Microsoft Releases Final Windows Phone 7 Dev Tools

cgriffin21 writes "Microsoft on Thursday released the final Windows Phone 7 developer tools to manufacturing, giving coders a couple of weeks' lead time to get their apps ready for the launch of the Windows Phone Marketplace in early October. Microsoft released the Windows Phone 7 OS to manufacturing on Sept. 1, and its OEM partners are in the process of testing it on handsets. The Windows Phone 7 developer tools are the final piece of the puzzle for Microsoft, which is now ready to march back into a mobile market where it has fallen alarmingly behind the leaders." In related news, CNET reports that Windows Phone 7 will only be available for GSM networks at launch, with a CDMA version planned for the first half of next year. This rules out Sprint and Verizon for launch.

Comments

Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[iONiUM]

WHO WILL WIN?! Actually it's kind of too late for Microsoft already. They're entering the market so late, what can they possibly offer consumers (I'm ignoring business use cases here, since it isn't for business anyways, or so they stated) that they can't already get from current offerings, and better?

Furthermore, and this really pisses me off, the phone can't even run Silverlight in the browser. I have made a large Silverlight app and to make it work on the phone I have to re-target it, then tweak it to work with the "non-mobile but also not normal Silverlight version on windows phone 7" which is stupid. And I can't even tell people to just browse to the "regular" Silverlight page because of course, that won't work either. What exactly are they doing here?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Actually it's kind of too late for Microsoft already. They're entering the market so late, what can they possibly offer consumers (I'm ignoring business use cases here, since it isn't for business anyways, or so they stated) that they can't already get from current offerings, and better?

I had come to this conclusion as well.

The only solution I can see if MS means to seriously compete in this market is to make the hard decision to run at a loss to try to get some momentum going -- to lose money on each Windows phone in much the same way that video game console makers usually sell the first consoles at a loss.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[happy_place]

this is a pretty standard Microsoft tactic. they add a billion features based upon a dozen standards and only implement about 30% of the standard. they claim they have the features, but they're implemented crappily--at least until people start screaming about it, and then they'll maybe implement 50% of it. this can be as simple as importing HTML into a Word document, and having it just decide not to support CSS in certain formats. Their browser supports it, but word only partly does. I think this happens because they have a lot of money, so they throw a lot of money at the initial implementation, but then leave the rest of it up to the thousands of code-monkeys to fix/polish and improve their standards, and they don't have a clue. Further why fully implement a standard that only a small fraction of users will use to a level of expertise that requires detailed support? So we're stuck with "good enough".

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

It worked for the original xbox

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Rogerborg]

WHO WILL WIN?!

BREW, the most successful platform you've never heard of.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[I'm Not There (1956)]

They're entering the market so late, ...

I don't think so, not because MS have been making phone OS for a decade, but because iOS and Android are so young too. After all, Android is just two years old and iPhone has not finished its fourth year yet. Indeed, they've been doing great in these short years, but that doesn't mean they've guaranteed they're eternal success in the mobile industry.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Voyager529]

Just to be fair, that's what many said about Apple; they were going up against incumbents like RIM and Windows Mobile on the smartphone side (recall that at the time, WinMo had more apps available than most other mobile platforms, and while it didn't do much with the polish of the iPhone, it did have a pretty solid feature list at the time), and a bevy of LG and Samsung feature phones that were quite popular. In 2006, many thought Apple would occupy a similar niche in the mobile space as they did on the desktop. I'm not saying that WinMo will have the same results as Apple did, but I am saying that predicting that $VENDOR isn't going to succeed has been said before.

That said, Microsoft seems to be doing something right in that it's actually targeting both business users AND consumer users in the first round. Home users get the much-touted Xbox and Zune integration, while business users get Exchange support, Office Mobile, and Sharepoint integration. Again, I'm not saying that this will necessarily equate to success in the enterprise market, but I am saying that both segments seem to be in Microsoft's sights.

What will really help their enterprise install base would be something similar to Blackberry Enterprise Server Express, where admins can perform fine-grained security and software deployment operations from a tightly integrated AD/Exchange environment.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume that won't be happening anyway. How much do you think they make per device? $5? $10?

How many devices would they have to sell to just break even on what they've built thus far (OS & free tool wise)? ... and that assumes we ignore whatever losses that were incurred as part of Kin & the first attempt a Windows Mobile 7.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Kenshin]

The only solution I can see if MS means to seriously compete in this market is to make the hard decision to run at a loss...

Nice idea, but good luck with that. Unlike Apple and RIM, Microsoft doesn't make, and therefore price, the phones. All they can hope for is that there's a "race to the bottom" on pricing... and like with PCs, they may end up triggering that. (Say hello to cheap phones that break after a few months.)

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only solution I can see if MS means to seriously compete in this market is to make the hard decision to run at a loss to try to get some momentum going -- to lose money on each Windows phone in much the same way that video game console makers usually sell the first consoles at a loss."

But that's crazy talk! What, do you think Microsoft is made of money or something? They'll never go for it.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[mark72005]

This is true, but this is a market where it typically takes around 2 years to even get a shot at a customer.

It will be exceedingly difficult for MSFT to gain a foothold in any market where it's 4th or 5th to the party, let alone this one.

What's their niche? In the desktop world they have business, but Blackberry owns business in the mobile world. Consumers will choose Apple or lower-cost Android devices more than likely.

It's hard to imagine a featureless and slow Windows Phone having anything very attractive to the average mobile customer strolling into an AT&T or T-Mobile store.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[loudmax]

The mobile space is an important strategic market for Microsoft. Open standards that exist on mobile could leak into the corporate space. A competitive free market would erode their primary source of revenue. I really don't see losing money on each phone being sold as much of a problem for Microsoft. Better for them to lose money now, even lots of it, than for a free market (or a competitor) to win.

As long as subscribers can chose from several competing mobile platforms, Microsoft has lost in this space. They need for Silverlight to become a de-facto standard to maintain their long term control. Expect them to keep pushing developer tools and corporate back office integration.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Richard_at_work]

So why is WM7 joining the fray now any different to Android joining the fray two years after the iPhone?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[mark72005]

When Android and Apple were joining, not only were they innovating, but they were establishing a market - smartphones for non-business consumers.

They didn't need to battle each other for market share, both were simply carving up an emerging customer base.

Microsoft enters the market at a time when most people who are interested in smart phones already have one. Their market share will have to be established by taking customers away from other platforms (very expensive), not grabbing people new to the game (cheap).

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[obarthelemy]

I don't see how deciding to lose money is going to change anything. Not even deciding to be cheap. Not even deciding to be free. Hey, i'm giving you fresh turds ! Free ! How comes nobody wants any ?

The solution is not "losing money" per se, but coming up with something compelling for end-users, developers and OEMs.

The solution, on the contrary, is to aim at being very expensive, and making something people are ready to pay big bucks for.

You "solution" is exactly why MS is losing.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[commodore64_love]

>>>Better for them to lose money now, even lots of it, than for a free market (or a competitor) to win.

That strategy isn't working for them in the Xbox market. First they sold the Xbox for about half its actual cost of build. Now they are losing 10-20 dollars per 360 sold, but Microsoft is still being outsold 4-to-1 by the current winner. I know MS has deep pockets but how long can they continue this strategy? 10 years max? 15?

Microsoft is just like any other business and cannot afford to lose money on cellphones or any other product. Eventually their treasury will run dry.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[commodore64_love]

>>>they add a billion features based upon a dozen standards and only implement about 30% of the standard

This is why I vehemently disagree with those who claim 90s-era Internet Exploder 3 or 4 was better than Netscape Navigator 3 or 4. Netscape wasn't perfect but it followed the standards better than IE did, which forced websites to create special IE-specific code to make them work. (And still do even now, ten years later.)

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Korin43]

Say hello to cheap phones that break after a few months.

I can't wait. Right now all I can get are expensive phones that break every couple months.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[tepples]

[Taking a loss to build a brand] isn't working for them in the Xbox market [...] Microsoft is still being outsold 4-to-1 by the current winner.

What winner? VGChartz shows Xbox 360 outselling Wii in both Americas and EMEAA. Or are you including DS in Nintendo's tally, in which case you could include Windows in Microsoft's?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just posted something very simliar to what you are saying on Tims page, and I posted this yesterday.

http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2010/09/16/silverlight-toolkit-for-windows-phone-7-released.aspx

Im watson.

Wow its almost sexual how much I agree with you. Almost... :P

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[mlts]

The $50,000 question: What can Windows Phone 7 come up with that nobody else has, and make people willing to be locked via contract to two years with the device?

Before Windows Phone 7, WM was a great and extremely secure OS, next to BlackberryOS. It supported remote kills, encrypted the memory card in a simple, but elegant and secure fashion, allowed one to reset their password if forgotten on the road, supported a lot of applications (when Handango was the main way to purchase mobile programs), was easy to program for, and so on.

It is understandable that Microsoft wants to go from an open courtyard to a walled garden, especially with all the brickbats they have taken over the years (deserved and undeserved [1].)

As of now, we have a number of distinct platforms for writing smartphone apps, and each is different from each other by a large degree: We have Objective C for iOS, Java for Android/BlackberryOS, XNA or Silverlight for Windows Phone 7, and C++ for Symbian (IIRC). XBox coders will be fine with XNA for the platform, but iOS and Android app writers will not bother because it is a completely different platform and architecture.

