Elop: We aren?t getting the traction we prefer

[lippidp]

I think there is little marketing because MS knows WP7 is half-baked. It's for MS enthusiasts only. WP8 will (must) change this. WP8 has to be a killer and they need to promote the **** out of it, else they're doomed.

 

[tekhna]

The same way justified the expense of the original XBox? It worked out in the end on that one.

In this thread alone WP has been compared to:

RIM
The tortoise and the hare
The American automotive industry
Apple
And now, finally, the Xbox.

Got any more analogies that may or may not be apt?

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

In this thread alone WP has been compared to:

RIM
The tortoise and the hare
The American automotive industry
Apple
And now, finally, the Xbox.

Got any more analogies that may or may not be apt?

How about an AMD/Intel one? Or a Wii U analogy?

 

[xmind]

I think there is little marketing because MS knows WP7 is half-baked. It's for MS enthusiasts only. WP8 will (must) change this. WP8 has to be a killer and they need to promote the **** out of it, else they're doomed.

/agree. I enjoyed the functionality/flexibility of my Android, but bought a WP to help support the OS as I saw potential. I have deliberately held off on updating my contract for the last year because I wanted to wait for the WP8 devices. That said, if the gap in functionality isn't closed with WP8 or some other really good feature/integration, then I'll likely be jumping back to Android....

 

[foosball]

/agree. I enjoyed the functionality/flexibility of my Android, but bought a WP to help support the OS as I saw potential. I have deliberately held off on updating my contract for the last year because I wanted to wait for the WP8 devices. That said, if the gap in functionality isn't closed with WP8 or some other really good feature/integration, then I'll likely be jumping back to Android....

WP definitely needs a lot more functionality, especially in terms of user options. I wish they would add text reflow for example to the browser and screen shot functionality as well. Out of curiosity what functionality do you see missing?

 

[snowmutt]

I think we need to step back a couple of steps here. And trust me, I mean me as well. It is easy to push the panic button, and I did it just recently. The OS experience is more than just a personal preference, it is a huge part of our Lives. We structure our social lives, paying bills, and in some cases our business and jobs around them. So yes, we get wrapped up in the OS success and shortcomings once we find one that works for us.

The usual line on WP, and not undeserved, is that it is two steps behind. From it's debut in 2010 to the new Nokia line, it has been behind on apps, functions, hardware, support, and promotions. So, why even hold out hope WP8 will be any different? I got your backs on this one:

-Forget the slams on Nokia and it's state of affairs right now. The company was heading for a crash before Elop even came onboard. The adoption of WP has not been a slam dunk, but Nokia got a partner with deep pockets willing to help keep it afloat during the restructuring and willing to go the extra distance. Just look at Tango, created completely to allow Nokia to compete in developing markets. In return, Microsoft gets a worldwide name to back their OS that would have taken many more years and much more money to accomplish. Samsung and HTC would have never pushed the way Nokia has. Give this partnership more than 8 months.

-The ecosystem. I truly believe MS wants the Tablet market before it truly takes off. Androids only real shortcoming is the tablet market, leaving Windows a huge, truck sized opportunity. If Tablets take off, and MS has learned its lessons in mobile correctly, WP benefits. Got a Windows laptop? Got a Windows Tablet? Just makes sense to grab a Windows Phone. Give this developing ecosystem a chance.

-The development of WP. Really, gang, 2 years. That is it. They dumped Windows Mobile and launched WP less than 2 years ago. They dumped a PC-like mobile experience and created a social network first, ground up experience in the face of Android and Apple dominance. How many other companies could have made this work? And really, experts and hardware companies want a choice in OS's, not just consumers. Samsung, HTC, and dozens of other companies want to have something to fall back on.

WP has come up short up to now, but really it has seen some great reviews, wonderful potential, and yes it has had growth. 2013 is HUGE for it, but if you enjoy it, relax. Give it it's chance to grow. MS had the mobile market once, it can do it again.

