

Windows Phone is Superior; Why Hasn’t it Taken Off?  - cek
http://ceklog.kindel.com/2011/12/26/windows-phone-is-superior-why-hasnt-it-taken-off/

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1010011010
People don't trust Microsoft. And they're selling it under the Windows brand.
How cool is Windows? Not very. Who wants viruses and blue screens on their
phone? Not many people. (note: it's irrelevant whether blue screens and
viruses actually exist on WP7).

The XBox succeeded in part because it was sold off-brand.

~~~
Shorel
Irrelevant.

I would rewrite your comment this way:

Developers don't trust Microsoft. Who wants the OS vendor to make competition
for their software? Not many developers. And Microsoft will if it can, because
it has to grow.

The XBOX succeeded in part because competition in games is a non-exclusive
agreement, a gamer that buys a racing title will probably buy another racing
title.

A customer that buys MS Office will not buy another suite.

A customer that buys or downloads for free the MS app in his phone will not
buy another app that does the same, even if it's better.

~~~
freehunter
Isn't Apple an OS vendor, one with a history of not approving apps that
compete with what Apple has already done, and of taking existing apps off the
market when Apple rolls out their own version?

~~~
Shorel
True, and the fact that they are very clear about it seems to make a
difference.

Also, they have a marketplace that has helped lots of developers already.

The point is, whatever Apple is doing, is not as bad as the "is not ready
until Lotus/Novell/etc doesn't run" that MS did in the past.

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astrodust
Today's Microsoft is yesterday's Old Spice, it's an "old man" brand that
nobody wants to touch. It's the ultimate of un-cool and hasn't even risen to
the level of irony like using an old Motorola or Nokia phone as a statement
would.

They need to market these Windows Phone 7 things directly to people who are
thinking Android, and they need to push them and push them hard. All I ever
see are these weak-sauce ads that have nothing to say and leave you more
confused at the end than at the beginning.

~~~
untog
I'm not disagreeing, but I do wonder: is Blackberry cool? I don't know a
single person that regards Blackberry as a desirable brand. But they are
(were?) known for solid devices and good integration.

~~~
frou_dh
A lot of high school kids in the UK have Blackberries for some reason. Maybe
they're the best for hyperactive texting.

~~~
astrodust
If I had to guess it's because they're $0 phones and often come bundled with
inexpensive unlimited texting plans.

If you're a thirteen year old girl that sends a hundred texts a day, which is
actually the average, then a you'll want the one with the physical keyboard.

Plus, the Blackberry Pearl doesn't look that bad as far as phone gadgets go.
You can even pick from a variety of colors, something which the Android and
iPhone offerings lack without spending extra on a case or stickers.

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notatoad
Because Microsoft is promoting it as a premium product. people who want a
premium phone get an iPhone and everybody else gets an android. Windows phone
is positioned to compete with iPhone, which it can't do.

This opinion excludes nerds who obsess and agonize over things before making a
purchase, so please don't reply with "wahh android is premium too" comments. I
agree, but that isn't how it is positioned in the marketplace.

~~~
michaelcampbell
> people who want a premium phone get an iPhone and everybody else gets an
> android.

12-15 months ago I'd agree, but the latest crop of Android phones compete
quite handily in "premiumness".

~~~
notatoad
Please read the second part of my above comment. The premiumness of the phone
is irrelevant as long as the salespeople in the stores are still selling
android as "the phone that isn't an iPhone"

~~~
michaelcampbell
> The premiumness of the phone is irrelevant as long as the salespeople in the
> stores are still selling android as "the phone that isn't an iPhone"

I actually haven't seen that. Again, perhaps in the past, but these days
there's a lot of knowledge about Android. Perhaps your experiences have been
different and I will readily acknowledge I may have been lucky, but your
assertions don't match what I've seen. <shrug>

~~~
notatoad
I think you probably got lucky, but you're right that android knowledge is
growing and and there now exists a good sized group of people who will
specifically seek out an android phone when the time comes to upgrade. But for
the large majority of people, their first android phone was purchased because
they just wanted a cheap generic smartphone and that meant android. And for
the large group of people that is still switching from feature phones to
smartphones, android is still the default cheap phone, and iPhone is still the
default premier phone.

Windows phone's target market is fans of windows phone, but they are trying to
build that group exclusively through advertising. Apple built their market of
apple fans through the iPod and other products. Android built a market of
android fans through the cheap phones to feed sales of premium android phones.
Windows phone needs a feeder market if it wants to be a premium product.