Developers are looking at the numbers right now and growth rates. If I were to place my bets on a business application, it would be the tried and true BlackberryOS. If I wanted business users and consumers, it would be iOS. If I wanted consumers and some small business, Android. Where does Microsoft fit in here?

There is one niche I see Windows Phone 7 will be good for is Exchange support. I'm sure it will support encryption, remote kill, password changes, password complexity, and all that. However, is superb Exchange support good enough to get the phone into the enterprise, jostling out Blackberries and iPhones [2]? IMHO, it needs more than that to be a viable platform.

Microsoft makes some high quality products, but that isn't good enough. They have to grab market from entrenched companies and fight with Android for customers, both business and end user. I can see MS gunning at RIM for the enterprise users, but they have a fight on their hands for other markets.

[1]: A lot of Windows problems are not Microsoft's fault. They are due to application developers who do the absolute minimum to get code shipped with security as a distant afterthought. I'm sure there would be a lot fewer cases of compromised Windows PCs if application developers wrote their code to not crash if DEP was turned on globally, and allowed ASLR to function.

[2]: Apple is getting better with encryption, especially for Exchange. The only thing the iPhone is missing is the ability to set it so it erases itself if it does not get a network signal after "X" amount of time like Blackberries do. Similar with functionality to erase itself if the SIM card is removed or changed out.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[tepples]

BREW phones tend not to have a wide selection of applications because a developer's cost of entry is substantially higher than with Android, iOS, or Windows Phone 7.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

Old, sure, but it works, and infrastructure tends to have to stick around a lot longer than some people like. Partly because a spec takes 'ages' in technological terms to go from agreement to physical devices in the marketplace. DVDs were developed mid-90s, but didn't actually become consumer items until nearly 2000, and are still popular today despite being "Old".

The tech for phones hasn't changed in half a century. It took cell phones to start killing the land line as it has existed for so long.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[nschubach]

As well as the post above, the iPhone was/is only on one carrier. So Android had Verizon, T-Mobile (and others) pushing them.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[commodore64_love]

Oh brother. A FANBOY. To be honest I don't give a shit who wins - Nintendo, Sony, Sega, Atari, or Odyssey 2. And neither should you, because it matters not. But since you asked here are the numbers from wikipedia:

WII units shipped Worldwide: 73.97 million (as of June 30, 2010
360 Units sold Worldwide: 41.7 million (as of June 30, 2010
PS3 Units sold 38.1 million (as of June 30, 2010)[

- Okay so Wii is actually "2 to 1" not 4 to 1. Shame on my for relying on my foggy memory, but still Wii is "winning" by a long shot. Wii is to this generation what PS2, PS1, SNES, NES, and Atari VCS/2600 were in previous gens.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[gbjbaanb]

yes, but that's only been for a little while. And at 20,000 units a time, it's got a loooooooong way to go to make up the 30 million unit shortfall compared to the Wii. (I make it 28 years at 20,000 units per week to catch up)

After the xbox slim becomes less 'modern' and nintendo brings out Wii 2 (or whatever), the numbers will change again. Probably they'll change next month when the PS Move is out (its quite cheap) so I think it will jump up in the weekly rankings for a while.

No, the only valid indicator is the total sales. If it wasn't for Windows and Office, XBox would have gone bankrupt years ago.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[rsborg]

Just to be fair, that's what many said about Apple; they were going up against incumbents like RIM and Windows Mobile on the smartphone side

Wait, isn't this just another version of Windows Mobile? Microsoft has had 10 years to make a strong mobile move, it's not like they're some upstart "rulebreaker" like Apple (who has had a history of rulebreaking). They were the incumbents, the "inevitable", the heirs to the throne that Nokia held (by virtue of their desktop dominance)... back in 2000.

Now 10 years later, no sane person would compare Microsoft to Apple in mobile... other than, perhaps that all of their moves (GSM only, no cut/paste, unified and locked-down app store, etc) seem completely copied from Apple's game plan from 3 years ago.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[commodore64_love]

>>>Old, sure, but it works

Okay. Thanks for answering my question instead of modding me "flame". So is GSM using time-division multiplexing to handle the many calls, or code-division? The wikipedia article doesn't say.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the number of console sold is the determining factor in the gaming war, then you are definately out of the loop. The 360 outclass both the Wii and PS3 combined in the amount of games sold PER system, making it a huge cash cow for MS with licencing revenues. And we're not talking about LIVE subscription.

Uninformed FANBOY.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Your.Master]

If you look one chart down, the current rate of sales shows the 360 outselling the Wii worldwide and in each sub-market except in Japan. The question is, which is more relevant to the issue of phones, the throughout-history historical worldwide sales chart where Wii outsells the Xbox by ~5:3, or the current chart where the Xbox outsells the Wii by a marginal amount (about 10:9).

I would content that neither are particularly relevant since the markets (and market distortions) are vastly different.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[nschubach]

Before Windows Phone 7, WM was a great and extremely secure OS

Did we use different versions of Windows Mobile?

WinMo is not something I'd call stable. I've known people who had it lock up playing certain sound clips (sometimes even reboot), I have one friend who had an HD2 that was possibly the slowest device he's ever owned (and it's not the hardware) and having direct experience using it on over 50,000 devices (that I have applications on, which doesn't include another large chunk used for... let say "inventory" management) at my workplace we still have to be concerned with memory usage or it will crash.

Of course, since the guys in charge of the next version of our devices are probably "Microsoft Certified" they plan on using WinMo devices again.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[gbjbaanb]

We'll see about Exchange support but so far it appears Android's is better!

For development.. note that you can develop in QT for Symbian and no doubt MeeGo, and Android (see the lighthouse project), and an iPhone project is being worked on. Given Blackberry apps tend to be a separate breed, it almost makes sense to do all your dev in QT (as it works on Windows, Linux and mac too) and you're back to an almost-single codebase. That is very important if you don't want to lose tons of cash rewriting everything all the time.

As the OP noted, Silverlight on Windows Phone 7 is poor, and its pretty limited marketshare on the desktop roughly equates to no-one bothering with it (except die-hard MS developers who expect the world to fall over itself for the latest MS tech). If you could run C++ on Windown Phone 7 then QT would be a very compelling solution - and might even save the Win Phone market.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Mongoose Disciple]

but Microsoft is still being outsold 4-to-1 by the current winner.

As already noted below, that number isn't accurate and even the 2-to-1 number has a lot of caveats.

It seems very possible to me that Microsoft makes up some of its revenue on the games -- most (obviously not all, and not including me) of the Wii owners I know don't own any other games besides what came bundled. I can't say that for anyone I know that owns a 360 or PS3.

Nintendo, in this generation, essentially pulled the "Apple trick" of creating a new market for a consumer good. I know a lot of people with Wiis who have never owned a video game system before and may never again. It's great for Nintendo that they managed to do this, since (by the best numbers I've seen) they made a profit on every Wii. Other manufacturers took a loss on their systems, but when you factor in the razor or printer ink pricing model, may not have done all that bad in the final analysis.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Look at the Zune: I've never owned one, but most people that I've talked to that have tried both say that, ultimately, it was a superior product to the iPod.

However, it was also superior too late after Apple already owned all the mindshare in that space, and it was about as expensive as an iPod.

I think, given the same situation but half the price of an iPod you would have seen something different in the market there. If you can't be the first to a market, sometimes being cheap works. Sometimes your model of being the luxury version works too, but I just don't see phones as occupying that kind of space at this time.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just so funny that you americans are forgetting symbian and meego, which are backed by still the biggest smartphone manufacturer nokia...

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

No CDMA? Way to shoot yourself in the foot there, Microsoft, by alienating the largest portion of cellular network users in the USA.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[mlts]

I'd disagree with you about Android's Exchange support. As of 2.2, the only encryption Android supports is encrypting apps stored on the memory card. Android has no encryption support of data whatsoever, and this by itself is a deal killer.

Of course this can be easily remedied two ways: LUKS if one wanted to dedicate segments or an entire memory card for device level encryption, or CFS/EncFS based for file by file encryption similar to what Windows Mobile 6.0 and newer does on the memory card.

Of course, this aside, even if the Android's Exchange support is lackluster, TouchDown picks up where the device might have left off, but the lack of data encryption is a big demerit for Android devices in the enterprise.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[UnknowingFool]

I don't think so, not because MS have been making phone OS for a decade, but because iOS and Android are so young too. After all, Android is just two years old and iPhone has not finished its fourth year yet. Indeed, they've been doing great in these short years, but that doesn't mean they've guaranteed they're eternal success in the mobile industry.

One of the only reasons Windows Mobile has been kept in the marketplace is because of business users. Windows 7 Phone is geared more towards consumers and is incompatible with older versions. So Windows 7 Phone is just as much of new thing as Android and iOS was when they first got into the market erasing any advantage MS might have had.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[vux984]

The $50,000 question: What can Windows Phone 7 come up with that nobody else has, and make people willing to be locked via contract to two years with the device?

Same thing as android?

Market differentiation is nice and all, and important. But the bottom line is that Microsoft is already a recognized brand; all they have to do is show up with a competent product that isn't markedly inferior and there's no reason it won't succeed in the market.

And plenty of opportunity for distinctiveness exists... they can can deliver proper outlook and office support. They can provide xbox-live integration for those that might want it. That's just 2 big ones off the top of my head...