Pep talk over.

 

[scottcraft]

Excellent post snowmutt!

 

[lippidp]

WP definitely needs a lot more functionality, especially in terms of user options. I wish they would add text reflow for example to the browser and screen shot functionality as well. Out of curiosity what functionality do you see missing?

It's so bad that Microsoft themselves have created a wish list site.

Feature Suggestions: Hot (13418 ideas)

For me, since Mango I am happy with WP so don't get me wrong. However, sometimes it's just hard to accept that stuff I had in WM6 is not available 3 years later. Before Mango it was just unbearable. I am very excited about WP8 and know that MS has it in them to do great work.

 

[Laura Knotek]

I can't complain about Windows Phone. It knocks the socks off BlackBerry, which is what I had previously.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[eric12341]

It's about both, because with "behind the curve" phones you know any ecosystem will suffer in one way or another. Games will be of lower quality (visually or in performance). Apps will not be on feature parity with their sisters on other platforms (i.e. PayPal NFC money transfers, for example), and in some cases developers may simply refuse to support the platform period, in an effort to avoid a fragmented user experience. Also the user experience for other people is degraded as a result - for example instead of doing a 720p video call they're getting pixelated VGA video from you...

Most SDTV broadcasts are in VGA resolution,in fact there was an article awhile back that stated that most people with HDTV's weren't seeing the true HD resolution so I don't think that matters to most people at all judging from that. If 640x480 can look decent on a 43" screen it can still look great on a 4.3 inch screen. If that wasn't enough Intel has proven that android doesn't even use the extra cores in a processor at all and that it's just a gimmick. Hopefully that gets through this time.

 

[mafu6]

What people have to remember is this... How many people are in 2 year contracts? How long has WP been around?

Alot of people should now be coming to the end of their contracts that started when WP was released, though many are still locked into contracts since WP was pushed by Nokia. If Apollo can be pushed on the phone and tablet market by the most importnat people which is retail shops, most people buy phones/tablets in retial stores, then WP can be a massive success.

How many have a PC running windows... Alot... wouldnt it make sense to have a tablet that works with that... and if you have a tablet that works with your PC and Tablet ... than it makes sense to have a phone that works too....

in addidtion to that how many house holds have Xbox 360s? In the UK I'd say a fair few and if your PC. Laptop Tablet Phone and Console ALL work togather you will never want anything else.

Traction takes along time to gain in a market domintaed by Apple and Google with BB still holding alot of business users.

WP is totally capable of dominating the Mobile OS market, if things work like they should (which will lead to the best advertsinig around, word of mouth) and Advertising and Pushes from OEMs Carriers and Retail shops. Really it has to be ALL

 

[xmind]

Out of curiosity what functionality do you see missing?

The short answer is that Verizon is my biggest problem. If they sold a Titan II type phone I'd be much less apt to go back to Android. But they don't, so here's my list that I need to see fulfilled:

MS Improvements:
1. Mass storage mode - no argument of other options, see my past posts before you tell me I don't need this

2. Higher screen resolution - fairly certain this is going to be supported with WP8 from other news items, but I just love the clarity of the HTC Rezound for example

3. Navigation improvements - Bing Maps have been terrible for me as far as user experience and the directions itself, especially coming from using Android's Google Maps. I don't want to fill this post up with a long rant, so I'll leave it at that. If indeed they are going to be releasing a Nokia Drive for all WP phones, then it'll probably address all of my problems.

4. Voice recognition improvements - voice recognition isn't bad, but there is definitely some improvement needed to work as well as Android's voice recognition. I rarely had to re-say something for the phone to pick it up with Android....my Trophy on the other hand I've been frustrated enough that I ended having to pull over and type stuff in because it wasn't getting the simple phrase correct.

