fix all of the upgrade issues before releasing the update to everyone (no sources on that, just my opinion). We’ll never know, though, as MS is being completely silent on this.