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

you know that there is a world outside the US, right?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget SharePoint integration. SharePoint is Microsoft's fastest growing product ever and WP7 is the only one that's going to be offering any kind of connection into it. That could be huge on the corporate side.

There's also Xbox Live, Zune Pass unlimited music streaming, and full support for synchronization of Live mail/calendars/contacts. Maybe those things aren't used by tons of people, but they're all exclusive to the platform and help differentiate the product.

If I were a developer, the lack of competition would be a draw. With hundreds of thousands of apps on iOS and Android, how could anyone possibly find my new thing? Being one of a couple thousand on a new platform provides an opportunity to stand out you wouldn't get somewhere else.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

As of now, we have a number of distinct platforms for writing smartphone apps, and each is different from each other by a large degree: We have Objective C for iOS, Java for Android/BlackberryOS, XNA or Silverlight for Windows Phone 7, and C++ for Symbian (IIRC). XBox coders will be fine with XNA for the platform, but iOS and Android app writers will not bother because it is a completely different platform and architecture.

This is confusingly stated, as you listed two .NET-based frameworks (XNA and Silverlight) alongside with specific languages (Obj-C, Java, C++) when it is clear that you meant environments. iOS is native (C, C++, Obj-C, etc), Android is native & Dalvik (JVM), and WP7 amounts to .NET.

The Silverlight CLR is smaller and more limited than .NET's CLR but the important part is that it still runs CIL (aka MSIL) bytecode. That means any .NET language can theoretically target WP7. AFAIK C#, F#, and VB.NET officially target Silverlight (with built-in compiler/library/IDE support), but with effort most emitted bytecode should be manually portable to run on Silverlight... like some (not all) existing C++/CLI code, for instance.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[reallyjoel]

Microsoft has NEVER been first with a new service or product or platform - yet they seem to do pretty good in many ventures. Never count them out. I actually have a feeling Windows Phone 7 might be something...

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[PyroMosh]

all they have to do is show up with a competent product that isn't markedly inferior and there's no reason it won't succeed in the market.

What you describe is exactly the scenario of iPod vs. Zune. Zune wasn't markedly inferior. In fact, some in this thread have called it superior. But Zune failed.

I'm not anti-Microsoft by any means. I have an HTC Tilt 2 with WinMo 6.5 and I love it. But I think their strategy is bone headed here. By abandoning backwards compatibility, they sever any advantage they have in the marketplace.

They are copying the leader, but why would I switch from the leader if there's no value add, and in fact, being a smaller ecosystem means there's less "stuff" (Apps, support, resources, accessories) available to me? There's no incentive, and in face, there's a disincentive to many.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the only valid indicator is the total sales.

Simply not true! Ask Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo, and they will all give you the same answer.. it's not the numbers sold, but the average revenue generated per unit. That is the only real way of comparing them.

Yes, the Wii has sold double the XB360 or PS3, but the number of accessories and games sold per console is very low. This happens to be an area the Xbox wins at, with the highest attachment rate per unit. I for one have a Wii - I havn't played it for at least a year now, have bought nothing for it in the last 2 years, and it's not even set up anymore! Should my Wii really be counted in the figures? The same can definitely not be said about either my PS3 or XB360..

This also explains why Sony and Microsoft happily sell their consoles at a loss, because the profit from ancillary sales more than makes up for it!

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Missing.Matter]

They're late? You make it sound like this is a mature, stagnated market, while it really only started 4 years ago, and took off in 2008 with the release of the iPhone 3G and Android. The market is still growing, market share is rapidly fluctuating, and it seems like the perfect time to get into the game.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[gilesjuk]

The gaming market was easy for Microsoft, Windows is the gaming OS of choice. XBox has DirectX and similar API so many games were easy to write or port. They released at a good point in time with a console that supported online gaming. PS2 and gamecube didn't do online gaming.

Phones are a lot different since people are accustomed to having lots of software applications to install with Android and iOS. It's going to take a while to get software available for the WP7 platform and the OS itself is lacking things that even Apple were slow to add (multitasking, cut and paste).

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[gilesjuk]

Well they only have to build the OS. It's the OEMs who have to licence it for phones and given how little the fees probably are for Android I think WP7 has to offer something better.

Not to mention that the hardware has to be slightly more bespoke for WP7, so it's not like they can easily swap graphics over on the buttons to support both platforms.

The biggest problem with phone OEMs is their unwillingness to provide good long lasting support for their phones. I kept my iPhone 3G for two years, I can imagine that would have been 12 months or less if the device was a HTC phone. The hardware is capable of great things and you only have to update the software to add more capabilities. But the OEMs just want you to keep buying hardware, so the phones never last as long as they should.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like you have a bad temper. Do they "break" just after Mom bans you from WoW? Does the "breaking" coincide with having to take the garbage out on raid night?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[vux984]

What you describe is exactly the scenario of iPod vs. Zune. Zune wasn't markedly inferior. In fact, some in this thread have called it superior. But Zune failed.

I disagree. The Zune got a lot of simple stuff wrong, from DRM issues, to being able to use it as USB mass storage, to video format support. They made a lot of really big mistakes, and the ipod was already well entrenched as the market leader.

Even so, Zune got a lot right, and could have improved on many of its short comings with a bit more time and attention. And even as a 'failure' it was doing quite well against non-Apple mp3 players, and could have easily I think taken the #2 spot, and gradually eaten at the ipod marketshare.

But it wasn't an ipod killer.

WinMo7 is a different situation. The smartphone market is still expanding; iphone is popular but not entrenched. Android is just now becoming mainstream, and there is lots of interest in non-Apple products. When you walk into a cellular store buying an iphone is not the 'default' the way buying an ipod is for music.

 

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only solution I can see if MS means to seriously compete in this market is to make the hard decision to run at a loss to try to get some momentum going -- to lose money on each Windows phone in much the same way that video game console makers usually sell the first consoles at a loss.

Android OS is free so how exactly would MS do this?

1. Give money to phone manufacturer for every phone using WinPho7
2. Savings passed on to end users?
3. Gain market share
4. Profit

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[commodore64_love]

So maybe the Xbox 3 when it gets released circa 2015 will finally be the console to win Microsoft the #1 slot and beat Sega, Sony, and Nintendo. But it's still a risky strategy, because that would be a decade-and-a-half of no profits for the Xbox gaming division.

 

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[commodore64_love]

>>>I know don't own any other games besides what came bundled

According to NPD numbers from this past Christmas season, Nintendo had a tie ratio of 8:1 which is 8 games sold for every 1 console. That exceeds the 7:1 and 5:1 ratio of Microsoft and Sony.

Sorry I can't come-up with any more recent numbers but I suspect the present figures are not much different, and it's a huge improvement over the Gamecube and N64 days (although still not as good as the Super Nintendo and NES days).

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[XxtraLarGe]

PS2 and gamecube didn't do online gaming.

Ahem...

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[bmajik]

They're entering the market so late, what can they possibly offer consumers (I'm ignoring business use cases here, since it isn't for business anyways, or so they stated) that they can't already get from current offerings, and better?

I'd definitely agree here. After all, Microsoft wasn't 1st mover in any of the following markets:
GUI operating systems, Web Browsers, Web Servers, managed virtual machine languages, spreadsheet software, word processors, game consoles

As a result, Windows, IE, IIS, C#, Excel, Word, and Xbox are all minor competitors in a crowded marketplace.

Where is my sarcasm tag?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Huh. I believe you, but wow are the people I personally know such a different story.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both the PS2 and Gamecube technically did online gaming, but they didn't do it well.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one have a Wii - I havn't played it for at least a year now, have bought nothing for it in the last 2 years, and it's not even set up anymore!

That's silly. Why would you buy a console with the deliberate intention of not playing it?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[commodore64_love]

P.S. Speaking of standards isn't GSM (Groupe Spécial Mobile) fairly out-of-date? I was just reading on wikipedia that GSM was developed in 1990. That's equivalent to still using MP1 to encode your songs, or MPEG1 to encode video (they were released in 1992).

Are there any plans to update GSM to more-modern specs?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[CargoCult]

troll

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50957

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Nyder]

PS2 still has new games made for it. The Xbox doesn't.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Ash Vince]

P.S. Speaking of standards isn't GSM (Groupe Spécial Mobile) fairly out-of-date?

Yes. Here in the UK we are looking at ripping out our 2nd Generation GSM network fairly soon as the 3rd generation and 3.5 gen ones have been going strong for years. It is looking like us in the UK will have 4G next year.

http://www.zath.co.uk/o2-testing-4g-mobile-broadband-network-uk/

Releasing a GSM only phone in any market other than the states would be suicide for any other company as none of us would bother with anything less the 3G for a smartphone.

I am typing this on an netbook connected to an unrooted tethered Hero that is wobbling between HSDPA and 3G. When it drops to GSM I want to ring up my provider and threaten to withhold payment for the time it takes me to travel past that antenna.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[commodore64_love]

ONE year of profit after 8 years of losses doesn't negate my previous point.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so absurd.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Follis]

GSM old style uses time division, code division is used in more recent versions

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Rogerborg]

And yet there's hundreds of millions of the things. By numbers, iOS, Android and Blackberry are all bit players and WinCE (or whatever they're calling it now) isn't even a blip on the chart.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[shutdown -p now]

some (not all) existing C++/CLI code, for instance.

