
Windows Phone nears 10% share in Europe - arunitc
http://www.electronista.com/articles/13/09/30/verizon.extends.smartphone.dominance/
======
clopez
The article is confusing and misleading.

One thing is that the 10% of the new phones that are sold now are WP, and
another _completely_ different thing is that WP has a 10% share in Europe.

According to statcounter WP penetration in Europe is still ~3%
[http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-eu-
monthly-201309-20130...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-eu-
monthly-201309-201309-bar)

~~~
tanzam75
Not misleading at all. "Market share" means exactly that -- the share of the
market for smartphones.

Installed base is a different concept from market share.

Statcounter is a proxy for installed base rather than market share. It
therefore presents an outdated picture of a fast-moving market. Blackberry
above Windows Phone? iOS with 3/4 the share of Android?

~~~
huxley
Statcounter shouldn't ever be seen as representing marketshare or installed
base, rather it represents usage share. If you buy a device but put in a
drawer, it counts as market share but since it isn't being used day by day, it
wouldn't count as usage share.

I wonder if the reason Nokia hasn't been crowing about the marketshare numbers
in Europe is that it is a Pyrrhic victory won with massive discounts. If they
are displacing their own feature phones (but without the profit margin), it
would create the impression of an installed base, when people are primarily
using it for telephony and texting.

------
evanmoran
The thing is the Windows Phone is actually quite good. In many ways it is
better then Android (consistency across the OS & apps, Visual Studio is better
then Eclipse, C# better then Java). Much, if not all, of the bold choices
around flat visual style have now born out as great choices. Lots of things
going for them. Pretty cool seeing it born out in higher adoption numbers.

~~~
lokedhs
Eclipse has always been terrible, but IDEA on the other hand is the best
development environment in existence, regardless of platform. Even Google
finally realised that Eclipse is a dead horse and switched the official
environment to IDEA.

------
pmelendez
This reminds me the slow but steady grow of Chrome a few years ago over IE. I
don't think MS would dominate those markets but it is healthy to have a firm
third alternative.

~~~
MichaelGG
This reminds me of Windows Mobile around 1998, 1999 or so. Palm was so vastly
far ahead everyone thought that WinMo was laughable and Microsoft would never
get anywhere. A few years later, Palm was shipping WM.

Agreed, the market's very different, the network effects are stronger, etc.

~~~
pmelendez
Yeah.. those were other times though... when MS used to crush their rivals by
using its monopoly as an advantage. Remember when people used to use Lotus
1-2-3, WordPerfect and Harvard Graphics?

However, today is way different. Developing in Windows is not sexy anymore.
Young developers prefer a Mac or a Linux box over Windows, and young windows
programmers are seen as substandard developers. All those are insulting
stereotypes of course, but are the stereotypes that Microsoft have to deal
with unlike the old days.

I just going to grab some popcorn and see what happens :)

------
bitwize
Microsoft needs to cut the crap and really streamline the process for
developers. If its developer onramp were as easy and painless as, say,
Android's, the floodgates would be wide open because it could use the
installed base of Windows developers and the superiority of Visual Studio as a
dev environment to its advantage. If it does that it has a chance at second
place. But as of now it won't climb past a distant third.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
When was the last time you saw a really attractive, well-designed Windows
application?

~~~
pmelendez
It is arguable, but Word, Excel, One Note and Visual Studio comes to my mind.

If you are talking about the new metro style then Fresh paint comes to my mind
too.

~~~
Already__Taken
Those are terrible examples though, not because they're bad programmes but the
teams that designed, researched and implemented those design and UX choices
are probably bigger than many entire software companies.

------
Steko
Android makers need to make money on the phone while MS needs market share
credibility. So these users are more valuable to MS than to Android vendors
and MS is outbidding Samsung et al with spiffs for salespeople.

------
huxley
Pretty impressive since Nokia had only ever sold 27 million Lumias worldwide
up until June 30. Or Kantar has messed up their analysis.

------
programminggeek
My guess is this is almost all Nokia.

~~~
ceedan
80%+ -- Probably closer to 90% now.

------
cpprototypes
I think this may contribute to a trend away from mobile native apps to web
apps (or web apps in native wrapper like phonegap). It's already difficult
supporting iOS and Android. But what if WP and maybe Firefox OS also gain
significant market share? How many companies can support 3+ dev teams for an
app?

~~~
Avalaxy
Doesn't have to be, Xamarin is doing great with their framework :)

~~~
numo16
Agreed. Couple Xamarin with something like MVVMCross [1] and it's pretty easy
to develop cross platform relatively quickly.

[1]:
[https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross](https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross)

------
ceedan
I've had a Lumia 920 for about a year now and I'm kind of just tired of not
being on the iOS/Android bandwagon. Since I've had the phone, WP hasn't had a
meaningful/noticeable update and there are some pretty big flaws.

The biggest being no central notification center. If you receive a toast
notification from more than 5 applications (you can pin 5 to your lock screen)
you'll have to hunt for the 6th app's tile on your "home?" screen (the hot
mess of tiles dumped onto your screen) just to see if you have a notification
or not. Assuming you have 2 email accounts (1 work, 1 personal) and send text
messages, this means that you really can only afford to put 2 other apps on
your lock screen. Hilariously, if the application isn't on your home/tile
screen, swiping over to the applications list won't help because the tiles
there don't update or display toast notification count.

