Is developer preview a gold mine for Microsoft?

[rockstarzzz]

After reading an article about OS X 10.10 Developer Preview and recent launch of iOS8 for iPhone, I tried to relate this to Windows Phone Developer Preview and Windows Dev Preview.

We've seen Microsoft release WP Preview for free pretty much for anyone - developer or not. This has led to increased beta testers if you like as well as increased guess on mass reaction before public release. This comes in handy for Microsoft that has hardly any users compared to iOS and Android in mobile arena. Also, this may encourage a small fraction of "developers" to come ahead and eventually dump something in the Store to increase the app count (like Android fart apps).

However, we've seen a huge number of ill informed users bashing Microsoft for giving them a "buggy" preview build. This is for free btw. If you have already visited the link above, you can see for Apple you still need $100 for OS X preview. Not free. iPhone needs this developer preview situation for its desktop OS as much as Microsoft needs it for its mobile OS. But by giving it for free to millions of enthusiast users you can clearly see how committed Microsoft is to Windows Phone success vs how committed Apply may be to its desktop OS.

TLDR - Apple dev preview of OS (desktop + mobile) = $99. Microsoft Windows Dev Previews of OS (desktop + mobile) = Free.

 

[crystal_planet]

It's funny, because Apple & Microsoft are on two opposite sides of the same coin. Apple has huge mobile market share with small computing market share, while MSFT is the opposite. But unlike Microsoft, I don't think Apple is nearly as committed to their shortcomings in the marketplace. Yes, Mac users will continue to boast about their Airbook's prowess to anyone who will listen, but it seems their computing offerings have gotten pretty stale. Jaguar is largely the same as Snow Leopard, which is largely the same as Mountain Lion etc - and hardware hasn't exactly set the world on fire lately either.

It is unfortunate, but I think the DP really went off the rails in our case. What was meant as a test bed, many users thought of an actual upgrade and reacted (or over reacted) accordingly. I hope to God no one from Microsoft development reads these forums, lest they stick a gun in their mouth - I've never seen such extreme polarization from a product in my life.

 

[hotphil]

The kind of feedback Apple will get will be from people genuinely interested in the forthcoming release. I fear that by making the Dev Preview so easy to access, the feedback MS gets will have a large portion of garbage. Sifting through it will distract them from the genuine bugs/issues. When it's free, there's little "worth" attached to it.

 

[rockstarzzz]

The kind of feedback Apple will get will be from people genuinely interested in the forthcoming release. I fear that by making the Dev Preview so easy to access, the feedback MS gets will have a large portion of garbage. Sifting through it will distract them from the genuine bugs/issues. When it's free, there's little "worth" attached to it.

While I agree with this, remember since it is free - more people are actually going to use the product. It is same as Android being free vs iOS not being free. You get more numbers. Statistically, you are likely to see a stronger or significant feedback with bigger numbers - good or bad feedback. But with only developers and no users involved, you get technical feedback but not a "user feedback". So while WP8.1 dev preview may look like moans and groans, they are coming from end users instead of a developer who is only bothered by UI and app he creates than actual day to day usage of the OS.

iOS developers may well be developing for iOS as well as Android and may be using Android as their daily driver, so they wouldn't really face end user issues but with WP dev preview, the OS reached developers, enthusiasts as well as random user like my grand dad who got his phone updated by me and has no idea what "updates" mean.

 

[ohgood]

It's funny, because Apple & Microsoft are on two opposite sides of the same coin. Apple has huge mobile market share with small computing market share, while MSFT is the opposite. But unlike Microsoft, I don't think Apple is nearly as committed to their shortcomings in the marketplace. Yes, Mac users will continue to boast about their Airbook's prowess to anyone who will listen, but it seems their computing offerings have gotten pretty stale. Jaguar is largely the same as Snow Leopard, which is largely the same as Mountain Lion etc - and hardware hasn't exactly set the world on fire lately either.

It is unfortunate, but I think the DP really went off the rails in our case. What was meant as a test bed, many users thought of an actual upgrade and reacted (or over reacted) accordingly. I hope to God no one from Microsoft development reads these forums, lest they stick a gun in their mouth - I've never seen such extreme polarization from a product in my life.

Good points about market share.


You've missed the point about not changing the Mac UI though. It works very very well as is, and the improvements are done to the underlying services/daemons, instead of ostracizing users with a shocking change of the ui. Microsoft is currently lessening about this part with w8 .

Let's see how they adapt to the users wishes.

 

[WanderingTraveler]

In our case, WP8.1 has a feature (or two, for that matter) which would really make the extra users important. It's Cortana. (And the better keyboard, as well.)

Besides, more people using Cortana means more information to go by in improving her. Cortana is the one feature that has consistently improved throughout the dev preview. It is literally the feature most end users will notice an improvement in the past two months.

Cortana would be much worse had the WP8.1 DP not released.

 

[Salamy]

I believe Apple policy is different that Microsoft.

Apple marketing one or two models of high end expensive smartphone for big share of international market, the iPhone users is different than Windows Phone or Android users, mostly they are $$$ people who they want something stable to make work done in easy way.

for Microsoft it is much different where Windows Phone have growing small market share mostly of loyal old Nokia users who they love to keep supporting & pushing Nokia forward & users who they are tired from iOS & Android and they want to get new stable and easy experience of Windows Phone.

so because of the missing few features in Windows Phone 8 and the amazing hardware & design Nokia offer (in general WP devices have nice and cool design more than any other platform !!) , big number of users want to reach perfect experience and get new features even if they will install developer edition of update.

in General Windows Phone have special beauty make you always need more new features.