Right, because cut and paste, multitasking, and ringtones account for 50% of the entire functionality of a phone.
I'm sorry, but if the difference between the OS as it stands and an OS that you will use is cut and paste and ringtones, then I don't think you had any intention of a fair review. You seem to start from the premise "Windows Phone 7 is terrible" and then find evidence to support your claim, then make that a benchmark for success.
What? iPhone 1 had no cut and paste and no multitasking as well, but it also had no apps, no MMS, no 3G, and initially cost $500-$600, later cut down to a still ridiculous $300-$400.
Windows Phone 7 at least comes in a variety of form factors from a variety of manufacturers on a variety of carriers, and the list will continue to expand, so there is more choice than with iPhone. While it doesn't have as many apps, the list is growing, and the ones I've used so far have been of high quality. For me, the benefits of the Windows Phone 7 over the competition are Office Integration, Xbox integration, Zune pass, Zune software (I despise iTunes, and find the Zune software a joy to use), wireless sync, the integrated Bing search (I know the reputation Bing has around here, but Bing maps is awesome. Don't knock it until you've tried it), and the hardware choices (you can't buy an iPhone with OLED display and slide out keyboard).
If you asked me to trade these plusses for cut and paste and ringtones, at this point I would not. They are such minor issues, and honestly they will be added soon enough. I think the earliest I heard for cut and paste was after Christmas. For now, it seems people want to make a big deal out of it because they have a vested interest in other platforms, not that it's actually deterring them from WP7.
Indeed. Lliterally 90% of the incoming Ph.D. students in my department are Chinese. You wouldn't believe how difficult the concept of academic integrity is to Chinese students. The situation in my department got so bad the devised a course for first year PhDs to go over basic scientific and academic ethics.
For example, we spent a good 2 weeks going over plagiarism, something you learn in grade school in America. Most of the exercises were at the level of "Here is a paragraph from a paper, here is a paragraph written about that paper. Is the new paragraph plagiarism." The examples would vary from blatant copying to full citation and quotation.
What's even more troubling, is after we went over these principles of ethics and were given actual, individual assignments, the Chinese students all got together and did them in a group, each turning in the same work. Then when we had to write a paper, there were instances of blatant copying throughout. I don't want to sound racist, but I think this is a serious cultural difference between Americans and Chinese.
What's even more mind numbing is some of these students were given Fellowships and paid research positions to come here, based on their academic merit, the integrity of which is seriously compromised at this point.
Most professors will provide tests and answers from previous years. I don't think I've had a professor outright refuse to do this.
And from my experience, frat guys usually don't score the highest on exams. My college roommate was in a frat, and he used to take advantage of the test archive and abuse Adderall in order to fit in his drinking binges. For him and his "brothers" it was usually an easy C or D. At my university at least, As were hard to come by even with well focused, responsible studying habits.
That's not insulting, that's stating a fact. And no, I realize the numbers are for the original iPhone. I'm saying that if Apple, probably the company with the most brand loyalists, can sell 270k phones in two days over the weekend, how is Microsoft supposed to top that, especially considering a lot more people have smart phones now than in back then.
In 2006 you had to convince people to switch from a dumb phone or a boring WM6/Blackberry device. Not difficult when you release a whiz-bang multitouch phone. Today, you have a bevy of similar devices to compete with, and you have to convince people to switch away from all their apps.
So if any one buying a smart phone on those networks was "irrational"?
I didn't say this. I said signing a two year contract for $2000 for something you've only seen in pictures is not rational. The $500 or $600 price tag along with it even more so.
From wikitionary: [wiktionary.org] "An phenomenon that generally occurs in advance of an important phenomenon, aiding in its prediction." Opening day sales is a leading indicator; it's not always 100% accurate
Thank you for quoting wikitionary and then not answering the question. I know what a leading indicator is. You can't just point to a number, call it a leading indicator, and then draw a conclusion. Sorry. What you can try to do is use leading sales in some sort of predictive model, or compare similar events, which is what the article is trying to do. However, comparing the first 6 months of sales to the first day of sales and drawing a conclusion is dubious.
I think you're missing a key group in that analysis.
True, I'd be interested in how large this group is.