5. Non-marketplace app installs - This is what initially sold me to switch to WP as I read about the ChevronWP7 unlock tokens that allowed this. Except they weren't available and are now discontinued. This would have save a couple of grips from below (i.e. tethering and app folders)

6. App Grouping - There are a ton of apps I have installed and most I use quite frequently, but the list is annoying. I'd much rather just go to say for example a "news" folder then remember all the news apps I have installed. They grouped all the games, but nothing else.

7. Setting's shortcuts and scripting - I understand MS's position on not allowing programs to control your phone's settings, but then at least come out with MS's own live tile quick toggle buttons and location-based profiles. I find it annoying that I have to change my brightness, wifi, volume manually when I'm at work, home, or out for the evening. Again with Android, they had widgets on the home screen the 1 tap is all it took to toggle settings and there were apps that were easy to script your phone to do multiple things based upon some event like day/time or location.

8. IE Navigation - no forward button, seriously? Also the tab switching is terrible. They should be true tabs at the bottom instead of an address bar IMO.

9. Notifications - still hate that unless you look at your phone with in like 10 seconds of hearing a notification you have no idea what just caused it unless you have all your text, phone, email counts memorized...let alone if they ever allow apps to notify you of things like Android does.

10. Alternate keyboards - MS does have one of the best keyboards out there, but I'd still prefer a Swype type of keyboard as it saves me a lot of time pecking at the keys.


Carrier/Phone Vendor Improvements:
1. Screen size - Looking for a Titan sized device with higher resolution

2. LTE - obviously already supported by MS

3. Tethering - I used this feature a far bit while traveling and at work with my Android phone. If I could "root" my Trophy as easy I could my Android phone to get this, that would have been nice. I'd be surprised to see this feature put onto any Verizon devices like AT&T allowed Nokia to do on theirs.

4. Battery life - I was really hoping that WP was much better on the battery usage because of the hardware optimizations that Android didn't have, but that was not the case with the Trophy (yes, I know the 1st gen LTE Android phones sucked down the juice much quicker, but non-LTE Android phones got at least as good of battery life as the Trophy did). I put this item under the phone vendor list because I've accepted the fact there is no magic to eek out a 25-50% battery gain over another OS...just put a big battery in it (which I put an 1800 mAh battery in my Trophy and am satisfied with the battery performance of about 36 hours).

5. Better camera - not too impressed with the camera hardware in the Trophy.

6. HDMI out - not a huge feature, but I would love to have this for traveling, in-car navigation options, or a laptop dock like Motorola's or Asus's phone to laptop ideas.


To be honest, I've had a fairly good experience with WP thus far. I do enjoy my evenings not trying to tweak my ROM of my phone like I was doing with Android. So short of Verizon not releasing any WP8 devices this year, I'll probably stick with WP. But if it'll be next year, I don't know how much longer I can hold out.

 

[foosball]

The short answer is that Verizon is my biggest problem. If they sold a Titan II type phone I'd be much less apt to go back to Android. But they don't, so here's my list that I need to see fulfilled:

That is a great example of all the things which need to be addressed with WP. I couldn't agree more with everything you said. If MS implements most of these, Windows Phone could be the Xbox of the mobile world in a few years.

 

[scottcraft]

I can't complain about Windows Phone. It knocks the socks off BlackBerry, which is what I had previously.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

My Trophy outperforms and is way more consistent than the Motorola Droid I had prior to this, so the user experience is so much better, but the Droid had more functionality. I'm hoping WP 8 improves on that somewhat.

 

[JD Miles]

send secret shopper to 500 retailers and you will get 501 sales people re-jecting Win Phone the extra one was because of the customer who dared to insist he really wanted WinP7 not iphone or android

 

[mafu6]

send secret shopper to 500 retailers and you will get 501 sales people re-jecting Win Phone the extra one was because of the customer who dared to insist he really wanted WinP7 not iphone or android

My point excatly phone shops lean heavily towards Android and iPhone...