------
AndrewDucker
Why would I want a Windows Phone?

If I want locked-down smoothness I'd have an iPhone (it has all the apps). If
I want openness, I'd have Android (I can install anything I like).

What does WP7 give me?

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Are those the only 2 possible things a consumer might want?

~~~
michaelcampbell
No, but his question is still unanswered. What does WP7 bring to the table?
Simply saying WP7 is superior doesn't make it so.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
What it brings to the table is largely irrelevant; consumers don't make their
phone purchasing decisions based on these one-liner cliches that the
grandparent lays out. The important question is: what does Windows Phone bring
to the carriers (the people who sell the phones).

~~~
kamaal
It's a different world altogether. When people think of paying for a mobile.
They are by default thinking of paying for the hardware. They don't care,
about what runs inside. When people buy an iPhone they are automatically
imagining an awesome form factor an awesome UI. By default shipped to them.

So now here is the problem, If HTC ships a phone, will it be an 'HTC phone' or
a 'Windows phone'? Now you see there is a problem there. People have trouble
imagining the term 'HTC phone running windows'. They understand only single
branding. Its either Windows phone or a HTC phone. That's the same thing as
during the PC era, for an ordinary user it was always 'I have a Dell computer'
or 'I have a Toshiba', It was never a 'Windows computer'.

That is what dug MS's grave here.

When people go to buy televisions, mp3 players or even cars. They don't care
who is writing the software/shipping the engine for the car. They talk about
manufacturers like - 'Is this toyota car good?' or 'Is this Panasonic TV
good', even though Sony may probably be supplying the OEM components to
Panasonic.

So people have a lot of trouble imagining 'Windows Phone'.

Android is different here, because Google main business is not selling
Android. They sell a totally different thing for which Android is an enabler.
So the branding problem doesn't arise there.

So people don't have any reason to consider 'Windows phone' special. Heck they
don't understand what a windows phone is basically, Just like how I and you
don't care about what engine is built into our cars, or who supplies the
filament inside the electric bulb.

To me I can only imagine the electric bulb as a whole, I don't really have the
time, money or the resources to go researching for the quality of filaments
used inside and who manufactures them. I imagine the bulb as a whole, so the
user does the same thing when buying a mobile. Its a whole mobile not a
specific component running inside it. And from the direction of view, there is
nothing special about windows on manufacturer X.

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cmsj
The title is missing the word "yet". Microsoft won't give up on this, they
have the pockets to keep pushing until something sticks.

~~~
troygoode
Thats what people said about the Zune and the XBox. True with the latter (no
one can say the 360 isn't a huge success) while very much not true for the
former. Despite pushing the Zune for years it never took off and was recently
abandoned. What makes you think Windows Phone will be more like XBox than
Zune?

~~~
untog
Simply that there is way more at stake, and Microsoft won't give up as easily.

Zune was a media player, the market for which is being destroyed by
smartphones (why carry around two devices?). So merging Zune into Phone makes
sense- I just wish they'd stuck with the Zune name, in all honesty. But
there's probably a corporate angle to why they didn't.

------
nr0mx
The analysis of the players in the mobile market and their motivations is spot
on, but the rest of the article rests on shaky grounds.

First off, Windows Phone is not superior to Android. It may be ahead in some
respects, but it certainly lags Android in others. And that is the current
situation. Till the last update Windows Phone clearly lagged Android in
features. It may be comparable now, but it is yet too early to expect this to
make a big difference. The real question is if achieving feature parity with
Android is enough to let it succeed?

When Android arrived on the scene it didn't have to contend with another
Android. Windows Phone does. The carriers and device manufacturers that may
invest in Windows Phone are the same ones that are already invested in Android
(except Nokia). I can't see that Windows Phone provides them with something
that Android does not. Sure, they will hedge their bets and make Windows Phone
devices, but the success or failure of Windows Phone devices does not (yet)
have the same impact on their balance sheet as that of Android devices on
which they currently depend. When they adopted Android the mobile ecosystem
was very different and it was their lifeline against a seemingly unstoppable
Apple-dominated world, and they had every motivation to make these devices a
success.

A final point - fragmentation - I don't see how Windows Phone can avoid
fragmentation. The more successful it gets, the more fragmented it will get.
Thanks to Android, users expect to be able to get hold of the exact
big/small/cheap/expensive/with-without-keyboard smartphone variant they want.
Windows Phone can only avoid this fragmentation at the expense of market
share.