MS spent $17 million on advertising the Zune alone
Like I said, compared to the juggernaut that is the iPod, $17m in advertising might as well be zero in advertising. I own a Zune HD, it's the best MP3 player I've ever owned, I would recommend it to anyone, but I'm part of a group of customers that $17m in advertising gets you.
And the original iPhone wasn't? What about G1? What about the Droid?
Yes. Yes. No. In the case of the iPhone, it was hyped constantly on every blog for 6 months between announcement and launch to a built-in customer base.
In the case of the G1, I don't know the first day sales numbers, just the 6 month sales numbers. A uniform distribution puts them at 8000 per day. The actual distribution is obviously very different, but the higher you make their launch day numbers, the worse you make the rest of the 6 months.
The droid was not a new platform. It was new to verizon subscribers, but those early adopters had the luxury of perhaps seeing an android phone in person, reading about user experiences on the internet, seeing in depth reviews on you tube, even talking with actual android users to have their questions answered.
Before monday, Windows Phone 7 was available to a hand full of industry insiders and tech review journals. I still don't think you realize how important this process is for such an important purchase.
So all of the first buyers were fanboys? Isn't that a bit presumptuous?
I'm sorry, but anyone who pays $600 and signs a $2000 2 year contract for a product they never used is not a rational consumer.
If history is your guide, let's see what history has to say about the launch of the first Android device.
I'm not saying I agree with this, but you certainly should. After all, even TFA doesn't compare WP7 launch numbers to G1 numbers; it compares WP7 launch numbers to six months of G1 numbers, which averages to only 8,000 units a day.
If history is your guide, you should have predicted Android to be a flop, leaving only the iPhone to dominate
For new products, it is a leading indicator of how many new users want it.
How exactly do you divine the sales trajectory from a single data point. Please explain this to me. Comparing it to other platforms is what TFA is trying to do, but they're comparing monday sales to first weekend sales to first 6 months sales and somehow drawing a conclusion from this.
The assumption you're making is that only fans of the company would buy the new product.
For a product you need to sign a 2 year contract for, yes, I think this is a valid assumption if you're buying it without ever using it or knowing someone who has used it. Further, timing is especially important for phones. To buy a new phone on contract, you have to either be just getting out of your contract, or specifically waiting off contract to buy this phone. Since the probability that any given person just got off his contract on Monday, it's more likely that the people who bought the phone have been waiting specifically for it and are therefore fans.
This percentage of people is very small compared to the general phone market, who is currently on contract. These people will be convinced to buy a windows phone by early adopters. You've seen this effect in action with Android.
For the Droid, there were reported 200,000 sold on opening weekend. Considering few of them used an Android phone before, that was a good start.
Android was over a year old at this point. Users who bought the droid either knew someone who used Android, or had been exposed to it in the store, or through the media. It's funny that you're using the droid as an example of a good start, since as far as I can tell 200k is the opening weekend sales, not single day. During its first week it sold over 250k... so you can see how important weekend sales are. WP7 launched on a Monday.
MS, their biggest worry is that WP7 will be another Zune: A decent product that never sold well despite massive amounts of advertising and marketing.
Zune never had a massive amount of advertising, especially compared to iPod. In iPod's heyday, there would be an iPod silhouette advertisement every commercial break on some channels, on prime time television. The only Zune ads I ever saw were at 11:00 on adult swim.
By your logic, considering that a single model outsold 9 models together, you'd think that 9 different models would have appealed to a wider audience and would have sold better.
You didn't comprehend my argument. The key factor here is that WP7 is a new platform. Early adopters for this type of product are mostly users who have advanced needs and want the best product. Average users aren't interested in a new platform because the either don't know about it or are too nervous to adopt.
I don't think those who stood in line for the original iPhone... qualified as "power users"
No they qualified as fanboys. Brand loyalists are the other category of early adopters. They don't apply for Windows Phone since Microsoft has a negligible following in this category.
The Droid sold 200,000 on opening day
Android was not a brand new platform when Droid was released; it was over a year old.
I don't think you realize how key this factor is. Before Monday, pretty much no one in the united states had used or knew someone who had used, a windows phone. Asking someone to spend hundreds of dollars and sign a two year contract for a product they've never used is lunacy! However, if you know someone who owns and likes the product, you're more likely to buy it. Expect to see the effect of this in the future.