My mother went to get her first smartphone... unfortunatly I was not with her. I asked her when she got back to what she got and tbh i cant disagree with what she was sold as it was the Galaxy S3... but i asked her what else the offered and she told me she was offered the iPhone 4S and the HTC One X (she's trying to be cool so wanted a powerhouse phone, not that she knows how to use it or ever will lol) I asked if she was offered any WP like the Lumia 900 or a HTC WP7 he reply was.... what?

Now she visited to of the most popular high street retailers in the UK to get her smartphone, I'm not gonna mention any names people in the UK will know who I mean.

It seems as though the sales staff arent pushing WP it's probably the most easy to use OS availabe and something a new smartphone user would easily get to grips with.

As an ex webOS user i find WP extermly easy to use and it just works no need to Tweak anything unlike Android and it ISN'T APPLE!!

 

[tekhna]

Well, I preordered a Galaxy S III today. I genuinely wanted a Windows Phone on Verizon, but once it became clear I would lose my unlimited data if I didn't pre-order, and Windows 8 was a ways off, it was the only thing that made sense.

I'm a current Android user, and while I was always satisfied with Android, I wanted something more. I loved the text-based approach of Metro, and as much as I grew up hating Microsoft, they've gotten a lot better. I came here around when the AT&T Lumia was coming out hoping for something from Microsoft, but to be honest, the more I saw, the less I wanted WP. Or, rather, I wanted Windows Phone, but I knew I wouldn't be able to leave Android completely because of WP's limitations. Ok, so I'd carry two phones for a while, that's fine. But the intense fanboyism. Man, there's nothing I dislike more than dogmatists. Whether evangelical Christians, rabid iOS fans, or whatever, they drive me crazy. And this place is 100% ******. I don't think I could switch to WP without serious marketshare expansion to dilute the fanboyism!

I seriously wish WP the best. But if they can't sell to me, someone who genuinely wants a WP7 phone, someone who is not going to be moved by the sales rep's pushing Android or iOS, someone who is technically capable but still able to see a consumer perspective, then what's the point?
People keep saying "wait for WP8." But I can't. I wanted to keep my unlimited data. "Wait for a Lumia." Nothing forthcoming from Verizon, how long do I wait? "Wait for..." for what? Android is activating 900,000 handsets a day.
If WP8 phones come out in say, October, let's just call it 120 days from now. Android is going to sell over 100 million units by October. How does Microsoft come back from that?

Yeah, Elop's not getting the traction he wants. Because I can't buy a handset, even if I wanted to. Europeans can, but they're not. Don't know why. But what a double whammy. The people who want to buy handsets can't, and the people who can, don't.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Carphone Warehouse made a quick job of selling me the TITAN when I went in to buy one, they didn't even try and challenge me. Dunno why, if all the salespeople are so against WP7... Surely if they're anything like Verizon, shouldn't they have been hurling insults at me for even daring to consider WP7? And continued to insult me when I said "Either sell me a WP7 or you're not getting my money"?

 

[mafu6]

Carphone Warehouse made a quick job of selling me the TITAN when I went in to buy one, they didn't even try and challenge me. Dunno why, if all the salespeople are so against WP7... Surely if they're anything like Verizon, shouldn't they have been hurling insults at me for even daring to consider WP7? And continued to insult me when I said "Either sell me a WP7 or you're not getting my money"?

I am not saying that they will try and sell you a different phone if you know what you want, my point was new smartphone users (believe it or not alot of people havent switched to smartphones yet) are pushed towards Android and iOS without WP even being mentioned.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

I am not saying that they will try and sell you a different phone if you know what you want, my point was new smartphone users (believe it or not alot of people havent switched to smartphones yet) are pushed towards Android and iOS without WP even being mentioned.

But with certain carriers in the US, I've read stories that people have been abused for trying to get a Windows Phone in the stores. Like all the staff a certain store laughing when someone went in and asked for a WP7, to which they refused to show the WP7 and was like Android Android Android until the person finally decided they didn't want WP7 anymore. I.E. as if it's a sin to want a WP7 device.