Only C++/CLI code that is compileable with /clr:safe (i.e. generating verifiable bytecode) can be run on WP7, or Silverlight in general. The amount of actual code written that way rapidly approaches 0, because in that mode you cannot use a large part of plain C++ language features (e.g. no pointers, no classes/structs - only "ref class" and object handles). Furthermore, you cannot use the standard C/C++ library either, since it's not /clr:safe compatible. You can only use framework class library.

This all pretty much completely negates any benefits C++/CLI has as a "glue language", in which you can write most of your code in cross-platform C/C++, with a little bits of C++/CLI here and there where you need platform-specific calls (overall, similar to the niche Objective-C++ would take on iOS). It becomes just C# with a different syntax and without half of the features (no lambdas, for example). So it's not really useful.

What will happen, I suspect, is that either we'll get C#-to-whatever compiler for all major mobile platforms (isn't MonoTouch almost there already?), or, alternatively, a Java-to-whatever compiler. I'd actually bet on the latter, since it's the lower common denominator, and excellent cross-platform development tools (Eclipse etc) are already available - but no-one might want to mess with that and the related chance of getting sued by Oracle due to recent events.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[shutdown -p now]

It's fairly clear that by "GSM" they actually mean "GSM-related stack of technologies". Of course, the phones will have 3G. I haven't seen a non-3G smartphone in several years.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[cbhacking]

It's hard to imagine a featureless and slow Windows Phone having anything very attractive to the average mobile customer strolling into an AT&T or T-Mobile store.

This is true, but I'm curious why you imagine that they're shipping a "featureless and slow" phone? It could certainly use more features, and there are a few that it will be the only major player without, but it has its own share of cool features and some of those aren't available on any *other* phone. As for slow... I can't say for sure, since they don't even have final hardware yet, but the specs MS is requiring are quite good and the demo models at PAX (set up to play games, but you could do other things with them too) seemed smooth and fast to me.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Etiko]

No, I don't think it's too late. I don't think we have seen THE mobile OS, yet. I think we are at the same place where PCs were before Windows. Everyone is trying for a shot at the market, but there is no clear winner, yet. And I don't think any of the current mobile OSs will be the winners. Each of them have their own issues. iOS: Closed and locked down. Plus I don't see Apple licensing the use of iOS to other manufacturers. Android: Patent issue with Oracle; Fragmentation is hurting its image. Symbian: Feels dated. The new QT interface helps, but you still get the clunky feeling coming through. RIM: Same as Symbian - feels old and clunky. Plus, like iOS, it won't be licenced to other manufacturers. Bada: The API is absolutely useless + it isn't targeted at "smart" phones. Plus, like iOS, pretty locked down. Win 7: Too early to say. But it looks like it will also be as locked down as with iOS. Meego: Too early to say. Might suffer the same fragmentation issue as with Android, but I have read that Nokia have strickt guidelines in place for OEMs to follow if they want to use the Meego brand. Might help. So we are still in early days. All I can say is that the next 10 years are going to be exciting times for lovers of tech.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[tepples]

So once I, as an individual developer, have an app running in the BREW simulator, how much would it cost me to get it 1. onto a phone for testing, 2. tested thoroughly enough that platform-related defects are shaken out, and 3. in front of users?

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[initialE]

This would mean a phenomenal loss - Microsoft makes no phones. They would have to subsidize the operating costs of third party manufacturers to get them to make windows phones,or start making their own phones.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you reply to the wrong comment? I said that the PS2 didn't do online gaming well.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Mongoose Disciple]

This is true if you assume that the XBox exists in a vacuum, but I don't think that's the case.

For example, the existence of the XBox and easy (herein defined as, at least as easy as porting from any other console or platform to another) ports to-from Windows has certainly helped prop up Windows as the only viable platform for a gaming machine.

(And I'm sorry, anyone who says that, for example, there's a rocking gaming scene for the Mac that they're not dual booting is deluded.)

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Rogerborg]

Everything you own, plus your children's college fund. And their organs.

Re:Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7?

[Ash Vince]

It's fairly clear that by "GSM" they actually mean "GSM-related stack of technologies". Of course, the phones will have 3G. I haven't seen a non-3G smartphone in several years.

The last one I can recall was the first iPhone, and that was hopelessly outdated then.

Honest

[Pojut]

I'm really hoping that Windows Phone 7 (both hardware and software offerings) bring something worthy to the table. Competition is a great thing, and if nothing else WP7 will at least light even more of a fire under the butt of RIM/Apple/Android devs to step up their game.

Re:Honest

[MBGMorden]

Competition is good, but honestly, I don't want competition from Microsoft. I WANT them to fail (and thankfully the market so far has obliged). Their stranglehold on the desktop OS market is a tough egg to crack. It's a position that isn't even held via merit anymore - it's just kinda the default choice because that's what almost everyone runs so support and software are all made for it.

Microsoft failing in the mobile market hurts their bottom line, but more importantly it harms their company image even further. The more incompetent they look, the more likely people are to try out something else on their DESKTOP too. Not to mention that one extreme benefit of the mobile OS wars and the increase in people browsing from phones is that web developers have HAD to start thinking mutli-platform. The days when you could just develop for IE6 because that's what everyone used are long gone, and the myriad of non-MS OS's in use on mobile phones played a sizable role in that. I don't want MS to have a foothold in that area.

Let some new players fight in the mobile OS market.

Re:Honest

[cybrthng]

Well, Microsoft has certainly set the bar for developer tools. If hardware companies live up on the hardware side, i'd pretty much say WP7 is "in the bag" but hey, thats just me :)

The WP7 tools are almost too easy to use.. Being late to the game may be the best thing for MS. Learn from everyone elses mistakes (as well as your own heha.. (kin))

Re:Honest

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really hoping that Windows Phone 7 ... bring something worthy to the table.

Call it a bit vindictive, but I just want them to whither and die, along with the whole company.

Re:Honest

[Mongoose Disciple]

The WP7 tools are almost too easy to use.. Being late to the game may be the best thing for MS. Learn from everyone elses mistakes

To be fair, MS has a mixed bag with that approach... for every XBox (which, yes I know the arguments for it not being one, but I still consider it to be a success) or .NET you've got a Zune or a Kin.

(You can make a list like that for a Google or Apple as well, but it's a lot easier to point to recent MS failures than Apple ones.)

Re:Honest

[Rogerborg]

If hardware companies live up on the hardware side

Given the awful track record of WinME-family phones, I'd expect that the availability of Windows Phone 7 phones (doesn't that just trip off the tongue) will be largely dependent on Microsoft's willingness to "partner" with OEMs, in the same way that a scrawny fugly guy "partners" with an expensive hooker.

Re:Honest

[mark72005]

If you've got a Kin?

So there's supposedly 500 people right there.

Re:Honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Was anything wrong with the zune? Hardware was decent, the $15/mo subscription for unlimited music and 10 songs / month you can keep forever. I always figured zune failed for the same reason no one has cracked the desktop market. A player at the top (Apple in this case) has a damn near unshakable grip on the market, and nothing short of a brilliant marketing campaign with the best software/hardware and price will crack that.

Re:Honest

[zombieChan51]

He didn't say that there was anything wrong with the zune. It just wasn't successful as MS wanted it to be. Sure there's a lot of people out there who really like the Zune(including myself), but like you said Apple has a unshakeable grip on the market.

Re:Honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you so much for saying this. I keep hearing over and over how people say they hope MS has some success with Windows Phone 7 and IE9 and whatever else they have coming out. Well, guess what happens when MS is successful? Vista, IE6, bloated monsters like Office, netbooks with hard limits on hardware capability, charging vendors for Windows whether they shipped it or not, the ISO/OOXML catastrophe. Seriously, are people's memories so short? I want MS to be a bit player at best.

Re:Honest

[Locutus]

That would be good but given the topic of this thread, don't you get the impression Windows Phone 7 is being rushed to market? Or is it being so strict and locked down that the OEM's are not expected to so much customizing? Releasing the SDK just 2 weeks before supposed release as not time enough for developers to get apps rebuilt and tested before publishing.

Sounds like Mr Ballmer is really cracking the whip to hit target ship dates. That's never worked out very well for Microsoft nor their customers. With Windows, they have the lock-in to keep customers coming back time and time again but with the phone market, they have no such lock. To make it worst for them, they have almost no market share at all and they have three very strong products( iOS, Android, and BB OS 6) to go up against.

They will have to provide massive marketing dollars to get their phones on the market and even then, unless the competitions phones are pulled from the shelves, customer choice will decide and Microsoft has nothing I've seen which can win the hearts and minds of customers. Rushing a product to market is a sure bet for failure given the market they are entering. IMO

LoB

Re:Honest

[cspankne]

The Zune, is actually a superior device to the Ipod or Touch. Unfortunately, this falls back to MS lack of ability to effectively market any software or hardware they provide. MS seems to focus on advertising products that MAY (read: wont) release in 3-5 years. My curiousity lies in how effective the multi-hundred-million dollar WP7 advertising campaign that will undboutedly be infecting your tv screens and monitors in the near future is going to be.

If they can market it successfully and make it appeal to consumers, people will buy it. It's a simple equation.

Re:Honest

[tepples]

Was anything wrong with the zune?

For one thing, it couldn't play music from PlaysForSure stores despite carrying the Microsoft name.