Yes, those are all very impressive numbers (except the 14.1 million iPhone 4 numbers, which are mostly current customers with old iPhones, not new customers). However, this doesn't change the fact that you're extracting a conclusion based on one point of data. Many people have already commented that many stores only had 5-10 phones total, leaving a long waitlist of customers.
without bringing any new functionality
This is your opinion. For me, windows phone 7 integrates better with my devices, has a better user interface, better sync software, offers unique services like Zune Pass, and has more desirable hardware. The question is if there is a sizable amount of people who side with my opinion. You can't divine that from a single data point.
I hate the iPhone UI, and especially hate iTunes. In terms of functionality it seems to do everything I would want from it. I hear a lot of crying about copy/paste but it seems to only be a real issue for people who want to hate WP7.
I own a Zune HD and I've been wanting a Windows Phone since I learned they would be using the same interface. I also own an iPad, and I am constantly frustrated with iTunes compared to the Zune software. Zune pass, Zune software, wireless sync, metro UI, office integration, and xbox integration are the main reasons I am in the market for WP7.
How is the market flooded? According to a Nielsen report from just last week, only 28% of US wireless subscribers have smart phones. Seems to me there's still room for growth. Personally, I don't own a smart phone yet, but I'll be buying a Windows Phone come Christmas.
I see a lot of comments talking about how WP7 does nothing new or different compared to the competition. I've owned a Zune HD for the past year, and more than anything about it I like the interface. When I heard WP7 would have the same interface, that's all I needed to know to decide my next phone would be WP7. It's really one of those things you have to use and play with before you really get it.
Why are opening day sales the benchmark for success? High opening day sales for a first gen product running a brand new platform, to me, is indicative of a rabidly loyal fanbase. If you're anyone other than Apple, I think you'll have a damn hard time convincing people to drop a couple hundred dollars and sign a two year contract for a product they've never used, no matter how many millions you spend on TV commercials.
If people choose WP7 over Android or iPhone, they're going to do so because they know someone who has one, or have used one themselves. The effect of MS's advertising will not be realized in first day, first week, or even first quarter sales.
Just because there are 9 different models does not mean there will automatically be more sales. The point of different models is to appeal to users who have different needs. That is, some users might want a physical keyboard while others might want just a touch screen. You can also offer a cheaper version with lesser specifications for people who don't want to spend as much money. So the end result of a diverse product line is that over time you can potentially sell more units.
But who buys a first generation phone for a brand new platform on launch day? Mostly power users who probably want the top of the line phone. It's entirely plausible then that the higher end models sold out at some stores, leaving lower end models on the shelves. An early adopter would choose to wait for the better phone rather than settle for the lower end model, especially considering purchase is usually contingent on signing a two year contract. What's waiting a couple more weeks compared to two years?
In fact, this seems to at least be the case for T-Mobile, who temporarily sold out of HD7s on Monday, so my rambling may not be too far from the truth.
I fully agree. I have modpoints, but I already posted.
As I said in another post, a pragmatic individual would see the first day numbers and say "Okay, but how do they change over time?" It could be that sales see exponential growth. It could be that they rise and fall as people gain and lose interest.
But anyone who takes a single point of data and draws a conclusion (whatever it may be), already held the conclusion a priori. At this point, those claiming that Windows Phone is a failure because of first day sales estimates, want Windows Phone to be a failure, and are using this data to reassure themselves that Windows Phone is a failure.
Microsoft has fanboys? I'd say company who sold 300,000 phones to people who hadn't even used it has fanboys. I mean, they put down $600 and agreed to a two year contract before they even held the damn thing! The company that sells 40k on a Monday has customers who want to wait until the weekend to at least use the product before signing over their soul to AT&T.
Accord to this apple sales report, the original iPhone sold 270,000 in Q3, 2007. Apple's Q3 is from April through June. Since the iPhone was launched on June 29, this accounts for two days of sales. The source also notes "Mondays aren't great launch days. They poured all that cash into it but they lost track of the fact that Fridays or Saturdays are the best launch days." June 29-30 was Friday and Saturday in 2007.