Another issue that I've noticed more recently (while trying out some of the
mediocre applications in yawn-inducing app store) is that, because of the tile
driven UI, I don't actually even know the names of some of my applications.
The real issue is this: I can't have multiple pages of tiles like iOS &
Android, so I have to throw them all onto one page that just turns into a
wasteland of small tiles. If you use big ones, this wasteland will become so
large that you'll find yourself forgetting about applications on the bottom so
I try to keep it small. The other problem this causes though is that I'll
"unpin" rarely used applications which sends them to the applications list...
but because I'm used to seeing them as a tile, I don't even know THE NAME OF
THE APPLICATION so I have to scroll around this application list looking at
the tiles hoping that I spot this thing like some kind of police lineup. This
sounds stupid, but it happens... I'm talking about rarely used applications.

I'm sure I could think of more. Most of these problems are just subtle
annoyances... lots of little "workflow" issues that go unrecognized until you
really start to use the phone a lot. Restricting tiles to 1 screen really
sucks. I try to include only the apps that I use often on my home screen...
but everything else... I'll never touch it again. Remove a tile from the home
screen is a big deal. As soon as you demote something from the home screen,
you'll probably never use it again. If I had the luxury of multiple pages of
tiles, I know for a fact that I'd use more of these things, but once your
tiles get 20 rows deep it just feels dirty, inefficient and unorganized. Some
applications benefit greatly from having a large tile as well... weather apps
and stock portfolio apps... so those alone can take up 2 entire rows.

Edit: Another issue that I thought of is that I was assigned some awful XBOX
Live username "Player1045748#####" and I've tried to link up my actual XBOX
Live account (which I don't ever use anyway), but I can't actually figure out
how... so I've just given up. It's not a huge issue for me though, but might
be for the gamer types. To WP's credit though, all of the games get lumped
into a Games tile

Edit: Sorry, this is really poorly written, I'm not actually as illiterate as
this reads.

/rant

~~~
pmelendez
I have a Lumia 920 too but my experience had been completely different.

I had before an Iphone 3G and an Android 2.3 and don't miss anything as those
two. First the camera is hands down the best camera I had use in a mobile
phone (I haven't check the new Iphone or the last Lumia though) and I
appreciate the new camera app that came with the Amber update.

Xbox Music is also another big thing to me, it just works and I can download
the music I want for a reasonable subscription price. Last time I checked
Spotify didn't really compared to it and not to mention how painful it is to
set it up in Canada.

I haven't had the notification problem yet, but I only really read
notifications from 4 apps, all the other ones I don't care.

So I guess it depends on the user, for users like me it just way better.

(PS: Not to mention how good are SkyDrive, OneNote, Word, Excel)

~~~
tjdetwiler
Have you used Google Music? It sounds like it offers roughly the same
experience as Xbox Music.

~~~
pmelendez
It is not available in Canada yet :(

Also it seems to be streaming only, in which case I couldn't use it when I am
on the subway.

------
xutopia
I got to play with one at work for testing purpose. The UI is actually not
that bad but as with anything Microsoft it had some pretty major flaws... like
date and time having to be set manually before SSL certificates works.

~~~
numo16
That's a bit odd...I know my Lumia picked up the date and time immediately
upon finding a cell signal.

------
jpalomaki
Where does this information come from? Article mentions the research firm
(Kantar) but I can't find any explanation on where or how they got the
numbers.

------
antr
I still haven't seen one windows phone, only windows tablet.

~~~
rahoulb
I'd say half of my "non-technical" friends have old crappy androids (and
generally dislike them) and the rest have iPhones or windows phones (and like
them). Apart from one hold-out on a Nokia feature phone.

I've not asked but I wonder if early android has put people off going with
modern android when upgrade time comes around.

~~~
psbp
Your friends don't seem very representative of the market.

~~~
Danieru
I bet it depends on the local market. I was at Redmond over the summer and I'd
guess the market share was 50% WP, 25% iOS, 25% Android. Some parts of the
town have higher WP usage, others less.

------
bsullivan01
Windows is always going to be behind a free system, especially since all cool
features invented by one get copied within a few weeks by others.

At most Microsoft can charge them less but even that will probably more than
Android pays in licenses to Microsoft. Not sure what benefits can Microsoft
offer them over Google, or maybe for an extra $10 (or whatever the license
cost) manufactures won't care. Verizon, ATT and other have a vested interest
to promote a third OS so who knows.. Another wild card is Nokia's purchase,
Microsoft can easily eat a few dollars and flood the world with phones of all
kinds

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "Windows is always going to be behind a free system"

Why? Linux was/is free and was never able to topple Windows on the desktop. If
MS does a good enough job there's no reason they can't beat Android.

~~~
vetinari
The problem with Linux on desktop was never technical, but business. Microsoft
made sure no other system, free or not, has a breathing room.

Android does not have that problem.

~~~
criley2
" Microsoft made sure no other system, free or not, has a breathing room"

I would believe this if Linux didn't dominate Microsoft in the server space.

Linux did hand Microsoft it's lunch--- in areas where the users who know what
they were doing get a say.

Linux has always struggled with the non-technical user and ridiculous OS-size
gui's have to be written for Linux just to make it palatable by the common
user.

~~~
pmelendez
> Linux did hand Microsoft it's lunch--- in areas where the users who know
> what they were doing get a say.

> Linux has always struggled with the non-technical user and ridiculous OS-
> size gui's have to be written for Linux just to make it palatable by the
> common user.

I disagree with both statements. I found myself as a technical user that knows
what he is doing and I do prefer to work Linux on the server side but I cry of
frustration using my linux desktop at work. After all these years it still
feels like a buggy hobbyist OS, with visual glitches everywhere.

I think the reason why Windows won't dominate the server space anymore is
because Linux is free (as a beer) and a good gui doesn't matter too much over
there (it is even inconvenient)

------
na85
I don't get it. For me and most of the people I know < age 50, "Windows" is
pretty much a synonym for "bloated, insecure, junkware"...

Who in their right mind buys a windows phone?

~~~
gibwell
Perhaps the analyst's report is inaccurate.

