What would it take for you to come back to Windows Mobile?

[BenGutt]

Hi All,

For quite some time now I've watched as every opportunity to increase the market share slipped by Microsoft with them nearly managing to take advantage of it. The build it and they will come attitude of the marketing in my mind has been the cause of this failure. Bitter? Me? A little.

We are well on the downward spiral from dizzy days of 11% market share. Microsoft themselves seem to be releasing more complete apps to competing platforms, which they are entitled to do. No point feeding the few when the money is where the masses are.

I'm currently sitting here waiting on my first non windows phone since the day the Lumia 920 was released in the UK. The Galaxy S8 (it'll look like the Microsoft Edition when I'm done with it). My Lumia 950xl is sitting ready to be boxed and sent for recycling.

This brings me to my question, "What, if anything, would bring you back to a phone running on the Windows platform?"

 

[Scienceguy Labs]

Fluid functionality between user, apps, and OS. Over the past year, I've bounced back and forth between Android and W10M. If you allow Google/Android to do it's thing, it becomes evident rather quickly that the functionality of Android is far superior to that of W10M. But, all of this is based on my own user experience and needs. I'm sure others might disagree. Also, apps. MS desperately needs to solve their lack of apps problems.

 

[greedo_greedy]

They don't have to bring me back because I'm still in it.

For the other fans however, I think a simple announcement of new nice mid-range hardware (does not have to be the Surface Phone) should be enough to entice the die hard fans back. This little move will inform the fans that MS is still serious about the market.

Heck, if MS invests the $1.1m Greg Murphy needs for the Cerulean Mobile, that will get fans interested.

 

[tgp]

Heck, if MS invests the $1.1m Greg Murphy needs for the Cerulean Mobile, that will get fans interested.

Yeah, 98 interested fans so far...

 

[Rupert Holmes]

Better keep that 950XL. Been there, and I am staying with WM as long as possible.

 

[greedo_greedy]

Remember the days when the Xbox One was under Don Mattrick? It was just bad news after bad news.
When he was replaced by Phil Spencer, he miraculously was able to turn the Xbox One around.

Man, whoever is behind W10M is even worse than Don Mattrick.

 

[Guytronic]

I'd return for a Sony beast phone running a stable version of Windows Mobile 10.

 

[anon(50597)]

Yeah, 98 interested fans so far...

That's because they lost their main investor. We'll never know how it would have sold if that didn't happen.

Sent from mTalk on my SP4

 

[tgp]

That's because they lost their main investor. We'll never know how it would have sold if that didn't happen.

We might find out. I've heard that Mr. Murphy won't necessarily call it quits if the crowdfunding campaign doesn't work out. I suspect there's more to the story about an investor pulling out. Crowdfunding is sometimes used to measure consumer interest. I wouldn't doubt that's part of the reason for this one.

 

[Scienceguy Labs]

My only thought about thinking that way is the fact that a company like Microsoft couldn't even get their phones sold at a profitable rate, and they have billions of dollars to play with. WB was having to ask for the money to get their phone out. I guess we will never know, though. It's just a bad situation for W10M fans.

 

[anon(50597)]

We might find out. I've heard that Mr. Murphy won't necessarily call it quits if the crowdfunding campaign doesn't work out. I suspect there's more to the story about an investor pulling out. Crowdfunding is sometimes used to measure consumer interest. I wouldn't doubt that's part of the reason for this one.

I heard that too but I don't know. Without funding how can they move forward?

Sent from mTalk on my SP4

 

[slivy58]

Still have three WPs in my possession just to toy with. As to the question "What, if anything, would bring you back to a phone running on the Windows platform?", at this point and time I'd say "it's too late", for me that is.

I'm pretty much done due to MSFT's wayward ways. Essentially it'll take many moons to satisfy this guy they are NOW committed, and aren't into another change-of-direction or retrenchment. For a company of their stature, along with being the Software Gurus, they are sure having troubles deciding whether they want a steak or a peanut butter sandwich.

 

[Nate Silver]

A flagship on Verizon would absolutely bring me back. I think I've got about as much chance of that as I have of winning the lottery. I still fool around with my old Icon, but now that it is dead-ended....

 

[anon(50597)]

It would take me leaving first.

Sent from mTalk on my SP4

 

[ak_r7]

Commitment from MS! Right now, it seems they are carrying a dead corpse. Invest in marketing, new hardware, Apple like support and yes - Apps!!!
Rather than waiting for the next big shift, work and retain current users.
Get these and I would gladly dump my android and iPhone.
Sadly, looks like MS has already thrown in the towel.
"what could have been the no. 2 mobile OS has been killed by morons"

 

[Drael646464]

I've never been in windows 10 mobile. But I'll probably go into windows 10 on arm, in some form of always with me device, next year, or the year after when:

*windows on arm, and windows cloud have captured more budget tablet, hybrid, laptop marketshare
*thusly app development for uwp has increased because of greater numbers of tablets and 2 in 1s.
*Cortana's bot intergration has spawned a healthy skill ecosystem giving voice a lot more power

I think my preference is for a watch, or some kind of small clamshell. I don't really like the glass slab FF, it feels like being tied to something.

