Is MS moving too slowly or just not doing enough news-worthy stuff?

[Darryl Dixon]

"Stumbling cautiously"?? First off- I love that phrase. I am going to steal that and get it into as many conversations as I can. :grin:


Secondly, I find that strange. what was WP's marketshare prior to Nokia? Bada was outselling it. With Nokia? Now outselling BlackBerry, and giving Apple a run for it's money in some markets. What was phone camera tech like prior to Lumia 920, 928, 1520, and of course the 1020? No IOS, very little built in tech, simple software tech, and the iPhone was given the nod every year as the best shooter. Since? Well, let's just say no one else is close, but I expect this summer's offerings to show just how hard everyone else is trying to keep up.

Phones with fun colors? There would be no Moto X customization if there wasn't Nokia Lumia 900, 810, and 710 in red, white, grey, cyan, so on.

Kids corner? Rooms? Natural, seamless intergration for social feeds all baked into the software? MS innovations.

WP is not streaking ahead of Android. I realize that. But my standard answer on the speed of WP is this:

WP is behind, and can't afford a mistake. It would kill them. What they do, has to be done well and has to work. I would rather them move a little slower and get things right then speed up and kill my current favorite OS by releasing crap that doesn't work right.

Outselling BlackBerry, who isn't? Giving Apple a run for it's money in some markets? Basically picking up the crumbs leftover from Apple and Android. Phones with fun colors? You mean the colors that are paraded around at the launch events, but never available at the actual time of launch. Kids Corner and Family Room are great, but Family Room is empty due to lack of sales. Nokia taking 6 weeks to launch a keyboard, when they knew several months in advance about the 2520 launch.

Mistakes? Is there a bigger mistake in the mobile industry than Windows RT? How about Nokia and it's exclusive releases? Personally, l don't have a problem with Microsoft//Nokia hardware ,and the WP app selection is growing faster than the competitors would like to admit. But their strategy is questionable, if not head scratching to say the least. The problem is not the speed of development. The problem is understanding what the people want, and comparing it to what the competitors are offering.

 

[jmshub]

The fun thing is that there is a lot of armchair marketing managers knocking Microsoft's lack of Appleness or Googleness, but have no solutions to offer. Nokia has released the 1020 and the 1320 / 1520 in '13, as well as the 2520. There are rumors of Microsoft reducing or eliminating licensing fees to get some bite from other handset manufacturers. There is talk of phones in the pipeline that aren't built by Microsoft/Nokia. While we may be excited to hear news, there is nothing to suggest that the early 2014 release of WP 8.1 wasn't their target all along. Until we hear solid information, we have no reason to think that the software isn't going to be released on schedule.

We can lust for Microsoft to fill the front page of engadget.com, but I just don't think that's going to happen. Microsoft already announced //build, and there is WMC coming up soon. There is no reason to expect news to randomly fall out of the sky before either of those.

 

[simplex1]

Android is free, well developed and popular while Windows Phone is neither free nor so popular.
Most smartphone designers prefer a free good OS for their phones (like Android). There is little reason to pay money to Microsoft and develop a partnership with it when you can have an OS at least as good as WP for free.

 

[akshaypn]

Honestly, I do not believe Windows Phone has a future.
There are only 72 Windows Phone devices as compared with 1529 powered by Android

I did the research using the site:
Phone Finder - search for a phone by feature - GSMArena.com
and filtering the mobile devices by the OS they use.

windows phone doesn't have any future because 60% of windows phone users are on 512 mb ram and 8 gb of storage devices and who are constantly waiting for apps and games and features that are on 1 gb ram wp or are available on the other platformss...and these users are not at all satisfied with this and the fact that their devices would be useless once 8.1 comes out all within a year ...and one year is quite a long period to stay with this platform anyway....ios may have less devices but all the users get unified experience at least for two years....

 

[Laura Knotek]

windows phone doesn't have any future because 60% of windows phone users are on 512 mb ram and 8 gb of storage devices and who are constantly waiting for apps and games and features that are on 1 gb ram wp or are available on the other platformss...and these users are not at all satisfied with this and the fact that their devices would be useless once 8.1 comes out all within a year ...and one year is quite a long period to stay with this platform anyway....ios may have less devices but all the users get unified experience at least for two years....

The vast majority of apps will run on 512 MB devices. Have a Windows Phone with 512MB RAM? Report shows you can enjoy 99% of apps and games | Windows Phone Central

The 512 MB devices will be updated to WP8.1. http://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...ive]-will-my-wp-phone-get-updated-thread.html

 

[cckgz4]

I don't think the windows phone news is fast enough

 

[akshaypn]

The vast majority of apps will run on 512 MB devices. Have a Windows Phone with 512MB RAM? Report shows you can enjoy 99% of apps and games | Windows Phone Central

still why 99% why not 100 %.....how much would it have cost nokia and ms to put atleast 1 gb ram on all devices...why they didn't think about the future....that's kind of my fault too but I didn't have much choices back then and apparently not enough choices now too...

 

[simplex1]

phone users are on 512 mb ram and 8 gb of storage devices .... would be useless once 8.1 comes out all within a year

Are you sure WP8.1 will not work at all on phones like Nokia Lumia 520?

 

[akshaypn]

Are you sure WP8.1 will not work at all on phones like Nokia Lumia 520?

it ll work but not like 525....

