Why doesn't someone at MS just refute all the "W10M is Dead" claims?

[TK2011]

For those who had read my previous posts on the subject know that I pointed to the departure of Belfiore as the event horizon/point of no return for Windows Mobile.

He's returning to MS this summer after a long family vacation traveling around the world.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Agree, however same could be said about any of them, with thier latest changes and product releases I have faith in them. They spent 2 years taking to enterprise and the X3 is the result, like a5cent said, time will tell, not too long to wait!

HP actually owned webOS yet killed it.

HP used to make a lot of different products that it no longer does. At one time, HP made test equipment for laboratories.

HP seems to be a shell of what it once was, like IBM.

 

[Great deal]

HP actually owned webOS yet killed it.

HP used to make a lot of different products that it no longer does. At one time, HP made test equipment for laboratories.

HP seems to be a shell of what it once was, like IBM.

Yes, and they have recently launched some amazing laptops (spectre looks great) and a mobile device that simply beats (spec wise) anything out there. Companies change and I like the direction they are going in.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Yes, and they have recently launched some amazing laptops (spectre looks great) and a mobile device that simply beats (spec wise) anything out there. Companies change and I like the direction they are going in.

I had an HP notebook that did not last long. I'd never purchase another one from HP. I have a Toshiba Satellite notebook that is 11 years old and still works.

 

[jiangweilin]

I think people misunderstand what Microsoft is up to. Microsoft just sold the Nokia brand to the people who make Apple's iPhone, and promised to support Windows Phone 10. In buying and selling Nokia, at a loss of nearly $7 billion, Microsoft got just what it needed. Sufficient technology to design, produce and market a high end liquid cooled phone. Having what they wanted, Lumia was dead weight. So, Microsoft sold the Nokia stuff. But Microsoft did not sell the cooling technology or other innovations in the 950 and 950XL. Those will be needed for the forthcoming Surface phone, which will run exactly the same OS and software as the Surface Pro 4. The app shortage obstacle will be gone, and Microsoft will be all alone with a phone that doesn't just look like the desktop, but can function like it. No NETFLIX app-use the browser. Same for pretty much everything else. Meanwhile, Apple's leading OPM manufacturer is busily competing with Apple. Microsoft has made lots of errors in mobile. This isn't one.

 

[RumoredNow]

I wouldn't necessarily count on HP.

Remember webOS?

That's a good analogy, but to my mind not for the reasons you are putting it forward. Lets take a look at it.


HP bought Palm which had a lot of promise, excellent patents and great talent. Then a man came along when the board was distracted and decided that he'd turn HP the hardware juggernaut into a software company. He began dismantling as much of the hardware divisions as he could before he was stopped and he purchased a lot of disastrous software interests along the way...

Microsoft is a software juggernaut. At one point a man decided they should create more hardware and he put together a deal to buy up the largest mobile hardware partner Microsoft had which contained lots of promise, excellent patents and great talent. Unfortunately, this deal ignored the fact that the once highly successful company was hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate in its handset business...


Both of these companies (HP and Microsoft) are correcting their course and returning to their strengths.

 

[TechAbstract]

HP actually owned webOS yet killed it.

HP used to make a lot of different products that it no longer does. At one time, HP made test equipment for laboratories.

HP seems to be a shell of what it once was, like IBM.

HP is more similar to Dell than IBM. They both have their hands on consumer and enterprise markets.

 

[jefbeard911]

Because, it is.

.7% market share
No new phone until at least 2017 (950 came out Oct 2015!)
non-committal, cleverly worded statements from MS ("We will continue to support the WP operating system..")
1700+ WP staff to be let go.

come on.......read the writing on the wall....

 

[savagelizards]

If Windows phone isn't dead yet, it's certainly coughing up blood.

Personally, I had to buy a refurbished Icon off amazon a couple of months back because my carrier, Verizon, has already decided windows phone is dead and doesn't offer anything better than a refurbished two year old flagship.

My family thinks of me as a phone hobbiest. In order to get a new phone, I had to buy a used phone, then upgrade it to 8.1, then denim, then install the insider app to take updates so i could run windows 10, then deal with a bug in .264 that rendered my phone a hot glowing blob with a half hour battery life until the last update. And I can never get Redstone, so I will be left behind again, this time with nowhere to go. Who would leave another platform for that experience?

Windows phone is Latin. You can still learn Latin, but there's really no one to talk to, so the network effect is really limited.

It's that network effect, or more precisely the lack thereof, that is causing problems for windows phone. Think of a healthy network effect as oxygen. As market share falls, the oxygen gets scarce and it's harder to breathe. Apps suffocate, and key apps die off all together. This lowers market share further, and more apps die off. It's a feedback loop.

I personally came to windows phone because I was sick of being Google's product and Apple was too controlling. Microsoft had the best privacy policy, and windows phone 8.1 was about to launch and promised big things. The only reason I am here today us because I was already here.

Ask yourself, who in their right mind is leaving another platform to come to windows 10 mobile today? Certainly no one on Verizon, because Verizon doesn't even carry a current model, let alone offer a flagship. Anyone under 30 would never, because none of their apps would be available, or if they were would be undependable or lack major functionality. For them Microsoft itself lacks the cool factor, and forget about telling them about using web pages when what they know are apps. It just doesn't happen.

