Microsoft To Abandon Windows Phone?

symbolset writes "Microsoft has had some trouble as of late getting adoption of their mobile products. Even Bill Gates has said it was inadequate. Despite rave reviews of Windows Phone in the press it has failed to get double digit share of the smartphone market. Now comes reports from WMPoweruser that WP8 will lose mainstream support in July 2014."

Comments

Perception is reality

[RightwingNutjob]

Microsoft is still dealing with the fact that their flagship products throughout the 1990's are almost universally associated with crashes, poor performance, and overhyped marketing. It bit them with the Zune, and now it's biting them with the phones. You know why XBox is so big? It doesn't have the word 'Windows' or 'Microsoft' in its name, and it had (still has?) its own business unit with its own management structure not tied to Windows.

Re:Perception is reality

[dissy]

I'm fairly certain the GP was not implying WP8 has any of those problems.
He said Microsoft has an image problem due to previous products, which is very true.

Older MS phones had a bad image, requiring reboots multiple times a day due to crashes and poor performance. Phones locking up when receiving calls, missing alarms, and the stylus interface that attempted to mirror the desktop on a teeny screen were all problems older WinCE phones had.

Windows 95 was famous for not being able to function much longer than a month at a time without a reboot. All of the pre NT series of windows were very unstable, and were very insecure due to the chosen single user design.

Both of those together created an image in the public mind that Microsoft products crash, are flaky, and can not be relied upon.

Now, compare that to today. Windows 7 and 8 are pretty stable, and much much more secure than predecessors (irrespective to any comparison to their competition)
As you say, WP8 has none of those older problems (I am taking your word for that, as I have no experience with windows phones since CE 6 - But at least they didn't stick to the desktop UI!)

Neither of those facts has yet had enough time to change that older image that has been in place for over a decade. They may not until yet another decade has passed.

Peoples purchasing decisions are not based on facts, at least not completely (or even mostly) - so such facts as how great the product actually is, is irrelevant.
The facts from the past have tainted their image so much that purchasing decisions of today are being based on that instead.

It may or may not be fair (which is a whole other discussion) but that is pretty much what is going on, and why sales are so low.
It doesn't matter how great the product is today, what matters is their experience in the past and their personal limit on taking a chance of the same result again.

Personally, if a person or company screws me over and has no remorse at doing so and no indication they want or will change, I refuse to have that person or company as a part of my life.
If a person or company screws me over enough times, even with all the apologies in the world and the best of intentions, after a point I will be distancing myself from them more as well.

It's much easier to convince someone to try something completely new, than it is to convince them to try something they have done before and had a bad experience with.

Re:WP8 compatibility - forward and backward

[Moofie]

And all you have to do is trust that Microsoft will not abandon their existing customers.

I'll leave the consideration of that track record as an exercise for the audience.

Re:Good news

[SQLGuru]

Even the article says that WP8.Next would have its own cycle......so a WP8.5 or WP9 would still get at least 18 months of support. The summary is just FUD. There was nothing in the article and nothing in their source saying that Microsoft was abandoning Windows Phone as a platform......just that the OS support has a time limit.

Re:Bullshit story and another Slashdot low

[jazzmans]

My mod points ran out yesterday, so I can't mod you up.

But, and this is coming from a linux and android fan, Your post is spot on!

FUD sucks no matter where it's coming from, and this (OP and thread) is totall sheit.

Mod Parent Up!

Re:Good news

[Dr Max]

They aren't abandoning windows phone. If the story poster had read the story, he would of seen they are stopping support for windows phone 8 in 2014, but considering windows 9 will be coming out fairly soon, that is hardly a problem. Does this guy think that Microsoft has abandoned windows because they stopped support for XP?