 

[Laura Knotek]

windows phone doesn't have any future because 60% of windows phone users are on 512 mb ram and 8 gb of storage devices and who are constantly waiting for apps and games and features that are on 1 gb ram wp or are available on the other platformss...and these users are not at all satisfied with this and the fact that their devices would be useless once 8.1 comes out all within a year ...and one year is quite a long period to stay with this platform anyway....ios may have less devices but all the users get unified experience at least for two years....

still why 99% why not 100 %.....how much would it have cost nokia and ms to put atleast 1 gb ram on all devices...why they didn't think about the future....that's kind of my fault too but I didn't have much choices back then and apparently not enough choices now too...

You're wrong about iOS, though. Older iPhones did not get some of the newer features such as Siri, due to lack of hardware. Would you say Apple was wrong and didn't think about the future? That's not a "unified experience" either.

 

[James8561]

windows phone doesn't have any future because 60% of windows phone users are on 512 mb ram and 8 gb of storage devices and who are constantly waiting for apps and games and features that are on 1 gb ram wp or are available on the other platformss...and these users are not at all satisfied with this and the fact that their devices would be useless once 8.1 comes out all within a year ...and one year is quite a long period to stay with this platform anyway....ios may have less devices but all the users get unified experience at least for two years....

how can you possibly compare a $99 smart phone that has dropped to $59 with iPhones which cost $649 when they come out and never drops in price???
seriously???
would've spend six hundred on Apple would you? or not cuz you're a cheapo but wants expensive features. dream on!

 

[akshaypn]

I said at least for" two years" they get unified experience...and they do for apps and games part and for most of the features part too .....anyways you should think and do better when you don't even have a 5% of market share and when you have already burnt your customers once before than just barely catching up to your competition....

 

[akshaypn]

just comparing 520 and 525....not an iPhone...just read and grasp better....

 

[N_LaRUE]

I said at least for" two years" they get unified experience...and they do for apps and games part and for most of the features part too .....anyways you should think and do better when you don't even have a 5% of market share and when you have already burnt your customers once before than just barely catching up to your competition....

Ask anyone with a iPhone 4/4S how much they like iOS7. Most don't.

 

[N_LaRUE]

just comparing 520 and 525....not an iPhone...just read and grasp better....

I'm going to agree with you on something. First is that I think 512MB devices were a huge mistake. Second I also think SD cards are a mistake as well. Most people won't agree with my second statement.

As for the future of WP, no one can say. It appears to be doing better. I am seeing more WP around. Saying that though, unless WP8.1 is great, not just good, I don't see it getting much better.

As it stands, I can't even be sure I'll get WP8.1 as my device will be close to 2 years old and EE being a crap company so there's every possiblity that they won't release the update for it. Unless MS has a contract with them saying the must release it, which they'll do so grudgingly, maybe 3-4 months after everyone else gets it. So like many, I'm not overly impressed by how long it's taken to get a major update (ignoring the GDRs).

As it stands now. I'm mostly happy with WP. I'm not happy with a few things about it but on the whole it does what I need. Whether I'll stick to it is another story. For anyone thinking that I'm some sort of deserter, I've always had this stance.

 

[jlp34876]

They really are very slow on WP side. WP 8.1 will just going to be announce this April,

after that I will probably have to wait another 1-3 months before it comes to my 920.

 

[wilsey]

I'm not really sure too about this thing. But in here, I think it's partially true. Seldom here the news about Microsoft and I'm not sure what are their target in here. But, strangely is, their twitter account are quite active, but they will never reply (to me at least). Ask them about their products, no reply.
I wonder why they don't make Surface available in here. Even after the 2nd generation of Surface has surfaced, the 1st generation of Surface is nowhere to be found or heard. Other brands like Sony, Samsung, Lenovo, Asus, etc. keeps pushing out new products (Tablet) that runs on Windows 8 whenever they have one.

Beside the gadgets, I also wanted to try how to implement Office 365 in our company. So I contacted them on December 12, 2013 through email, and the customer service representative always reply very quick. So the staff said she will contact relevant department to call me.
After a while, I asked her back, she said the team has contacted me. I gave them my primary and secondary number. Actually, the primary number that I gave her has 1 less digit. So that's my mistake. But, the problem is, whoever that called to that wrong number did not even ask first what's the name. Then she said, the relevant team has contacted me but, they said I was on training. Unbelievable, it seems like there is no intention from the Microsoft staff to even call me. It's my mistake that I gave wrong primary number but they didn't even confirm first who they called and simply said I was on training, while in fact, they were calling the wrong person. And didn't even bother to call my secondary number. Until now, the relevant team from Microsoft has not even contacted me.

So based on my experience, yes, Microsoft is way too slow (in Indonesia)

 

[typhon62_1]

They really are very slow on WP side. WP 8.1 will just going to be announce this April,

after that I will probably have to wait another 1-3 months before it comes to my 920.

By the time 8.1 comes out the 920 will be close to two years old, I doubt very much that the 920 will get 8.1.
I could be wrong though, and I hope I am...

 

[N_LaRUE]

By the time 8.1 comes out the 920 will be close to two years old, I doubt very much that the 920 will get 8.1.
I could be wrong though, and I hope I am...

All W8 phones are supposed to get WP8.1. The only thing that may prevent it is carriers. I think this will be the big question on people's minds. Unless it's in their contracts to release it there could be a lot of disappointed people or possible hacking backed by MS.

 

[bsayegh]

MS needs to push extremely hard to get carriers to push the updates. How many people had to use the WP update tool to get 7.8? I know I did. When the new version of iOS comes out it is available on the spot. I realize it is probably easier because there aren't as many devices and its more in demand, but come on. It is in the interest of ATT, Verizon, and any other carrier to make sure that WP is as appealing as possible to consumers. You want to at least make the people who have already purchased a phone to be happy so they will keep coming back. I am not sure how difficult it is to roll out an update, but I hope they do a much better job of it.