Be honest guys, could WP7 fail completly?

[jrdatrackstar1223]

Apparently you have no clue what Office 365, Exchange, Lync, or SharePoint is. WP7 is a great choice for businesses. See this link: Windows Phone for Business | Microsoft Office 365 | Windows Phone 7

Also, the general public doesn't care about customization. iPhone is beyond successful and it is just as uncustomizable, and was beyond successful before they allowed you to change your wallpaper.

Idk....I kind of get that feeling that it seems like they don't know who they're targeting as well. I know they targeting the general consumer, but it seems like they're trying to forget the user base who made them...the business users. One thing, for example, is VPN support; HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE VPN SUPPORT IN A WINDOWS PHONE? Their SharePoint integration doesn't work well either, as I can't connect to our SharePoint site (it says our version isn't compatible)

 

[Pronk]

The only reason I could see it happening is because of massive unexpected change elsewhere. For example - the Windows 8 launch gets messed up in some way and sales are bad. The knock-on from this is that Steve Ballmer is replaced as CEO, and the new girl/guy decides to focus on re-establishing the core business and drop any areas underperforming on market share.

Though to be honest, I think there's more chance of MS buying WebOS from HP and using that on its phones than that happening!

 

[fifthGear]

I think there's a bigger picture here that everyone's forgetting. MS is committed to this UI. Windows 8 will have it. Nobody knows what Windows Phone 7 is. When I talk about it or show it to people they're like, "what's that?" Once Windows 8 gets out there and people start to use Metro, I suspect MS will then really start to push Windows Phone as a mobile companion to Windows 8. It's hard to imagine that interest won't then be piqued. And by then, Windows Phone will be even more than it is now. MS is in for the long haul on this one.

 

[shlomo80]

Dream of where computing will be in 3-5 years. Now think of Microsoft "without" a mobile presence in that dream. Can't exist, right. So basically, the stakes are too high for WP to fail. They will throw everything they have at this and will ultimately succeed.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

Will they is the big question.

I mean, the battle has to be fought on marketing. MS now has a solid product. But no-one knows about it, I've seen like <6 other users of WP7 in the entire last year, and I commute often.

And lets face it, marketing-wise, Microsoft is really more adept at shooting themselves in the foot more than anyone else. Remember the Windows 7 launch party debacle? People actually talked about that in Microsoft and someone signed it off as a great idea. Someone then made that standing-around-the-kitchen ad and signed off on that too - You can't tell me that was ironic.

These days, Microsoft products are bought by two kinds of people:
- Informed consumers / business buyers who know what they want - i.e. the most versatile PC platform out there and either cheaper or better hardware than Apple brings to the table
- People who don't know what they want but who don't want to drop the coins on an Apple

Everyone out there who doesn't know what they want and therefore are susceptible to marketing and have decent amounts of money to spend on tech are hoovering up shiny Apple crud like it's crack.

Marketing isn't just fancy ads. It's what Apple do unbelievably well - it's joining up the dots in the sales process and making the dumbest of idiots feel like they're Einstein & a valued customer. And it's also not just the fact that they have to be good at marketing. The most influential people in tech press have changed in the 00's to popularity-seeking faux-geek (wannabe) liberal arts hipster types. Guess what brand they all worship? Yeah. Guess what brand they see as beneath themselves? Yeah.

Microsoft marketing can't just be good. It's got to be freakin' faultless. And they aren't even mediocre right now.

That is WP7's biggest hurdle in my opinion.

 

[mapexvenus]

It is a good question, and taking away any false sense of fanboyism, I believe that at the end of the day it is going to be a business decision. Microsoft invested a lot in the Kin, and the Zune was their flagship media player, but somewhere down the line (very early down the line for the Kin), Microsoft made a business decision. That is what this going to be about and irrespective of what you and I think it will boil down to Microsoft will be looking at their success in the mobility space, see if it aligns with their roadmap, and then decide whether to stay in the same or move on. I continue to believe that WP7 is still between a first and second gen mobile OS, but it is refreshingly different than anything else out there. To grow and sustain this platform Microsoft has to a lot , and in several areas, including improving the platform, marketing it, building / supporting a developer community, getting more handset manufacturers on the bandwagon, etc.

 

[Coffee]

Dream of where computing will be in 3-5 years. Now think of Microsoft "without" a mobile presence in that dream. Can't exist, right. So basically, the stakes are too high for WP to fail. They will throw everything they have at this and will ultimately succeed.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

jimski nails it completely. there simply is no future for a software company that isn't in the mobile business 100%. Phones and tablets with connectivity ARE the future, whether those phones run Windows Phone OS or Win8.