Re:Honest

[I_have_a_life]

Comments like this make me nervous because they insinuate that other companies (such as Google, Apple) will not behave the same way Microsoft did if they have a chance to. And any argument to that effect is terribly weak given that there is absolutely no evidence to support it. Public corporations are public corporations. They are not on your side. Your welfare is not their primary concern unless it boosts their profits. I'm not necessarily against public corporations. They're like fire. They can help you when you need them but given the right circumstances they will burn indiscriminately.

ANY competition in a "free market" economy is good. It doesn't matter where it comes from. There is plenty of evidence to support that. Windows 7 is by far the best operating system Microsoft ever produced and the only reason why is competition. We need competition from Microsoft to lower the chance that companies like Google, Apple, Adobe, or some other company try to pull a Microsoft stunt. And if you believe they won't you're terribly naive.

As a community of geeks we must put our emotions aside and assess these companies and their doings dispassionately.

Re:Honest

[mark72005]

I only remember WinCE phones... those WinME phones much have been REALLY crappy! :-)

Re:Honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Worthy to the table?? Microsoft is not even releasing native code SDK, so no Doom, Quake and other games or mission critical apps will appear on the platform, at least not at the launch. Why is MS even bothering to enter the market with such a crippled platform is beyond belief, even Samsung with Bada SDK offers performance oriented tools.

Re:Honest

[nschubach]

Comments like this make me nervous because they insinuate that other companies (such as Google, Apple) will not behave the same way Microsoft did if they have a chance to. ...
Your welfare is not their primary concern unless it boosts their profits. I'm not necessarily against public corporations. They're like fire. They can help you when you need them but given the right circumstances they will burn indiscriminately.

ANY competition in a "free market" economy is good. It doesn't matter where it comes from.

But come on now. Even you have to admit that giving Microsoft domination on the mobile platform as well as the desktop would be like lighting fire to all the forests of the world all at one time, using napalm.

Re:Honest

[Mongoose Disciple]

Thanks for clearing that up -- you're right, that's exactly what I meant. Not a market success.

Re:Honest

[MBGMorden]

Comments like this make me nervous because they insinuate that other companies (such as Google, Apple) will not behave the same way Microsoft did if they have a chance to. And any argument to that effect is terribly weak given that there is absolutely no evidence to support it.

I never said those companies wouldn't. However, those types of actions are only possible with market dominance. There is no clear market dominance over in the mobile space - and it looks like it's going to stay that way - WITHOUT Microsoft's help - for the foreseeable future. Another player isn't needed to fix a problem that doesn't exist there. HOWEVER, if Microsoft's failures in the mobile market hurt it in the desktop market, then it looses credibility, marketshare, and users there. Most importantly, it looses the ability to behave the way it has been doing for at least 15 years now.

It's not a matter of wanting one dictator over another. It's about preventing a known dictator from gaining a powerbase in a new land, hence increasing their overall strength and stranglehold on their original holdings.

Re:Honest

[I_have_a_life]

I don't want them to dominate the mobile platform (which at this point is only a very remote possibility anyway). I don't want anyone to dominate the mobile platform. The only way to do that is to embrace all competition. Companies are all the same they're after your money. But as long as they have to watch their back and fight off the competition they'll at least be giving you something worth while for it.

Re:Honest

[Voyager529]

Manual Mod +1 insightful. If I hadn't posted earlier, I'd have modded you up.

The issue is that ultimately, getting into the cell phone game at any level (tower production, network management, protocol software, retail distribution, handset production, handset OS production, and the other 1,001 areas I'm completely unaware of) has an extremely high barrier of entry, and no matter where you start, you're going up against decade-old incumbents or more. At this point it takes companies with the cavernous pockets of Apple or Google to actually generate any sort of competition.

Novell got big, they charged stupid amounts for software and support, which gave Microsoft an edge. Microsoft got big, they ended up with the IE antitrust debacle. Apple got big, and they started adding hardware to their phones to prevent jailbreaking. Google got big and SO FAR hasn't had any problematically huge PR/legal issues, but when you have Google's insane amount of cash and data on as many users as they do, it's just a matter of time before they end up doing something that will get them problematic amounts of bad press.

There's no such thing as a corporation acting in the consumer's best interest once that corporation is actually big enough to compete in the mobile space. Among the barriers of entry is the patent-sharing collusion that is required from basically everyone already there, so even if a garage startup came out with SuperPhoneOS_Ultra, getting it into the hands of consumers necessarily requires getting one's hands dirty.

The best we can hope for here is that each company provides enough competition to keep the others on their toes, while simultaneously not being anticompetitive, and not ending up as an oligopoly like the telecoms themselves. Each telecom has X amount of subscribers, and people shift from one to another every so often, but at this point the policies are largely the same because of the collusion. Paradoxically though, each entrant would slowly raise the bar on the others. No one company would independently continue innovating without pressure from the others.

I'd wager that Microsoft would put the most pressure on RIM, and to a lesser extent Apple, but all four major smartphone OSs would basically move at more-or-less the same speed unless someone else entered the mobile phone business. Personally, I'd find it quite amusing if there was an Oracle phone.

Re:Honest

[I_have_a_life]

That's short sighted. Please define the "foreseeable future" because from my experience that's just a cliche that gets thrown around far too much. Here's something that is more concrete: given enough time and not enough competition one company will dominate the market. Just because it isn't so now doesn't mean it won't be later. The best way to prevent market dominance is to welcome all competition with open arms and put aside any emotional feelings about which companies are "nice" and which ones are "naughty".

Microsoft's failure in the mobile market hurting it's desktop market is, in my opinion, not even worth discussing. First of all we could use a reasonable desktop alternative to Windows that is not locked into a hardware platform. Second, Windows is alive and well in industries where people can't afford to make decisions based on image. I'm not talking about run or the mill consumers that tune into the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials I'm talking about industry. The vast majority or our refining, chemical, electrical generation, pulp and paper, nuclear, pharmaceutical, smart grid, manufacturing, you name it runs Windows (at least on the desktop). Furthermore, in those industries you pick a platform and you stick with it for as long as you can milk it. They could care less about what Microsoft's mobile or gaming platforms are doing. Not everyone is easily swayed by reputation and image. Some people still make decisions based on good old fashioned dollars and cents.

Re:Honest

[mcgrew]

Competition is a great thing, and if nothing else WP7 will at least light even more of a fire under the butt of RIM/Apple/Android devs to step up their game.

More likely it will just make RIM/Apple/Android look even better, considering MS' track record with phone OSes.

Re:Honest

[tjose]

Competition is good, but honestly, I don't want competition from Microsoft. I WANT them to fail (and thankfully the market so far has obliged). Their stranglehold on the desktop OS market is a tough egg to crack. It's a position that isn't even held via merit anymore - it's just kinda the default choice because that's what almost everyone runs so support and software are all made for it.

Microsoft failing in the mobile market hurts their bottom line, but more importantly it harms their company image even further. The more incompetent they look, the more likely people are to try out something else on their DESKTOP too. Not to mention that one extreme benefit of the mobile OS wars and the increase in people browsing from phones is that web developers have HAD to start thinking mutli-platform. The days when you could just develop for IE6 because that's what everyone used are long gone, and the myriad of non-MS OS's in use on mobile phones played a sizable role in that. I don't want MS to have a foothold in that area.

Let some new players fight in the mobile OS market.

You are absolutely right. The failure of MS in the mobile will definitely have a serious serious blow on the company as a whole. People will start thinking into alternatives which will eventually hit their desktop monopoly. If their market share come down to 75%, then it is just a matter of a short period (short may be 2-3 years) to get them finished !!. I am waiting for that to happen.

Re:Honest

[Rogerborg]

Jaysus, yes, WinCE. Windows Mobile != WinME, although the quality was about the same.

Re:Honest

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried many different versions of Linux over the past 15 years or so and only recently did Linux Mint really catch my eye, but still no applications or games that I want for it so it's been nothing to me but a neat toy to play with.

Make those happen and I'll switch. Until then, I'll still prefer Windows.

Re:Honest

[shutdown -p now]

"Success" doesn't have to mean "raping the competition through and through", you know. It can mean "a healthy, competitive market in which everyone profits so long as they keep up with the race",

"Windows Phone 7"?

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason I was expecting the name "Windows 7 Phone Edition".

The old switcheroo

[SuperKendall]

They're entering the market so late, what can they possibly offer consumers

They can offer a wide range of phones all with a consistent UI. That's different from Apple (which has consistent UI but not a large range of phones) and from Android (which offers a wide range of phones now but with divergent UI).

Make no mistake, Android has taken over what Microsoft sees as ITS market (making phone OS'es for multiple vendors) and badly wants it back. And they still have a ton of money to make the attempt. And they have the same controls over application quality that has helped Apple in the application space.

Furthermore, and this really pisses me off, the phone can't even run Silverlight in the browser.

Microsoft does have some odd choices around technology support but I think these are only minor quibbles for what they are trying to do.

Re:The old switcheroo

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

They can offer a wide range of phones all with a consistent UI. That's different from Apple (which has consistent UI but not a large range of phones) and from Android (which offers a wide range of phones now but with divergent UI).

the part of "divergent UIs" is not android's fault, even because it's not a fault at all. in a higly competitive market, where any of the other oferings have the basics covered, purchase decisions are based on details. this means making your phone look different, but still interoperable with the competitors is crucial. for what i understand, MS won't allow vendors to customize the UI, and this can be winphone's undoing. if all handsets have the same hardware, the same OS, the same interface, how will the consumer diferentiate them ? it'll cause the same problem that plagues PC makers. undiferentiated products with razor thin margins, and phone makers don't want this to happen to them. android allows customization, so manufacturers can diferentiate their offerings, while keeping compatibility.