Finally, it's worth noting that Apple has a rabid fanbase that will buy anything Apple produces, sight unseen. This is evidenced of course by their massive first day sales numbers of first generation products. Not to mention, Apple has built in, very friendly, free press which placed the iPhone on every blog, every TV station, every newspaper, every late night talk show, and every evening news broadcast. Microsoft does not have that luxury. The only talk of the windows phone I've seen has been in a skeptical tone, which also gives Apple press; The Microsoft's headline is typically "Will Windows Phone best the iPhone?" whereas Apple's headline is typically "The new iPhone: Best phone ever."
I'd say at any rate, judging the success/failure of a platform based on first day, first week, or even first quarter sales is myopic. If the iPhone had ONLY sold 270,000 phones in the first two days, it would not have been a success. In fact, the iPhone didn't see real sales numbers until the 3G. I feel calling the platform a failure at this point is just intended to spread FUD.
There are millions of people who would willingly trade jobs with Ballmer even if they kept their current level of pay.
So? Ballmer has not only earned the right, by being faithful to Microsoft since the beginning, but proven that he can deliver billions of dollars in profit quarter after quarter. Why replace him with a random schmuck just because they'll work for nothing?
There are only so many hours in the day. The average person works for 8 of them and takes about 40K/year for it.
Again, so what? The average person wakes up at an average hour, makes average decisions, which have an average impact, they throw in the towel at precisely 5:00:00 PM (and not a second after) and go home to the average family. Ballmer's decisions impact almost 90 thousand of employees, billions of customers around the globe, and generate tens of billions in revenue.
Wow, bitter much? I can see your job sucks, but I can guarantee you Ballmer makes more billion dollar decisions before he puts his pants on in the morning than you'll make in your entire life.
That's the other part of science; you have to be able to design experiments which can potentially falsify a hypothesis. If your hypothesis is "God created the Earth" how do you falsify that? Further, when contradictions are found (if the Earth is 6000 years old, why do we have fossils that are 65 million years old) the convenient response is "God put them there to test my faith."
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Right, because cut and paste, multitasking, and ringtones account for 50% of the entire functionality of a phone.
I'm sorry, but if the difference between the OS as it stands and an OS that you will use is cut and paste and ringtones, then I don't think you had any intention of a fair review. You seem to start from the premise "Windows Phone 7 is terrible" and then find evidence to support your claim, then make that a benchmark for success.
What? iPhone 1 had no cut and paste and no multitasking as well, but it also had no apps, no MMS, no 3G, and initially cost $500-$600, later cut down to a still ridiculous $300-$400.
Windows Phone 7 at least comes in a variety of form factors from a variety of manufacturers on a variety of carriers, and the list will continue to expand, so there is more choice than with iPhone. While it doesn't have as many apps, the list is growing, and the ones I've used so far have been of high quality. For me, the benefits of the Windows Phone 7 over the competition are Office Integration, Xbox integration, Zune pass, Zune software (I despise iTunes, and find the Zune software a joy to use), wireless sync, the integrated Bing search (I know the reputation Bing has around here, but Bing maps is awesome. Don't knock it until you've tried it), and the hardware choices (you can't buy an iPhone with OLED display and slide out keyboard).
If you asked me to trade these plusses for cut and paste and ringtones, at this point I would not. They are such minor issues, and honestly they will be added soon enough. I think the earliest I heard for cut and paste was after Christmas. For now, it seems people want to make a big deal out of it because they have a vested interest in other platforms, not that it's actually deterring them from WP7.
Indeed. Lliterally 90% of the incoming Ph.D. students in my department are Chinese. You wouldn't believe how difficult the concept of academic integrity is to Chinese students. The situation in my department got so bad the devised a course for first year PhDs to go over basic scientific and academic ethics.
For example, we spent a good 2 weeks going over plagiarism, something you learn in grade school in America. Most of the exercises were at the level of "Here is a paragraph from a paper, here is a paragraph written about that paper. Is the new paragraph plagiarism." The examples would vary from blatant copying to full citation and quotation.