Yes, Microsoft will make blunders and falter, but they won't abandon Windows Phone. No competent new CEO would shut down mobile.

Now, can Windows Phone stumble along at 10% for eternity? sure. But I see the Big 3 gradually evening out over the next 5 years without a huge move by someone.

 

[threed61]

Microsoft is going to remain in mobile because that is the future of computing, but Nokia probably holds the fate of windows phone. When former Microsoft employee Stephen Elop announced the demise of Symbian, without ready handset replacements, it demolished Nokia's sales and stock price. It's not a stretch to call him the most unpopular CEO in Europe. With stockholders pushing for him to be gone already, if his WP baby doesn't take off immediately, be he and WP could be gone as abruptly as Symbian.

 

[Coffee]

Nokia doesn't hold the fate of Windows Phone (but they certainly can move it's popularity immensely).

Microsoft is not dependent on Nokia any more (and a lot less) than Apple is dependent on Foxconn. If Foxconn failed, Apple would simply move to another OEM. Microsoft already has multiple hardware manufacturers.

 

[threed61]

If their biggest partner can't move this OS others will probably quit too. I don't consider this likely, just a response to the theme of how can WP fail. On the other hand, who thought it was likely that HP would dump the very division that makes them the 'worlds largest pc maker'. Aint speculation fun.

 

[Useraid]

Of course it can fail, in fact the whole company can fail nothing is guaranteed in this or any other business. Just look at other players such as Nokia and Blackberry with their declining shareholder confidence, and HP with 47%+ wiped off their market value; in the space of two weeks the company had almost shrunk by half in value!

No-one really knows the marketscape in 12 months, they can just do their best to head it off. MS tried to head off smartphone competitors with major changes to the 6.X line to make it touch friendly, but much like Windows Longhorn abandoned the product altogether and started anew when it became clear that it was architecturally lost. MS could not predict how successful touch centric navigation would be and so lost the lead.

We hope wp7 will be a viable product line, but it would not be realistic to pronounce it invulnerable to failure.

 

[duke1231]

It is interesting to me how MS does not advertise. It's like all the kids on the playground are talking all kinds of sh** about how they can beat all the other kids a**, and MS is just sitting in the corner of the playground with their head down playing in the sand. If that makes any sense It's like they have no confidence in themselves.

 

[Winterfang]

There's always the chance of failure, I want this too succeed though I like it. and I like Microsoft.

 

[jhousden9]

Microsoft are very unlikely to fail with WP7 with the amounts of money they have, and market share in computing. And if they do fail (BIG IF), then they are unlikely to pull out of the phone market because it would damage their reputation against other computing companies such as Apple and Google.

WP7 is too clean and easy to use for it to fail as well. All it needs to some extreme advertising like Apple rub in our faces each and every day. >_>

 

[theman60099]

It is interesting to me how MS does not advertise. It's like all the kids on the playground are talking all kinds of sh** about how they can beat all the other kids a**, and MS is just sitting in the corner of the playground with their head down playing in the sand. If that makes any sense It's like they have no confidence in themselves.

MS doesn't advertise? then why is it that everyday I see a few Bing commercials and windows 7 commercials? I've also see some wp7 commercials on both English and Spanish language tv tho even more so on Spanish than English. I know that there will be more WP commercials once the mango rollout is complete or when the next round of devices are released so this "MS doesn't advertise nonsense needs to stop"

 

[Pronk]

Here in the UK, I have seen this many WP7 adverts on TV: one. So yeah, MS need to advertise.

 

[theman60099]

Here in the UK, I have seen this many WP7 adverts on TV: one. So yeah, MS need to advertise.

that may be the fault of the TV stations there rather than MS themselves.

 

[Useraid]

Yeah tv station gets money, but decides to keep it and not run adverts. How dare they! Or MS didn't give them any money

 

[Winterfang]

I've seen lots of WP7 commercials. Most of them suck.

 

[palandri]

In Chicago I haven't seen one WP7 commercial, but I have seen a ton of Verizon Droid Bionic commercials. It too bad they don't tell people the battery in the Droid Bionic will only last 6 hours.

 

[astroXP]

Like W. Bush would say:

"If [Microsoft's WP7] doesn't succeed, [it] runs the risk of failure."

lol