"will end-user dissatisfaction with Android’s inconsistencies and
fragmentation be strong enough to allow the better product to succeed."

Most end users don't care about fragmentation. Developers do, and people who
invest in their mobiles do, but a significant fraction of users - the ones who
"don't know what they hate" - do not typically know or care about ICS, or know
what additional features it provides, or if their phones will get upgraded to
ICS.

~~~
freehunter

      The more successful it gets, the more fragmented it will get. 
    

Android fragmentation is about the software version installed, not the
hardware. WP7 has a set hardware requirement that every device must meet, and
there is a set timeline for requiring updates to the phone. With this model,
the only fragmentation that will occur is generational, which Apple (and all
of computing history) proves doesn't matter much.

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klt0825
I think people underestimate how their relatively late release hurt them for
the low-tech consumer. A number of people probably went with Iphone or Android
before the first WP devices came to market and now are too entrenched to
change.

For developers, I think the same story holds true. I know a number of people
who were fairly excited for the platform but ended up going with something
else because they got tired of waiting for the original release and wanted to
start writing apps to make money. The reputation MS has developed (old, evil,
bloated, etc) also doesn't help. Not saying it is true, just that it exists.

------
ct
While I applaud Microsoft for trying trim down the chrome, gradients, etc. to
leave only the content, in the end it feels too industrial with the sharp hard
corner edges and monochromatic dumb-terminal look where all the apps look
basically the same. People want something warm and fuzzy which skeumorphic,
rounded corners, gradients, and shinyness offers despite detracting a bit from
the content which makes it more accessible to ordinary people.

From an efficiency standpoint of getting the data and interacting with it the
Metro design is definitely superior in that sense, but fails to capture the
connection of the phone being something that just isn't a tool.

I think Microsoft should offer more choices than just Metro despite having
things look different app to app, and let the user better customize the home
screen with whatever personalization embellishments they want (backgrounds,
gradients on tiles, folders, etc.) instead of forcing a design on everyone as
everyone is different.

If they did that maybe, people initially would start out with the
"skeumorphic" look similar to the iPhone/Android/etc. as that's what they're
used to with other phones and in the real world, and slowly allow them to
change settings to transfer if they want back to a content focused Metro mode.

I think having this option would allow them to sell the devices better despite
it breaking some minimilistic cohesive designer sensibility in favor of what
the consumer wants and what will sell which is the ultimate goal anyhow.

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foobarbazetc
"Superior" is subjective.

The reason Windows Phone hasn't taken off is that it why it's a "nicer" system
than say Android, it lacks soul.

It's just too clinical.

~~~
astrodust

        53 49 4c 4c 59 20 48 55 4d 41 4e 20 41 4e 44 52  SILLY HUMAN ANDR
        4f 49 44 20 49 53 20 46 4f 52 20 52 4f 42 4f 54  OID IS FOR ROBOT
        53 20 41 4e 44 20 4e 4f 54 20 59 4f 55 52 20 50  S AND NOT YOUR P
        55 4e 59 20 43 41 52 42 4f 4e 2d 42 41 53 45 44  UNY CARBON-BASED
        20 42 52 41 49 4e 20 4d 41 44 45 20 4f 55 54 20   BRAIN MADE OUT 
        4f 46 20 4d 45 41 54 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20  OF MEAT

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michaelcampbell
The question being asked is not the right question. The answer to this one is
simply, "Because people don't want it." The right question is why don't they
want it - which I think has largely been answered here already; it's an old
brand that people have largely realized has been commoditized and don't
consider relevant anymore, combined with abysmally poor and misdirected
marketing.

IMO.

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tikhonj
I think that people overestimate the correlation between popularity of a
product and its quality. This, combined with the fact that different people
measure quality differently, leads to "surprising" results like this.

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vyrotek
FWIW I really want a WP7 but I'm on Sprint and I'm not going to buy a year old
phone. I really like the phone and would love to create apps for it. But the
carriers need to get on board and give me some options.

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MatthewPhillips
The place where people buy phones doesn't try very hard to sell them.

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cppsnob
Worse is better. Everyone seems to rediscover this again and again the hard
way, most especially certain companies in Cupertino and Redmond.

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SonicSoul
some of us still have a lot of bad taste in our mouths after the windows
mobile 6.x incident?