What's even more troubling, is after we went over these principles of ethics and were given actual, individual assignments, the Chinese students all got together and did them in a group, each turning in the same work. Then when we had to write a paper, there were instances of blatant copying throughout. I don't want to sound racist, but I think this is a serious cultural difference between Americans and Chinese.
What's even more mind numbing is some of these students were given Fellowships and paid research positions to come here, based on their academic merit, the integrity of which is seriously compromised at this point.
Most professors will provide tests and answers from previous years. I don't think I've had a professor outright refuse to do this.
And from my experience, frat guys usually don't score the highest on exams. My college roommate was in a frat, and he used to take advantage of the test archive and abuse Adderall in order to fit in his drinking binges. For him and his "brothers" it was usually an easy C or D. At my university at least, As were hard to come by even with well focused, responsible studying habits.
That's not insulting, that's stating a fact. And no, I realize the numbers are for the original iPhone. I'm saying that if Apple, probably the company with the most brand loyalists, can sell 270k phones in two days over the weekend, how is Microsoft supposed to top that, especially considering a lot more people have smart phones now than in back then.
In 2006 you had to convince people to switch from a dumb phone or a boring WM6/Blackberry device. Not difficult when you release a whiz-bang multitouch phone. Today, you have a bevy of similar devices to compete with, and you have to convince people to switch away from all their apps.
So if any one buying a smart phone on those networks was "irrational"?
I didn't say this. I said signing a two year contract for $2000 for something you've only seen in pictures is not rational. The $500 or $600 price tag along with it even more so.
From wikitionary: [wiktionary.org] "An phenomenon that generally occurs in advance of an important phenomenon, aiding in its prediction." Opening day sales is a leading indicator; it's not always 100% accurate
Thank you for quoting wikitionary and then not answering the question. I know what a leading indicator is. You can't just point to a number, call it a leading indicator, and then draw a conclusion. Sorry. What you can try to do is use leading sales in some sort of predictive model, or compare similar events, which is what the article is trying to do. However, comparing the first 6 months of sales to the first day of sales and drawing a conclusion is dubious.
I think you're missing a key group in that analysis.
True, I'd be interested in how large this group is.
MS spent $17 million on advertising the Zune alone
Like I said, compared to the juggernaut that is the iPod, $17m in advertising might as well be zero in advertising. I own a Zune HD, it's the best MP3 player I've ever owned, I would recommend it to anyone, but I'm part of a group of customers that $17m in advertising gets you.
And the original iPhone wasn't? What about G1? What about the Droid?
Yes. Yes. No. In the case of the iPhone, it was hyped constantly on every blog for 6 months between announcement and launch to a built-in customer base.
In the case of the G1, I don't know the first day sales numbers, just the 6 month sales numbers. A uniform distribution puts them at 8000 per day. The actual distribution is obviously very different, but the higher you make their launch day numbers, the worse you make the rest of the 6 months.
The droid was not a new platform. It was new to verizon subscribers, but those early adopters had the luxury of perhaps seeing an android phone in person, reading about user experiences on the internet, seeing in depth reviews on you tube, even talking with actual android users to have their questions answered.
Before monday, Windows Phone 7 was available to a hand full of industry insiders and tech review journals. I still don't think you realize how important this process is for such an important purchase.
So all of the first buyers were fanboys? Isn't that a bit presumptuous?
I'm sorry, but anyone who pays $600 and signs a $2000 2 year contract for a product they never used is not a rational consumer.
If history is your guide, let's see what history has to say about the launch of the first Android device.
I'm not saying I agree with this, but you certainly should. After all, even TFA doesn't compare WP7 launch numbers to G1 numbers; it compares WP7 launch numbers to six months of G1 numbers, which averages to only 8,000 units a day.
If history is your guide, you should have predicted Android to be a flop, leaving only the iPhone to dominate
For new products, it is a leading indicator of how many new users want it.
How exactly do you divine the sales trajectory from a single data point. Please explain this to me. Comparing it to other platforms is what TFA is trying to do, but they're comparing monday sales to first weekend sales to first 6 months sales and somehow drawing a conclusion from this.
The assumption you're making is that only fans of the company would buy the new product.
