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What Windows Phone 8 Needs To Do To Succeed
As Microsoft prepares for the launch of Windows Phone 8 devices, its most important push into the smartphone industry to date, speculation is rampant about whether or not consumers will continue to ignore Windows-based phones. There are many obvious ways Microsoft could misstep and lose its chance to participate in another generation of phones, but what would it take for Windows Phone 8 to succeed? To start, they can take advantage of manufacturers who are worried about being pursued over patent claims. They could also work to establish the permanence of Windows Phone 8, after the upgrade inflexibility involved with Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile 6.5. Finally, they could take a page out of Amazon's book and make WP8 devices more about services.
It's a bit player in a competitive market. Microsoft has not leveraged Windows Phone 8 to better integrate with Windows business technologies (I'm talking Active Directory and Group Policies), and since both iOS and Android support ActiveSync for Exchange connectivity, it's not as if Microsoft is going to improve on that.
So I'd say the odds are stacked against Microsoft. It's about three years too late to the party, and not leveraging its phone OS with other Microsoft products means there is absolutely no reason for a business customer like myself to give a damn about it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The question is simple, why should I buy a Windows phone? What does it give me that I cannot get from Android or Apple? After all, if there is no big reason to choose Windows phone, then I would lean towards one with a broader base of apps. Once they're able to get a compelling mainstream reason why to move to Windows phone, they need to market it. Right now they think having a unified experience between desktop and phone is that killer feature. We'll see if they're right.
Hello copy-paste shill and welcome! I happened to observe that you posted at the instant the story went live, and had nothing but good things to say about MS. You also called out in particular MS's awesome Visual Studio product - a common thread among these kinds of posts over the last few months. Perhaps not coincidentally, Slashdot is a site that's seen as catering to developer types.
On other sites, I assume you have a similarly tailored copy-paste message ready to go.
First post to this story. First post ever for this account.
Quite amazing if you ask me...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It would take someone dropping a nuke on Cupertino. Outside of that, I don't really see it happening.
No you're missing the point. It's a long writeup ostensibly about how MS is positioned for success - but if you read a little closer, it's actually pitching Visual Studio to the slashdot crowd (like so many similar posts have in recent months). By presenting commentary related to VS as fact in the context of opinion related to the phone product, they're trying to send a subtle message that it's already proven beyond question that VS is a good product. By focusing on the debate around the phone - evidenced by your inclusion of "Nokia" in the list of culprits - you let that slip right by ;)
I'm assuming he's got a library of such commentary pre-written and ready to go, possibly provided by his employers. Most likely a subscription account as well (but posting with indicator turned off), so that he can get FP on these types of stories.
In my opinion Nokia was the perfect partner for this but they no longer are the perfect partner. Nokia got burned badly by the Win 7 phones and they bet the company on this partnership. I am afraid that in the first world too many people will view the Win 8 phone as another potential compatibility nightmare (for those that know about the previous Nokia Win 7 phones) or they'll see them as "not an iPhone or an Android and therefore a loser platform that won't survive". Nokia just reminds me of too many IT companies that can't admit that the market changed and they weren't prepared and can't play catchup any more. They've got the garbage section of the mobile phone industry covered. If you want low featured "I just want a phone that's a phone" type devices, then they are your company, especially if you live in a less developed country where you either can't afford or can't get an Android or iPhone. But I think that it's too late for them to get taken seriously in developed parts of AustralAsia, Europe and North America that basically want tiny computers that masquerade as phones.
The marriage of operating system with services on the internet is stupid, stupid, fucking stupid.
Let apps be free. Let the apps implement that third party integration. Nobody fucking cares about Bing or Zune, stop trying to shove it down people's throats.
What they should be doing is emphasizing how little it actually matters what search engine you use, or how little matters if you post to Twitter versus Facebook, or how little it matters if apps come from iTunes or Google Play or the Zune store.
All that really matters is usability and security, and you can do that without crippling the devices and locking them down tighter than Steve Jobs' mummified sphincter.
The UI spectacular, and Visual Studio is far and away better than Eclipse and Xcode. So stop giving developers reasons to hate Microsoft and the apps will come, and then the people will come. Developers developers developers.
I'm serious. every iteration of WinPhone has abandoned its users to no upward compatibility and no further support. If I had been silly or strung out enough to have bought a Win7 phone, I wouldn't have a WinProduct ever again.
not that I'm in the market, because they are a year late and a trillion dollars short in the market. the only industry reaction in anything close to real time to the iPhone was Google, and that's why those two lines have killed the rest of the business. you add up all the alternatives... WinPhone, BBOS, Symbian, Palm, whatever the Chinese just started up... add 'em all up, and it's an asterisk, too small to measure.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
No. You're FUCKED without compatibility.
You want a walled garden? That's iOS and Apple. They win. Look what MS did to Apple in the 90s. That's who and where you are now, bottom bunk in a Turkish prison.
