What is Microsoft doing?

[AngryNil]

Apple always had a good SDK, and amazing dev tools

Yep, everyone loves themselves some objective-C.

 

[Chinocop]

Using Xcode is about as fun as being waterboarded.

 

[bawboh86]

Yep, everyone loves themselves some objective-C.

I just LOL'd, in my cubicle, at work. I'd rather work on the legacy VB6 or Ada95 applications around here than Objective-C. At least Apple FINALLY allowed C++ about a year ago...

 

[CHIP72]

I'm not sure why most people can't grasp that Microsoft is looking at Windows 8 adoption to help boost Windows Phone 8 adoption.

It should be noted that Microsoft's live tiles interface makes some apps a little more difficult to develop, if those apps will have live information. If the user share isn't there, other developers won't develop "live" apps. If the user share IS there, they will (or at least some of them will).

 

[cgk]

People seem to forget that IOS has been out for like 6 years now.. Did they start at 600 000 apps?

The problem with that logic is that it is like someone selling you a car today which doesn't have AC, a radio, cruise control and saying "Well you forget that cars years ago didn't have those features".

 

[CHIP72]

The problem with that logic is that it is like someone selling you a car today which doesn't have AC, a radio, cruise control and saying "Well you forget that cars years ago didn't have those features".

This analogy isn't quite right; it would be if auto manufacturers had to rely on 3rd parties to build and partially install the most of the "applications" in the car, rather than building and installing them themselves.

The general point made above has merit though.

 

[aniym]

I think a lot of people forget,

Blackberry 80+ million installed base > Windows Phone 25-30(?) million installed base.

RIM might be losing day-to-day sales but has a much bigger installed base. RIM could leap frog Microsoft if even half of those users jump to BB10. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that developers are looking to take advantage of new BB10 users. I think early numbers for BB10 will be huge (with most of that coming from corporations upgrading from BB7). The question is, will that growth be sustained?

And like ltyarbro42 said, Microsoft isn't doing it on purpose. They've been paying devs, paying for commercials, paying for Nokia, paying paying paying since day 1. But money spent doesn't always translate into market share.

The BB install base means almost nothing with regards to BB10 as they are fundamentally different OSes with no backward compatibility and are targeted at different markets. Most BBs today are sold in the developing world at low or zero margins ($100 Curve models from 2008) because BBM packages (email, FB, BBM) are more cost-effective than text+Data plans on competing smartphones. Aside from a minority of high income users, BB10 adoption will be close to zero because the phones will be priced in line with high-end Apple and Android phones. BB10 adoption hitting 40 million is basically impossible.

The Galaxy S3 has just hit 40 million after 7 months only because Samsung's distribution power made in available in every single country in the world, and Samsung supported it with advertising in every single one of those markets. A small company like RIM would likely be unable to even produce 40 million BB10 handsets within a year; unlike Samsung, they don't actually operate factories making RAM chips, screens, batteries and SoCs.

 

[AngryNil]

It is rubbish but likely true.

What's "likely true"? Lumping smartphones and tablets into the same category as PCs is simply invalid. The whole point of having a category is that a consumer is likely to make a single choice from that category - hence the competition within categories, to get those single sales. A huge majority of people with a tablet and/or smartphone also have a PC.

The Microsoft haters who have recently been trumping the "Microsoft owns so little of the computing device pie!" mantra are plain ridiculous. It's no myth that Microsoft doesn't own a majority of computing devices - when did it? Billions of dumb phones that have sold through the years. (Though I guess those don't count, because they are "dumb" - yet the cheap Android crap that is replacing them are years behind the true smartphone flagships and are most certainly dumb in comparison.)

Would you do the same with TVs and tablets, just because they are both electronics and great for consuming media content?

The BB install base means almost nothing with regards to BB10 as they are fundamentally different OSes with no backward compatibility and are targeted at different markets.

BlackBerry's mind share remains as the business phone, and really, compatibility and great enterprise support are what will keep it alive (of course, granted executives see the need to upgrade their departments to touch devices, rather than a traditional BlackBerry form factor). Leaning on that might allow RIM to post decent numbers and perhaps maintain a respectable share of the market, but it will never be enough to compete with the others. The biggest hurdle is that BlackBerry has never really been made to be competitive with consumer smartphone operating systems and I'm hardly confident that the developers are up for it, despite RIM waving around huge app submission numbers.

Microsoft's mistake was skimping out on features such as VPN. Makes absolutely no sense; why bother working on DataSense, which is enabled on about 0.1% of carriers worldwide, rather than VPN? The manager of the Windows Phone team needs to be fired.