For a product you need to sign a 2 year contract for, yes, I think this is a valid assumption if you're buying it without ever using it or knowing someone who has used it. Further, timing is especially important for phones. To buy a new phone on contract, you have to either be just getting out of your contract, or specifically waiting off contract to buy this phone. Since the probability that any given person just got off his contract on Monday, it's more likely that the people who bought the phone have been waiting specifically for it and are therefore fans.
This percentage of people is very small compared to the general phone market, who is currently on contract. These people will be convinced to buy a windows phone by early adopters. You've seen this effect in action with Android.
For the Droid, there were reported 200,000 sold on opening weekend. Considering few of them used an Android phone before, that was a good start.
Android was over a year old at this point. Users who bought the droid either knew someone who used Android, or had been exposed to it in the store, or through the media. It's funny that you're using the droid as an example of a good start, since as far as I can tell 200k is the opening weekend sales, not single day. During its first week it sold over 250k... so you can see how important weekend sales are. WP7 launched on a Monday.
MS, their biggest worry is that WP7 will be another Zune: A decent product that never sold well despite massive amounts of advertising and marketing.
Zune never had a massive amount of advertising, especially compared to iPod. In iPod's heyday, there would be an iPod silhouette advertisement every commercial break on some channels, on prime time television. The only Zune ads I ever saw were at 11:00 on adult swim.
By your logic, considering that a single model outsold 9 models together, you'd think that 9 different models would have appealed to a wider audience and would have sold better.
You didn't comprehend my argument. The key factor here is that WP7 is a new platform. Early adopters for this type of product are mostly users who have advanced needs and want the best product. Average users aren't interested in a new platform because the either don't know about it or are too nervous to adopt.
I don't think those who stood in line for the original iPhone ... qualified as "power users"
No they qualified as fanboys. Brand loyalists are the other category of early adopters. They don't apply for Windows Phone since Microsoft has a negligible following in this category.
The Droid sold 200,000 on opening day
Android was not a brand new platform when Droid was released; it was over a year old.
I don't think you realize how key this factor is. Before Monday, pretty much no one in the united states had used or knew someone who had used, a windows phone. Asking someone to spend hundreds of dollars and sign a two year contract for a product they've never used is lunacy! However, if you know someone who owns and likes the product, you're more likely to buy it. Expect to see the effect of this in the future.
Yes, those are all very impressive numbers (except the 14.1 million iPhone 4 numbers, which are mostly current customers with old iPhones, not new customers). However, this doesn't change the fact that you're extracting a conclusion based on one point of data. Many people have already commented that many stores only had 5-10 phones total, leaving a long waitlist of customers.
without bringing any new functionality
This is your opinion. For me, windows phone 7 integrates better with my devices, has a better user interface, better sync software, offers unique services like Zune Pass, and has more desirable hardware. The question is if there is a sizable amount of people who side with my opinion. You can't divine that from a single data point.
I hate the iPhone UI, and especially hate iTunes. In terms of functionality it seems to do everything I would want from it. I hear a lot of crying about copy/paste but it seems to only be a real issue for people who want to hate WP7.
I own a Zune HD and I've been wanting a Windows Phone since I learned they would be using the same interface. I also own an iPad, and I am constantly frustrated with iTunes compared to the Zune software. Zune pass, Zune software, wireless sync, metro UI, office integration, and xbox integration are the main reasons I am in the market for WP7.
How is the market flooded? According to a Nielsen report from just last week, only 28% of US wireless subscribers have smart phones. Seems to me there's still room for growth. Personally, I don't own a smart phone yet, but I'll be buying a Windows Phone come Christmas.
I see a lot of comments talking about how WP7 does nothing new or different compared to the competition. I've owned a Zune HD for the past year, and more than anything about it I like the interface. When I heard WP7 would have the same interface, that's all I needed to know to decide my next phone would be WP7. It's really one of those things you have to use and play with before you really get it.
Why are opening day sales the benchmark for success? High opening day sales for a first gen product running a brand new platform, to me, is indicative of a rabidly loyal fanbase. If you're anyone other than Apple, I think you'll have a damn hard time convincing people to drop a couple hundred dollars and sign a two year contract for a product they've never used, no matter how many millions you spend on TV commercials.
If people choose WP7 over Android or iPhone, they're going to do so because they know someone who has one, or have used one themselves. The effect of MS's advertising will not be realized in first day, first week, or even first quarter sales.