So yeah, dead. All that's left are a dwindling number of people who were already here. That's becoming true even in emerging markets like India where Microsoft is dumping phones.

So dead. Very dead.

 

[mranieri]

C'mon there's still some of us at webOS Nation!

Hahaha I fired up my Frankenpre last night...

 

[Krystianpants]

I had an HP notebook that did not last long. I'd never purchase another one from HP. I have a Toshiba Satellite notebook that is 11 years old and still works.

I never liked HP stuff either. They were lousy. But my brother has one of the newer 2-in-1's and it's a solid piece of hardware. He is the poster child for destroying technology. He does not take care of anything he has and goes through it quick. This one has lasted him a while already and it's still in great shape. Even the power cable has been designed to withstand his horrible usage scenario where he plugs it into an outlet really far away and then stretches it and bends it to hell near the connector so he can be comfortable haha.

He will grab laptops by the screen and just whip them down on the floor. And he is still doing that but the hp has been holding! By this time his samsung laptop was in agony.

And to Great Deal:

Unless continuum is enhanced quite a bit before anniversary I don't think it will be a big hit. It's supposed to stand for productivity but you can only use 1 full screen at a time. They need a snap screen solution. They also need to be able to set different mouse settings as well from scrolling to speed. Possibly re-arrange the back button since it's way at the bottom in a weird place that makes it less intuitive on how to go back. Typically in windows 10 the app itself has a back button at the top. Since continuum is supposed to be like desktop that would make more sense. There's a bunch of things I can go on about but it's still pretty decent for first iteration and people who want to play around, but not for getting serious work done. I mean Edge is so sloooow.

 

[Tsang Fai]

It's dead, they wont have a surface phone device out for at least a year and maybe that has just been lip service to keep devoted fans off their back. Your product development pipeline doesn't just stall out like that and have ZERO new devices coming without some intent behind it. This was decided many many months ago, hell they must have known even before they dribbled out the 950 twins.

I don't agree not releasing new phone every year implies WP is dead. The current offerings (950, 650) have more than enough hardware spec which can fulfill most users in the coming 2-3 years at least. Even Apple is just releasing a new major version of iPhone every 2 years.

 

[Timbre70]

MS is not Apple. It just doesn't have the charisma.

 

[Tsang Fai]

Windows phone is Latin. You can still learn Latin, but there's really no one to talk to, so the network effect is really limited

Windows Phone is currently working very fine to those non-app guys. "no one to talk to"?? We can still use WhatsApp, Facebook.

Unless those critical apps like WhatsApp, Facebooks are leaving, WP is surely not dead.

Dead is nothing. But Windows Mobile is more than nothing.

So Microsoft should make sure those critical apps will not be leaving Windows Store.

The current status of WP is much like Mac about two decades ago - very limited software and very low market share, but it is still functional.

 

[jefbeard911]

The current status of WP is much like Mac about two decades ago - very limited software and very low market share, but it is still functional.

Possibly, but I don't see a brilliant ex-CEO with billions of their own personal fortune coming to the rescue any time soon..

 

[loribinca]

He's returning to MS this summer after a long family vacation traveling around the world.

I'm willing to take a bet that he does not return to Microsoft at the end of his sabbatical, and I would be the first one to wish him every success in whatever he does. He really put his heart into this. You can see it every time he's interviewed.

 

[TK2011]

I'm willing to take a bet that he does not return to Microsoft at the end of his sabbatical, and I would be the first one to wish him every success in whatever he does. He really put his heart into this. You can see it every time he's interviewed.

You are willing to bet Microsoft won't accept his return? He twitted just recently he's coming back to MS late this summer.

 

[Krystianpants]

You are willing to bet Microsoft won't accept his return? He twitted just recently he's coming back to MS late this summer.

He was away while MS is restructuring. He could be part of that restructure and be told he lost his job when he comes back. Or maybe even given another position. He doesn't really know until he gets back.

 

[Jakoh]

Now that HMD global has been formed, I will most likely be adopting whatever comes next with the Nokia branding. It will be android, I ll have to fix it. I ll be fine.
Welcome back Nokia.
Hasta la vista, WM10, you had your chance.

 

[fatclue_98]

Let's talk about numbers. Many posters here have stated that Windows 10 for Mobile is dead. Oh they're losing market share. Oh the good apps are leaving in droves. Let me be the first to edumacate some of these naysayers by reminding them that losing market share and dwindling sales are not mutually exclusive. Lumia 950 sales could top 10 million units in one quarter and break sales records yet lose market share if Apple sells 100 million iPhones. Last year there was no product to sell until late fall and the 950 was an AT&T exclusive in the US. The 950 XL was nowhere to be found on any carrier. No kidding, sales plummeted? DUH! That's not a byproduct of lousy marketing, crappy phones or missing apps. Unless you're Bernie Madoff, you can't make money on something you haven't got to sell.

Let me make the numbers argument simpler. Imagine there are only 4 phones in the world: (1) iPhone, (1) Lumia (1) BlackBerry and (1) Android. Next day someone buys up (10) 'Droids, (5) iPhones and only (1) Lumia. Do the math and you'll see Windows and BlackBerry went from 25% to 10 and 5, respectively, through no fault of their own. The next day the headlines will read as an obituary because of "plummeting sales" rather than congratulate Apple and Google for their success.

Windows and BlackBerry aren't for everybody, but it's nice to know they're available.