Make no mistake, Android has taken over what Microsoft sees as ITS market (making phone OS'es for multiple vendors) and badly wants it back. And they still have a ton of money to make the attempt. And they have the same controls over application quality that has helped Apple in the application space.

wishing doesn't make it true. they _whished_ the market was theirs, when in truth, it belonged to symbian; and now it's shared between symbian and android. they can't "take back" something they never had. they were just one more player among many. and what'll keep them as a minor player here, is everything android has going for it that winphone doesn't have: free form factor (phones and tablets of all sizes, with varying capabilities), pricing (it's free and open source after all) and possibility of customization.

Re:The old switcheroo

[SuperKendall]

the part of "divergent UIs" is not android's fault, even because it's not a fault at all.

It's not necessarily a fault from the users perspective; you may well really like one particular UI. It's a weakness of the brand though, it that it dilutes what it means to be an "Adroid" phone just as only allowing applications like Skype to run on specific models of Android phones.

It does mean less choice for the user though, if they like one particular UI they will have fewer devices that use it - unlike Windows Mobile 7 where all 30 (or whatever the final count will be) devices will all have the same UI, across any carrier. The same goes for the iPhone across the model range and across carriers (where applicable).

MS won't allow vendors to customize the UI, and this can be winphone's undoing

Not allowing crapware on ship does not strike me as being "an undoing".

phone makers don't want this to happen to them

No they don't but their wishes are not as important as consumer needs.

wishing doesn't make it true.

Of course not, but a TON of money backed by a solid product CAN make it true. We know they have the money, now we need to see how the actual products worked out.

they _whished_ the market was theirs, when in truth, it belonged to symbian

Not really, Since Symbian was isolated to Nokia phones, it was irrelevant to Microsoft at the time as it is irrelevant to the smartphone market now outside of a fringe.

now it's shared between symbian and android

Symbian hasn't mattered in the smartphone market for a few years now. It's only Andorid and Microsoft dancing in this round for device and carrier attention.

verything android has going for it that winphone doesn't have: free form factor

MS has already stated an interest in WM7 tablets and they will not be far behind Android tablets which have yet to ship anything compelling.

pricing (it's free and open source after all)

It's not at all free since you have to work with Google to approve your device. That takes a lot of capital. Just because the OS is not charged for does not make it free for a device maker to use.

possibility of customization.

On balance this has been more of a negative for Android than a positive, because of carriers desires to "improve" the UI.

Re:The old switcheroo

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

It's not necessarily a fault from the users perspective; you may well really like one particular UI. It's a weakness of the brand though, it that it dilutes what it means to be an "Adroid" phone just as only allowing applications like Skype to run on specific models of Android phones.

you didn't get the point. manufacturers DON'T CARE for the android brand. they care for THEIR brand. android for them is just another checkbox on the features list, like:

* compatible with android: Yes.

They've killed the natives

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a pity that there is no more room for native code developers on Windows Phone 7.

Surprised they aren't taking it more seriously

[HalAtWork]

I'm very surprised MS haven't been taking the mobile market more seriously, I thought they were trying to push netbook users towards mobile phone computing with their Fone+ initiative. They seem very non-committal in this space, either half-heartedly supporting various iterations of the platform only to refresh the brand after a hiatus and stubbornly pushing the same old thing on consumers, or dropping products entirely when they show any sign of weakness in the market. You don't build a platform and user base by running away when you get cold feet, you have to stand behind it, address concerns, and build up a sense of confidence in consumers. Why should anyone be confident of any of MS's mobile phone attempts when there are already very strong brands with a history that consumers can put their faith in?

GSM only? CDMA next? WTF??

[kent_eh]

No one is installing new GSM or CDMA at the base stations. It's strictly "keep it running for now" on the carrier side.
UMTS/HSDPA/LTE is what is currently happening.

Way to get on last decade's bandwagon Microsoft.

Re:GSM only? CDMA next? WTF??

[irix]

No one is installing new GSM or CDMA at the base stations. It's strictly "keep it running for now" on the carrier side.

UMTS/HSDPA/LTE is what is currently happening.
 

Read the article. In "casual" parlance, GSM = UMTS/HSPA. Also, people are still installing CDMA networks.

Re:GSM only? CDMA next? WTF??

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is installing new GSM or CDMA at the base stations. It's strictly "keep it running for now" on the carrier side.

UMTS/HSDPA/LTE is what is currently happening.

Way to get on last decade's bandwagon Microsoft.

Pretty sure when they say "GSM" they mean "GSM+UMTS+HSDPA", and when they say "CDMA" they mean "IS-95+CDMA2000+EV-DO"

GSM and CDMA have both become shorthand that include technologies that respectively replaced them.

Re:GSM only? CDMA next? WTF??

[rabbit994]

GSM/CDMA are still in wide use and since they couldn't even be arsed to include CDMA support on release, putting in those technologies would have been more time then they were willing to commit. As those technologies see larger deployment, I'm sure Microsoft will develop for them. LTE will probably be first one since it's getting pushed out by Verizon and in several European Countries.

Let's get ready for the Microsoft bundle

[bogaboga]

...Or should I have called it the Microsoft Pack? Yes, I can see this bundle allowing Windows Phone users to use their gadgets to work with MS Office documents in ways that no current platform Android or iOS can.

Remember the old Netscape vs Internet Explorer days? It's gonna be 'those times' played all over again. Folks, the future looks and promises to be interesting.

Re:Let's get ready for the Microsoft bundle

[Microlith]

Not really. If things keep going the way they are you'll have locked down tablets and smartphones displacing standard computers. Of course, the majors in this industry are more than happy, as that lets them more effectively control consumers, from whom they can extract more profits.

Look at the hardware that's out there and you'll see what's going on:

- Every Android phone besides the Dev Phones and Nexus One must be rooted via an exploit before the user controls it
- Apple locks everything down, again forcing you to jailbreak
- Motorola locks things down above and beyond the norm to ensure you can't escape their services and carrier bloated crap
- Microsoft wants to ape Apple's lockdown
- Otellini made the none-too-subtle suggestion that computers should refuse to run ANY software not signed by a 3rd party
- Books are moving towards e-readers bought via DRM-encrusted devices like the Kindle, which we've seen Amazon abuse already

There are a handful of vendors who actually respect their customers, but they're few and far between.

I get this bad feeling that Stallman's little dystopic story just might come true, minus the FBI involvement (initially, at least.)

Ad Campaign

[killmenow]

Windows Phone 7: Now with less monopoly! PLEASE LOVE OUR PHONE! (Also iPhone sux.)

Is it really Windows?

[Eponymous Coward]

Is this really Windows? From what I had read earlier, the OS seemed to have more in common with the Zune OS.

So, what is the heritage of this OS? Is it an entirely new beast, or a descendant of WinCE, Win32, or ZuneOS?

Re:Is it really Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

ZuneOS is WinCE 6 Based.

Re:Is it really Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

And does it come with sample rootkits?

Re:Is it really Windows?

[shutdown -p now]

It's WinCE 6 under the hood.

CDMwhat?

[cbope]

CDMA is still alive?

Isn't it about time to move on from the semi-proprietary CDMA networks in the US? I mean come on, the rest of the world is standardized on GSM and 3G... why do the US operators cling to obsolete non-standard technologies?

Re:CDMwhat?

[irix]

the rest of the world is standardized on GSM and 3G...

http://phone-solutions.pavemyway.com/Cdma-Operators/Cdma-Operators-List.php

why do the US operators cling to obsolete non-standard technologies?

http://www.3gpp2.org/Public_html/specs/index.cfm

Not heavily implemented outside of the Americas != non-standard.

Re:CDMwhat?

[tepples]

Verizon Wireless will switch from its CDMA2000 network to "LTE", the next standard out of the GSM camp.

Re:CDMwhat?

[KarmaMB84]

The ITU considers CDMA2000 (commonly referred to as just CDMA) a 3G standard. It's used in 116 countries.

Re:CDMwhat?

[lazybeam]

the rest of the world is standardized on GSM and 3G...

http://phone-solutions.pavemyway.com/Cdma-Operators/Cdma-Operators-List.php

That list is out of date, from my skimming of it. None of the " more info" links I tried to follow work. Australia (Telstra) shut down its CDMA network for UMTS 850 in 2008. Yes, I know UMTS uses "code division multiple access" signalling, but as it uses a sim card it is much more like GSM.

So, to me, CDMA is as obsolete as AMPS, which was shut down in 2000.

Re:CDMwhat?

[irix]

So, to me, CDMA is as obsolete as AMPS, which was shut down in 2000.

CDMA is still being actively deployed today. CDMA has over 200 million mobile subscribers worldwide. CDMA was first to market with 3G by several years. If you think it is "as obsolete as AMPS" you are an idiot.

Sure people are migrating to LTE from CDMA. They are also migrating to LTE from UMTS.

Re:CDMwhat?

[lazybeam]

CDMA is still being actively deployed today.

Not in Australia! Or any of the countries I'm interested in visiting or visited.

If you think it is "as obsolete as AMPS" you are an idiot.