Just because there are 9 different models does not mean there will automatically be more sales. The point of different models is to appeal to users who have different needs. That is, some users might want a physical keyboard while others might want just a touch screen. You can also offer a cheaper version with lesser specifications for people who don't want to spend as much money. So the end result of a diverse product line is that over time you can potentially sell more units.
But who buys a first generation phone for a brand new platform on launch day? Mostly power users who probably want the top of the line phone. It's entirely plausible then that the higher end models sold out at some stores, leaving lower end models on the shelves. An early adopter would choose to wait for the better phone rather than settle for the lower end model, especially considering purchase is usually contingent on signing a two year contract. What's waiting a couple more weeks compared to two years?
In fact, this seems to at least be the case for T-Mobile, who temporarily sold out of HD7s on Monday, so my rambling may not be too far from the truth.
I fully agree. I have modpoints, but I already posted.
As I said in another post, a pragmatic individual would see the first day numbers and say "Okay, but how do they change over time?" It could be that sales see exponential growth. It could be that they rise and fall as people gain and lose interest.
But anyone who takes a single point of data and draws a conclusion (whatever it may be), already held the conclusion a priori. At this point, those claiming that Windows Phone is a failure because of first day sales estimates, want Windows Phone to be a failure, and are using this data to reassure themselves that Windows Phone is a failure.
Microsoft has fanboys? I'd say company who sold 300,000 phones to people who hadn't even used it has fanboys. I mean, they put down $600 and agreed to a two year contract before they even held the damn thing! The company that sells 40k on a Monday has customers who want to wait until the weekend to at least use the product before signing over their soul to AT&T.
Accord to this apple sales report, the original iPhone sold 270,000 in Q3, 2007. Apple's Q3 is from April through June. Since the iPhone was launched on June 29, this accounts for two days of sales. The source also notes "Mondays aren't great launch days. They poured all that cash into it but they lost track of the fact that Fridays or Saturdays are the best launch days." June 29-30 was Friday and Saturday in 2007.
Finally, it's worth noting that Apple has a rabid fanbase that will buy anything Apple produces, sight unseen. This is evidenced of course by their massive first day sales numbers of first generation products. Not to mention, Apple has built in, very friendly, free press which placed the iPhone on every blog, every TV station, every newspaper, every late night talk show, and every evening news broadcast. Microsoft does not have that luxury. The only talk of the windows phone I've seen has been in a skeptical tone, which also gives Apple press; The Microsoft's headline is typically "Will Windows Phone best the iPhone?" whereas Apple's headline is typically "The new iPhone: Best phone ever."
I'd say at any rate, judging the success/failure of a platform based on first day, first week, or even first quarter sales is myopic. If the iPhone had ONLY sold 270,000 phones in the first two days, it would not have been a success. In fact, the iPhone didn't see real sales numbers until the 3G. I feel calling the platform a failure at this point is just intended to spread FUD.
There are millions of people who would willingly trade jobs with Ballmer even if they kept their current level of pay.
So? Ballmer has not only earned the right, by being faithful to Microsoft since the beginning, but proven that he can deliver billions of dollars in profit quarter after quarter. Why replace him with a random schmuck just because they'll work for nothing?
There are only so many hours in the day. The average person works for 8 of them and takes about 40K/year for it.
Again, so what? The average person wakes up at an average hour, makes average decisions, which have an average impact, they throw in the towel at precisely 5:00:00 PM (and not a second after) and go home to the average family. Ballmer's decisions impact almost 90 thousand of employees, billions of customers around the globe, and generate tens of billions in revenue.
Wow, bitter much? I can see your job sucks, but I can guarantee you Ballmer makes more billion dollar decisions before he puts his pants on in the morning than you'll make in your entire life.
That's the other part of science; you have to be able to design experiments which can potentially falsify a hypothesis. If your hypothesis is "God created the Earth" how do you falsify that? Further, when contradictions are found (if the Earth is 6000 years old, why do we have fossils that are 65 million years old) the convenient response is "God put them there to test my faith."
I would love to hear more of your terse, one sentence rebuttals to well thought out, well reasoned comments.