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A Windows Phone 7 For Every Microsoftie

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the learning-from-the-zune dept.

theodp writes "So, how can Microsoft guarantee its Windows Phone 7 devices will enjoy broader adoption than the ill-fated Kin? By giving every Microsoft employee a free one, that's how. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed the move, explaining that the idea is to thank employees for all their work, and make sure that they have experience with Windows Phone 7 devices. Microsoft has nearly 90,000 employees worldwide."

3 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Gir's Analysis: Doom, Doom, Doom by Eponymous+Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a hard time understanding why they are using the Windows brand for their phone OS. Does it share anything with their desktop OS? At this point (especially on a phone), the Windows brand has negative value. At least they didn't tack on a .net or live.

  2. Re:Gir's Analysis: Doom, Doom, Doom by stewbacca · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You keep going on about Apple and features. I was involved with developing user training for the first gen iPhone and I can tell you, what features YOU want didn't make version one based on very careful market research and engineering tradeoffs.

    It's not like Apple said, "nobody wants remote wipe so we aren't going to do it". Instead, they said, "we have X amount of schedule and Y amount of budget, so we have to decide what is more important to our target audience: a great iPod interface, or some dorky enterprise tools." And it's not like they just accidentally forgot to include copy/paste in the OS either--they practically invented copy/paste (they were the first to map them to their current keyboard shortcuts of command C and V, respectively).

    In short, if you needed a business phone with enterprise features, you most likely already had a blackberry. If you wanted a consumer device that would suffice as a business phone (with limitations), then you might have bought an iPhone.

  3. Re:Gir's Analysis: Doom, Doom, Doom by flyboy974 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This is absolutely the correct answer. I run a large development organization and we constantly have to go back and forth with our business team to talk about the cost of a feature.

    Features, although great, cost you time and money (It's time and labor or T&L in my world). T&L represents development, QA, documentation, training, support, and long term maintenance from those teams as well.

    Once you have a feature, you expect to have it forever. From Waynes World, Garth said it right. "We fear change. Change is Evil!". We can give you a different way to do it, or take away a feature. But who wants that?

    BTW, the original comments ability to get some Invader Zim into a topic. Classic. Love JTHM.