It's obvious to me that win 10 mobile is simply being kept alive, for a later time, when its viable to re-enter that market properly. With an app deficit of versus android 2.1 million apps, its not a problem one can just throw money at. I'm not really sure what this complaint about commitment to mobile is - being commited to a shrinking marketshare, lost profits, and a generally not very successful venture is pretty much just folly. That's just not a strategy to get mobile marketshare that makes any commercial sense.

Tablets and other cellular connected PCs is the path to being able to compete in smartphones. Well that and a powerful voice platform. Until those things are in place, windows 10 mobile is basically in a life support pod.

Its very fortunate MS is clever. If this were any other company they wouldn't have a way back in, and they wouldn't still be doing updates and the mobile platform would be 100% zero doubt dead, and done forever. If it was any other platform there wouldn't be any real app development ongoing (and yet with this platform, because of desktop and tablets, the store is still growing). Because its Windows, none of those things are true.

If you feel hard done by, go check out the bb10 crowd over at crackberry. Have a gander and their ongoing "support", and their "app store". Get a little perspective.

 

[Drael646464]

Commitment from MS! Right now, it seems they are carrying a dead corpse. Invest in marketing, new hardware, Apple like support and yes - Apps!!!
Rather than waiting for the next big shift, work and retain current users.
Get these and I would gladly dump my android and iPhone.
Sadly, looks like MS has already thrown in the towel.
"what could have been the no. 2 mobile OS has been killed by morons"

So how many billion dollars do you think it would take to bribe developers to write 2.1 million apps?

To me, that just sounds completely unviable. Let's say each app is a 100,000 dollar investment, that would be what 210 trillion dollars?

MS makes about 5 billion a year. Their cashflow is quite small compared to google (7 billion per +quarter+) and apple (18 billion per +quarter+)). If they put every cent of that into apps for mobile, assuming even say 50,000 per app, that would be 100,000 apps per year - taking 21 years of investing every cent of MS's cashflow to catch up to where google is this year. And that would be 21 years of no development on windows 10, or any other product. While competing against companies that could actually afford to do the exact same thing, and keep their companies running.

I can't really understand why people keep suggesting this sort of thing as a legitimate market strategy. MS needs more than apps, it needs mindshare. The tech world is incredibly competitive, and this is like a game of superchess mixed with a little super poker, add a serious sprinkle of creative innovation -where the stakes are billions of dollars and you have shareholders breathing down your neck.

Mobile can't be fixed by merely throwing money at it. No amount of "commitment" is going to deliver what windows 10 mobile fans want - apps, marketshare, mindshare and a real future in mobile devices. "Commitment" in MS's situation would be commercial suicide.

It's a complicated thing, and fortunately MS does have a strategy, one that's quite clever and very visible if one thinks about it. If it plays out as expected, MS on pocket mobile devices will have a real future. That's the best possible commitment one could hope for in the situation.

 

[Drael646464]

Hi All,

For quite some time now I've watched as every opportunity to increase the market share slipped by Microsoft with them nearly managing to take advantage of it. The build it and they will come attitude of the marketing in my mind has been the cause of this failure. Bitter? Me? A little.

We are well on the downward spiral from dizzy days of 11% market share. Microsoft themselves seem to be releasing more complete apps to competing platforms, which they are entitled to do. No point feeding the few when the money is where the masses are.

I'm currently sitting here waiting on my first non windows phone since the day the Lumia 920 was released in the UK. The Galaxy S8 (it'll look like the Microsoft Edition when I'm done with it). My Lumia 950xl is sitting ready to be boxed and sent for recycling.

This brings me to my question, "What, if anything, would bring you back to a phone running on the Windows platform?"

You wanna send me your old Lumia? I'd happily pay for shipping. I wouldn't mind having a good play with a windows 10 mobile device. Plus there's good odds, seeing as its still getting upgrades that it will be up to windows 10 on arm when it comes.

 

[captaincalamity]

Already returned, couldn't be without the live tiles and dynamic home screen, pin to start, screens full of icons and unhelpful widgets just don't cut it.... there is the apps, but they just annoy me with all the constant adverts.

 

[Sedp23]

More hardware, more developer support, and more Microsoft support.... They are making me wish i never bought Windows Phone at this point and I've always been on Windows since the HTC touch pro 1

Sent from Idol 4s