 

[Villain]

People seem to forget that IOS has been out for like 6 years now.. Did they start at 600 000 apps?

seeing WP7/WP7.5 would be the Iphone 3/3GS... the correct question/comparison would be "how many apps did the iphone 4 launch with?"

 

[tissotti]

App situation is something that will come when WP reaches critical mass. Only thing MS can do is to make dev and publishing part as easy as possible. This is no issue.


To achieve that critical mass...
What i do agree is that WP will need to move much faster. Not impressed at all so far. They are moving like the MS we know, not the MS they should be to even compete against Google and Apple. MS really needs to broaden it's HW support much faster and bring OS updates more often.
Non trackable bar on music player just being one of the many examples that you think it can't take 3 years or how the OS handles MicroSD.

 

[a5cent]

seeing WP7/WP7.5 would be the Iphone 3/3GS... the correct question/comparison would be "how many apps did the iphone 4 launch with?"

Your suggestion would actually be the worst possible way of comparing app market growth between WP and iOS. You are using version numbers as your yard stick. But software version numbers are completely arbitrary. Software vendors can slap any number on any piece of software at any time. They represent nothing but a label for a specific software configuration that existed at a certain point in time during its development. Using arbitrary labels as a basis on which to compare app market growth is entirely useless. Using time, which progresses constantly and is the same for everyone, is far more useful.

The only relevant question is: "how did the two competing app markets progress after a comparable amount of time". We might look at a time span of two years. Both companies introduced new iterations of their products at that time. For WP it was WP8. For Apple it truly was the iPhone 3GS, not the iPhone 4.

After that time interval, the WP app market had grown to roughly 120'000 apps (November 2010 - November 2012). Within that same amount of time, the iOS app market had grown to roughly 55'000 apps (June 2007 - June 2009).

So, WP's initial app market growth has solidly outpaced what iOS experienced during the same phases of its life cycle. However, it was about after two years that iOS' app market started to take off. Another year later iOS' app market virtually exploded. These later phases are what the WP app market has no chance of keeping up with.

 

[tissotti]

No interest at jumping to the BB10 devices for the announcement we got today, but again. WP team really needs to get this train going and fast.
If the speed of the last 3 years has been anything Microsoft has already lost it. Not just to Android and iOS, but some of these newcomers as well.

What does it tell about MS that Skype is available on launch for BB10, yet we WP users just got it and its the crappiest of all of the main platforms. Are they even truly serious about WP?

I'm starting to feel strongly that Nokia had been way better with Qt and MeeGo. Essentially the work BB10 is using on the back-end and losts of similar UI elements.

 

[JamesDax]

LOL
RIM has shown me anything today. I think MS hasn't much to worry about.

 

[bawboh86]

What does it tell about MS that Skype is available on launch for BB10, yet we WP users just got it and its the crappiest of all of the main platforms

They said that it's "Coming", not that it'll be available at launch.

 

[cckgz4]

I think a lot of people forget,

Blackberry 80+ million installed base > Windows Phone 25-30(?) million installed base.

RIM might be losing day-to-day sales but has a much bigger installed base. RIM could leap frog Microsoft if even half of those users jump to BB10. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that developers are looking to take advantage of new BB10 users. I think early numbers for BB10 will be huge (with most of that coming from corporations upgrading from BB7). The question is, will that growth be sustained?

And like ltyarbro42 said, Microsoft isn't doing it on purpose. They've been paying devs, paying for commercials, paying for Nokia, paying paying paying since day 1. But money spent doesn't always translate into market share.

A lot of work places have Blackberry's just like schools have a lot of PC's and not Macs. Eventually, that install base will change

 

[socialcarpet]

People must understand that mobile version of Win8 is just "a plus", not a core business for MS. WP8 is, and will always be, just a spartan and minimalist OS, with little market share. MS will never grow WP adding a lot of features or releasing a lot of updates.. they don't care, they don't need.

I think Microsoft sees quite clearly, as any forward looking technology company does, that the PC is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The smartphone on the other hand, is going to continue to become more and more relevant. Smartphones are not an area that Microsoft can really afford to abandon in a lot of ways and I don't think they will. Windows Phone is not the Zune. The MP3 player was a single function device that was inevitably going to become obsolete. Smartphones which are pocket computers, entertainment, gaming, email, and cameras all in one are NEVER going to be obsolete.

So while Microsoft could walk away from Windows Phone, it is unlikely IMO. It's just far too important to the future of the company if they want to keep people tied to the Windows ecosystem.