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A Windows Phone 7 For Every Microsoftie
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."
It's absolutely mind-boggling that Windows Phone 7 is missing some very fundamental features, like copy/paste, third-party multitasking, and universal search.
Absolutely mind-boggling you say? How about absolutely doomed?
In the past, competitors like Apple were lambasted by the public for not having such features, so you'd think Microsoft would take precautions not to repeat such mistakes.
You don't understand, Microsoft is adept at watching Apple do something right or make progress and then totally just think that they're different and special and therefore won't suffer from those problems.
What's worse, the rest of the smartphone world isn't slowing down, and with Windows Phone 7 not scheduled to launch till the holidays, the divide could get deeper.
It's called releasing a phone that's already behind the curve. So, unless you have a product name that causes people to hemorrhage cash regardless of the features, you're doomed. Like the release of the Zune. Except it appears Windows Phone 7 doesn't even have an exclusive 'squirt' functionality.
Criticisms aside, there's a lot we like about Windows Phone 7. The Zune integration is killer, and the core apps are much improved.
Zune integration is 'killer' you say? That's going to do it, huh? Well, everybody who owns a Zune now has the option to integrate it. All five of them. And the core apps are much improved? After suffering from the ailments of IE6 you think I want any version of Internet Exploder on my goddamn mobile device? You're insane. I don't care how refined it is.
We also commend Microsoft for being able to acknowledge that its old OS wasn't working and taking a chance on rebuilding something from the ground up.
Really? You're telling me that Microsoft owned up to and acknowledge its old OS wasn't working? I've never known Microsoft to tell their customers that something is wrong.
Long story short this product is doomed with a 97% confidence of certain doomage.
My work here is dung.
but, I think the interface is very sleek and my company develops business applications to Mobile devices and I am in the group to develop applications for Windows Phone 7. The application interface is pretty good and we recently got couple of those Samsung devices to test our applications and it does do a good job. No doubt this current version of OS do not provide support for SQL-CE DB or multi-tasking or even copy & paste. But .net provides pretty good infrastructure to concoct a rudimentary in-memory db for our case. Other things would have been really useful for what we do. Despite these deficiencies I think, this is a pretty good OS and good UI from MS.
One of the perks of working for an auto company is the ability to lease a car at a drastically reduced rate. And once you reach a certain salary level, the auto company "pays" the lease so the car is effectively free.
There are controls - Chrysler, for example, wouldn't give employees Vipers or Prowlers - but there was a pretty broad selection of cars to choose from.
Except for a period in the late 90s/early oughts where the only GM company car was the Pontiac Aztek.
I'd drive past their plants/offices in Detroit and the employee parking lot was solid Azteks.
<NELSON>Ha-ha!</NELSON>
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Actually, true employees get a WP7 phone.
Temps and interns get 2 WP7 phones, and a dozen KINs
I'm sorry but this is a stupid statement and a stupid article. Apple gives a large number of it's employees an iPhone and Google gives a large number of its an Android phone. It's call "eating your own dog food".
In addition they get a friendly pool of testers who can give them instant feedback (and probably quite detailed given that they'll naturally try to use it with the products they are managing) on the devices in real world situations (such as bugs, issues, integration with web services, exchange support) and can also simulate some scenarios (such large scale remote activation, wipe and locate) far better than a couple of devices in a lab can.
Finally, if you're a manufacturer of a product, it doesn't look very good if your employees all use your competitors does it? Whenever I've dealt with a Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Apple, HTC or LG rep I've never seen them use anything but their own phones and I'd be concerned about the statement they are making if they did.
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