You want the ability to do anything you want? That's Android. I can transfer any of the files I... rented... to my HTC, watch em when I want, listen to the music I like, and it works with any computer on the planet as long as it's got either a USB port or Bluetooth. Would a Windows 7/8 phone be able to sync with my dad's four-year-old phone and drag off the photos? No. I can link my freakin' WATCH to my Android.
MS wants a proprietary system, specialized software, and total lockdown. I can't transfer files via Bluetooth, or USB, or anything else. Just your software, your walls, your garden. Sure, it's pretty, but I can throw that skin onto my Android.
I've used VS before. Nothing like being unable to run a program you've written because it's unsigned. True, I could be admin all the time but you never can be on a phone, since they're usually feature-locked by the Telco.
What's the advantage to getting a Windows phone?
There isn't one.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
And Mountain View. And Seoul. And Waterloo. And Tokyo. And Redmond, just to be sure. Then Windows Phone 8 can really fly.
It's the fact that it's still Windows, and Microsoft is still working on the paradigm of a single code build to rule them all, that's a complete turn-off to me, and makes the chance of me ever owning such a device bordering on nonexistent.
It was trying to deal with a company issued Windows mobile 5 phone, and later a Windows mobile 6 phone, that taught me that Microsoft just doesn't get the differences between the touch and kvm paradigms. It appears that they're going to "solve" this by making everything (including kvm pcs) run a touch-friendly interface.
The thing is, Microsoft has yet to create a truly successful touch interface. (The original "surface" had some really cutting edge features but was never released.) "Windows 7 tablet edition" is unbelievably bad, being for the most part a re-branding of old accessibility resources. Windows 7 Phone never took off, despite some early moderately favorable reviews, perhaps due to it's association to other failed attempts (see paragraph one).
So now... honestly, why do I need Windows Phone 8? Compatibility with Exchange? A known solution on both iphone and android. Compatibility with Microsoft Office? My Android phone came with Quickoffice, and it appears to be working fine. I can mail myself a PPT, open it on the phone, and use the HDMI interface to display on a projector, no laptop necessary.
Tiles that update dynamically? Android has had that (widgets) for years.
That it's called Windows? That's actually a reason *not* to buy it.
So, like, what? The number of applications? Um, no. The maturity of the code base? It is to laugh. Let's see... Crush on Steve Ballmer... nope. Love the logo... nope, if anything, the new logo looks amateurish. Microsoft has done such a great job on my PC that I'll buy anything they produce? Let's see, examining feelings, um, that would be a no. I'm really reaching here, but I don't know what else might come into play. Oh wait, I know:
I work for Microsoft and they're giving me a Windows 8 phone and tablet for free? Well, that might work. At very least, it'll reduce inventory somewhat. Storage must be costly.
On the other hand, my company (which isn't Microsoft) issued me a Windows Mobile phone, and after a very frustrating three months I gave it back. (In all fairness, they also issued me an ipad, and after a week, seeing that I'd still need to carry a laptop, I gave back the ipad.) So a more correct wording might be "We're giving Microsoft employees a free Windows 8 phone and you better the hell be seen using it".
That, plus TV show prop departments heavily subsidize by Microsoft (cough-hawaii-50-cough) might be the only places you see the critters.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
They could try having a product when they have a product announcement. You know, a thing to sell, or pre-order with a solid ship date. I saw the new Nokia phone announcement and was like "that sounds great, I need a new phone now anyway" and looked for a ship date. nothing. Looked for a price. nothing. Looks like a great phone.
Shipping is a feature. Announce when that feature's complete, not other features. Amazon had an announcement, they had products, they had pre-orders, they had hands-on demo production products for the press, they're burning through sales. Apple had an announcement, they have pre-orders, they had hands-on demo production products for the press, they're selling product and their online store is already on backorder.
Microsoft and Nokia had announcements. They have no product, no preorders, people didn't get any hands on time with what the actual shipping product will be, the phone demo movie was faked up to the point where if they hadn't backed off they'd be looking at criminal fraud indictments, the actual "products" they had for demos were showing powerpoint slides for all they were worth.
Tease launches only work for industry-new products. Apple pulled it off with the original iPhone and iPad because there weren't any competitive products in the space, so the market didn't have an option to go out and buy something that filled that need *right now*. Microsoft and Nokia are trying to do a tease launch, when I can go to the store and buy something very similar for a probably similar price and have it in my hand before Microsoft and Nokia will get around to announcing prices, much less ship dates.
Microsoft is so used to being the industry leader they've forgotten how to act when they're not. Little hint guys: Apple's iPhone business is bigger than Microsoft. Not that Apple is bigger, Apple's iPhone business. Just that one piece of their business. Not that Apple couldn't be taken down by an innovative competitor with an effective marketing strategy, but Microsoft is neither an innovative competitor nor do they market effectively.
So, again, Microsoft is too little and too late to the party, and will be utterly ignored.