I did say "to me". Since there was a CDMA network where I live, and it does not exist any longer, it is obsolete. My mother has a CDMA phone collecting dust the same way as the old AMPS bag phone - though 10 years of dust is more than 2 years, it is still collecting it. My Dad's GSM phone is about the same vintage as the CDMA phone and still works. Therefore GSM is far superior!

Re:CDMwhat?

[irix]

It is a good thing you live on the prison island then. Clearly the rest of the world doesn't exist or have any meaning.

Great news

[shikaisi]

Now we can start developing apps for all those dozens of potential users.

CDMA, seriously?

[multipartmixed]

> This rules out Sprint and Verizon for launch.

In our backwards little country -- just north of y'all -- the big CDMA vendors have realized that CDMA sucks from pretty much every standpoint that matters. Bell and Telus have rolled out nation-wide HSPA networks.

And I have yet to see a 16-year old girl saying things like "I would have bought an iPhone, except with time-division multiplexing, there is a finite cell capacity; if Apple had rolled out code-division we could simply increase tower load by reducing quality of service"

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[irix]

There are two ways to go from CDMA to LTE, which is where everyone is going.

One is to obsolete your CDMA/EVDO network and deploy GSM/HSPA which has a direct upgrade path to LTE and provides inter-network mobility. This is what Telus and Bell did because they are running comparatively tiny networks.

The other is to move your CDMA/EVDO gear to CDMA/eHRPD and then deploy LTE with mobility between CDMA and LTE. This is what Sprint (modulo WiMAX as a step in there) and Verizon are doing, because their networks and number of deployed devices are an order of magnitude larger and deploying a GSM/UMTS network a year before switching to LTE is not viable.

I'm Canadian too, but it isn't like we have some sort of technical superiority or that Bell and Telus know something that Verizon and Sprint don't.

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[Miamicanes]

> In our backwards little country -- just north of y'all -- the big CDMA vendors have realized
> that CDMA sucks from pretty much every standpoint that matters.
> Bell and Telus have rolled out nation-wide HSPA networks.

Er, not quite. What happened was that Telus & Bell realized they happened to own 1900MHz spectrum that, combined with 2100MHz spectrum, would enable them to offer direct compatibility with international-standard UMTS phones. So, instead of dropping EVDO alongside 1xRTT (aka "CDMA voice and 150k data"), they dropped UMTS alongside 1xRTT instead. At least, in big cities.

From what I was told by a Canadian friend, until about a year ago, they would ALLOW you to use an imported unlocked phone that was capable of only 1900/2100 UMTS if you insisted, but if you wanted to use it in an area where Telus had no UMTS service (yet), but HAD viable CDMA service, you had to pay the roaming charges yourself. Apparently, they've loosened up this policy a bit so that they'll officially pay your roaming charges... but if more than 50% of your calls end up roaming on UMTS (say, you live in a small town in Saskatchewan), they'll give you a choice between termination, paying the roaming charges yourself, or switching to a phone that can do CDMA.

This wasn't an option at all for Verizon (they're all 850MHz, and 1900MHz is totally owned in America), and wasn't politically an option for Sprint. Sprint has 1900MHz, but would have needed 2100MHz for the downlinks. The FCC had 2100MHz spectrum to sell, but first and foremost wanted to ensure that whomever bought it could use the spectrum to create a viable UMTS network. That drove the price too high to be worth bothering with for Sprint (who really didn't need the 1700MHz spectrum), and kept it affordable for the one network that truly needed it (T-Mobile).

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[M Moogle]

Just a little correction - Verizon isn't 850Mhz everywhere. It depends on who they bought out in the area or what licenses they were granted. In Wisconsin they're 1900Mhz (well, at least in the non-Alltel areas - not sure about those).

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? Bell and Telus are NOT using the 2100 MHz band. Only 850 and 1900. And this is true for both CDMA2000 and UMTS.

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[Miamicanes]

oops. You're totally right. I'm scratching my head how I ever got that idea. All I can think of is that he might have been clueless about the difference between 3G and GSM, so when he told me he had an imported unlocked phone that only worked in the Toronto area, I went online with my phone, saw it did 1900/2100 UMTS, asked in complete disbelief whether he had 3G, and took his word for it when he said 'yes'.

It does seem kind of strange, though. I can't believe 2100MHz was available in the US, but NOT in Canada... and if the two biggest incumbent carriers (Telus and Bell) both had 1900MHz spectrum and went with UMTS, it almost seems crazy that they *didn't* try to get a hold of 2100MHz spectrum so they *could* have de-facto compatibility with generic international UMTS phones.

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[KiwiSurfer]

2100MHz is not available in either the US or Canada.

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[Miamicanes]

> 2100MHz is not available in either the US or Canada.

Er, I can't speak authoritatively for Canada, but a chunk of 2100MHz most certainly was freed up by the FCC and sold to T-Mobile ~4 years ago.

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[KiwiSurfer]

Does T-Mobile use it though? I understand that their network is currently exclusively 1900MHz.

- James

Re:CDMA, seriously?

[Miamicanes]

They couldn't be using exclusively 1900 for UMTS on any menaingful scale. In 99% of its major east/west-coast urban markets, T-Mobile barely has enough 1900MHz spectrum to handle voice calls and EDGE. It some areas, they don't even have enough spectrum to do EDGE, and all they can do is squeeze GPRS into timeslots next to voice calls (EDGE requires dedicated spectrum, GPRS can share timeslots with voice calls). That's why they bought 1700 and 2100 spectrum in the most recent auction ~4 years ago.

Why? I would like to see it before I go Andriod

[gsgriffin]

I know there are lots of people that simply hate MS for anything it does. Sure, they have lots of problems. But, I love Win 7 that I'm running on all of my computers. They got a lot of things really right this time. I also use MS Office for everything (I know, lots of OO comments to follow, fine...whatever). It would be great to have the OS seamlessly connect and use everything I'm doing on my laptop and desktops (win 7). If this works, I'll be upgrading my WM5, which still runs fine.

Microsoft and Incompetence? A tale of two smartpho

[DickBreath]

1. Android. Enough said.

2. Windows Phone 7 Series.

October will bring the launch of Windows Phone 7 Series. Phones from the same company that brought you such fine products as Edlin, DOS 4, Windows ME, Internet Explorer 6, Zune, Vista and Bing. Phones with the kind of quality, stability, security and robustness you’ve come to expect from the Microsoft name. Yes, Windows Phone 7 Series is a new ballgame that abandons compatibility (and your investment) with Windows Mobile and literally dozens and dozens of developers who wrote apps for it. It is unconnected with the recent Microsoft Sidekick/Danger fiasco that made national news when it lost all data for millions of smartphone users worldwide. (Microsoft acquired the successful Sidekick/Danger and tried to “Microsoft” it.) After the Sidekick/Danger fiasco, don’t expect T-Mobile to be friends with Microsoft anytime soon. I’m sure the other carriers are also paying attention. Also don’t forget the recently launched, and recently discontinued Microsoft Kin phone! Microsoft spent over $85 Million in marketing for it, and managed to sell over 500 units! Microsoft announced that it wasn’t as bad as the press was suggesting – they only lost $120,000 per Kin phone that was sold. When asked about the Kin phone and the Zune music player, teenagers said: the what and the what? So be looking forward to Windows Phone 7 Series in October. (If at first you don’t succeed, use a shorter bungee.)

(I posted this elsewhere earlier today.)


--
Their is no there they're. But only an idiot would begin or end a sentence with the word "but". And you'd have to be really daft to begin or end a sentence with "and". Your using you're words wrong. Two often too people get together two make to many smaller people.

Subsidized handsets put brakes on quality cuts

[tepples]

(Say hello to cheap phones that break after a few months.)

The U.S. phone market might put the brakes on too much quality-cutting. Carriers won't be able to subsidize a handset model with a 2-year service contract if it would be unprofitable for the carrier to offer a 2-year replacement plan on that model.

no IE9

[Anonymous Coward]

no IE9 sadly

Re:no IE9

[mark72005]

Sadly?

Microsoft very committed - in all directions

[SuperKendall]

I'm very surprised MS haven't been taking the mobile market more seriously

Microsoft has been taking the mobile market extremely seriously. Why else would have they have focused intently on WM 6, WM 6.5, the KIn, and WM7?

But that's the problem you see. These internal efforts, were all fighting one another. By focusing intently on several things, they were really focusing on none.

It looks like POSSIBLY with WM7 they may be finally choosing to focus on one system and push it forward. Time will tell how true that is.

Re:Microsoft very committed - in all directions

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's the case then they're extremely late in getting their act together. Now the bar has been raised, and any impact they may have had with this strategy is extremely diminished.
 
I just don't trust MS to take any initiative very far. They've dropped and backed away and re-branded so many products that I'm not sure they can stay focused on this particular strategy long enough to command a significant section of the mobile space.

Tried to download the SDK...

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to download the SDK, but didn't find a version Linux or OS X. Guess I wont be developing for that platform.

Re:Tried to download the SDK...

[CyberDragon777]

Yeah, you should develop for the iPhone on Linux or Windows instead.

Between iPhone and Android...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

...remind me again why I would ever care about a Windows phone which is about as likely to succeed as the Zune?

Re:Microsoft and Incompetence? A tale of two smart

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Ahem

500? More like over 8000.

Windows Phone 7 could sell, 9, maybe 10 thousand units. Which given their previous outing, would be a success.

Re:Microsoft and Incompetence? A tale of two smart

[kanguro]

Android. From the fine company that brought you Wave, Buzz and Orkut. From the fine company that has a shite of a development environment over a blatant copy (Unlicensed) of the JVM. And the fine company that knows all about you and maybe will tell the chinese authorities if you don't behave. But they do good sellin' of advertisements. That they'll do. Religion wars anyone?

Re:Microsoft and Incompetence? A tale of two smart

[gbjbaanb]

probably more important is the bit that said the phone manufacturers can't customise it.

So, can you imagine Samsung and HTC putting in vast amounts of effort to design, manufacture and market a phone that.. to all intents and purposes, is the same as the other one. Including the LG phone they cranked out cheaply and gets all the sales because of that.

At the moment, all my colleagues are excited by Android phones, everyone who had a HTC hero wants a HTC Desire, and now they're salivating at the Galaxy S. These are different phones, slightly differnet features, and that makes for happy manufacturers who suddenly release something and make vast amounts of cash - enough to pay for the next bigger, better model.

With Window Phone... why bother, unless you're the cheapest no-one will care for your phone. If it has an extra megapixel on the camera, you're just losing money compared to your competitor who sells thousdands more than you because they priced it $20 cheaper .. for exactly the same functionality.

Re:Microsoft and Incompetence? A tale of two smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Kin was a worst disaster than anyone knows. They sold or gave away about ~12-13 thousand Kin phones, but developement, cost of acquiring and integrating Sidekick (and oh btw, they didn't even get the guy that was behind Sidekick - he'd already left to Google and started Android so they basically got all the idiots - who still work for Microsoft since that is the kind of company it is), and market was actually pretty close to $1.5 billion (yes that is billion with a 'B'). So yeah, basically each Kin sold cost Microsoft $120,000 as stated. What company in the world can afford to do something like that except a monopoly? Anyway, I certainly hope WP7 dies on the vine and Microsoft dies as well. I really wish someone would come take them out of the PC OS, Office and server market and this awful company would cease to exist.

Re:Microsoft and Incompetence? A tale of two smart

[Missing.Matter]

I don't understand your point. There is a baseline hardware requirement, but you can certainly make it better: better screen, more RAM, etc. It's true that device manufacturers can't reskin the whole UI, but they can certainly pre-load it with applications and a custom hub or custom tiles. Manufacturers can further decide on form factor (whether to include a slide out keyboard, etc.).

I feel this allows a great deal of latitude for manufacturers to differentiate their phones while maintaining a minimum level of expected functionality. I certainly wouldn't go for the cheapest if there was another phone with a larger, higher-res screen, better camera, and a slick high quality chassis.

My, all the negativity

[caywen]

I guess it wouldn't be Slashdot without a thorough bashing of a Microsoft product. But consider that Microsoft has effectively built a brand new platform complete with solid dev tools, a solid marketplace, and pretty formidable media capabilities. Were they slow to the punch? Absolutely. But I wouldn't underestimate this one. This is not Kin, and it appears Microsoft is dead serious about making this work.

And there seems to be this idea that Slashdot-types are the only ones who walk into the AT&T store looking for a smartphone. As if the millions who go there are already anti-Microsoft, pro-Android, and gaga over Apple. They aren't - they are looking for a cool phone, and at the end of the day, WP7 will look just as cool to them as any other phone. Unless you're going to line up to protest outside phone stores, I wouldn't write them off.

Re:My, all the negativity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll write them off, but not because WP7 might stink. I'll write them off because all the phone manufacturers will look at IBM, Dell and HP and figure out they don't want to wind up like them (wrt their PC business). So given a choice between even a superb WP7 and an adequate Android, they'll go with Android.

Re:My, all the negativity

[hxnwix]

they are looking for a cool phone, and at the end of the day, WP7 will look just as cool to them as any other phone. Unless you're going to line up to protest outside phone stores, I wouldn't write them off

That's how the kin got its 500 sales, right? It looked cool.

They've failed in this market countless times, just as they have in the pen / tablet computing market. Launch after launch, year after year, every single one an abortion.

Microsoft is dead serious about making this work

Microsoft is dead serious about replicating whatever Apple or Google were doing 3 years ago. Microsoft knows how to compete only against huge companies slower and stupider than themselves (such as Sony). Apple and Google are quick, leaving Microsoft with no way to win.

Re:My, all the negativity

[gbjbaanb]

and it appears Microsoft is dead serious about making this work.

yup. they've already started trying just that in their own, inimitable style

When asked whether open source models created problems for vendors with licensed software, the software giant went on the offensive. "It does infringe on a bunch of patents, and there's a cost associated with that," Tivanka Ellawala, Microsoft financial officer told MarketWatch. "So there's a... cost associated with Android that doesn't make it free."

I suppose they have to, seeing as they're licensing WinPhone the same way as Windows mobile (ie for $$ for unit)

Addicted to a Meme

[TaoPhoenix]

Sorry gang, I'm hooked on this meme for the week.

In your case:

"2001 Called. It wants its 'non-mobile but also not normal Microsoft version of something' back."

Welcome!

[WiiVault]

Pro-Apple Slashdot? You must be new here. Or perhaps you just arrive back from a deserted island. /. has been hating on Apple even more than MS for years now.

Re:Welcome!

[caywen]

Which doesn't really counterpoint anything. You are definitely an experienced /.er.

a few weeks?

[pak9rabid]

...giving coders a couple of weeks' lead time to get their apps ready for the launch of the Windows Phone Marketplace in early October

Well, that sure is nice of them.

Why Ballmer should retire...

[hovelander]

Honestly. M$ had such a lead in the small and smart gadget category. YEARS of leading up from PDA's with "on the market" research and usage data. Then they just stall the category as good enough, again, for years. Did they disband the group like they did with IE?

It blows my mind that they can just cede the market to Google & Apple after all of their work. To NEVER get seriously going on a touch based OS or let the "Surface" UI and hardware to expand across their products.

Madness that Ballmer's stodgy brain is still leading the company when it is obviously time for another Bill Gates style refocus, because their collective ass is starting to reek.

They definitely need a FRESH mind at the top that lets some of their much-heralded "Innovation" out of their labs for once. Or maybe they just want to innovate mice.

WM7 already feels like an "also ran" before the first device gets shipped. That may change, but man are they getting to the party late. I bet that even HP will beat M$ with WebOS in numbers sold at first. (But if history repeats, M$ will make up for it in time and billions of expenditure.)

I can just see Microsoft as a new Junior HS student:
"Hey, I just made this lunch that took me a decade to finish. You want it while I go make another one?"

Sheer Madness...

Re:Microsoft and Incompetence? A tale of two smart

[gbjbaanb]

of course they can do all those things, but I think the differentiators is too little to make a difference. A larger screen will either incur more cost for the manufacturer, or will have to cost the consumer more. I don't know if a more expensive but larger-screen WinPhone will sell more than a smaller screen, cheaper version... but the cost difference isn't going to be massive so one will sell lots, the other will be nothing. Maybe.

Or maybe consumers will see them both as the same thing, and the manufacturers will have to compete on either cost, or things like screen size. They cannot add their own value-add functionality, unless its in the form of apps, whilst the majority of the functions is basic windows phone functionality - same facebook, windows live and bing connectivity without (say) twitter support or the kind of extra that the manufacturers are putting into the android devices as a way of differentiating themselves from their competitors - eg, the Sony multimedia stuff, or the Samsung aldiko ebook reader. Maybe the WinPhone apps will be of such power that they can replace this, but I doubt it - Microsoft wants to keep a "consistent user interface" meaning they get the home page apps that you won't/can't replace.

We'll see. maybe it'll be huge success and everyone will run Windows on every computing device ever made :)

Re:Microsoft and Incompetence? A tale of two smart

[svirre]

HTC et.al will likely go to microsoft with one of their android phones and say "here is the hardware, now port the software, design a new chassis and give us money to market it and we'll sell your stuff"

It's not like they will spend much green on WM7 until it is proven in the market,

Windows Mobile 6.5: a big mistake for me

[DNS-and-BIND]

I got a HTC Touch Pro 2 (Rhodium) purely because it had a slide-out keyboard and supported Windows Mobile. Why WM? Well because there's this killer app called "Pleco" that only runs on WM (and iPhone, but I'm not an Apple guy). Pleco works great. But everything else on the phone TOTALLY SUCKS. I had to replace the stock ROM with a user-modified one because the stock was absolutely UNSUABLE. I'm a late adopter, and I rather foolishly assumed that, by v6.5, that anything made by Microsoft would AT LEAST WORK. I had to reset the phone at least once a day because it stopped responding - during mundane tasks like reading SMS. I got burned bigtime, and there's no way I can justify to myself the cost of buying a new smartphone for the next 12-24 months. Windows 7? Why would it be anything but the same? Seriously, I knew it was MS going in to it but I had no idea it could be this bad and the company's products would still sell.

Re:Microsoft and Incompetence? A tale of two smart

[cbhacking]

The phones themselves can still be customized. Form factor, battery, weight, hardware keyboard design (or lack thereof), physical display size, extra buttons (you can't require them in any apps, but you can use them if you have them), different networks (including the various 3.x and 4G technologies), internal storage, camera capabilities (despite your sarcastic comment, some phones actually have half decent cameras and I'll pay a bit more for that), and more. Also, I believe that the OEMs are still allowed to pre-load software on the phones, so long as they don't change or replace the UI; that could be a differentiator easily.

I wouldn't write it off yet.