Microsoft is not ready to do "whatever it takes" for Windows Mobile

[JohnIvory]

Did you see the new Surface Book? It has a GPU in th base of the device, that gives extra power when plugged in. I believe a big reason Microsoft is doing this is a learn how to best add processing power dynamically when docking.

A Surface phone with x86 will have a docking station with extra processing power, I reckon. Your company will have flexible office spaces where people can dock their phones and it WILL be like a desktop machine, even in terms of performance. Imagine all the costs saved for the company, while ease of use is maintained for the employee.

Oh, and for those actually needing a laptop the will be a lapdock like the Motorola Atrix (cf. Motorola Atrix 4G Lapdock review - Engadget ) that can be shared between all employees when they need them. Same concept, with processing power in the base.

Once again that seems like something businesses MIGHT like if sold properly to them, not the average consumer, at least not in a way that's going to change sales much in the next year or two. I don't doubt the Surface Phone (if released as described) would do great things. It would also be very expensive, and it will almost certainly NOT pull Windows Phone out of the rut that it's in now.

 

[Joshwin]

My gut feeling says W10M will be a huge success in few yrs.

 

[tgp]

Re: Microsoft is not ready to do "whatever it takes" for Windows Mobile

I disagree with this, and that's the crux of my post. Windows Phone was pushed very heavily by Microsoft in the beginning, and the carriers welcomed it with open arms. Every single carrier had at least one phone in their lineup, and it got store space. Microsoft sold ads for the phones. When the market failed to respond however, the carriers became unwilling to continue carrying Windows Phone at the same price point. I imagine for them to continue would probably have required something like what Samsung pulled with their Galaxy Series: Pay for store space themselves, market the phones directly to consumers themselves, set up displays booths everywhere themselves, and create a million different variants of the same phone for each carrier, while paying the carriers some amount of money in the interim to carry the phones. It is estimated that Samsung spent $12 billion a year at the height of their Galaxy ad campaign. That's the definition of doing "whatever it takes".

There's no way MSFT would have spent that kind of money on Windows Phone, and I'm glad they didn't. It would have been stupid and short-sighted, especially when the biggest reason people weren't buying their phones was the newness of the platform and its lack of apps. At least Samsung knew that if Android grew it would grow with it, and at the time Android was the only good alternative to the iPhone. Windows Phone was new and untested. Why would any company be willing to sink that kind of money into the platform?

So you're basically saying that WP wasn't, and isn't, pushed because it's not worth the shelf space? You're certainly out of place in this forum! It seems that this would agree with what I said, that US carriers aren't pushing WP, except you're actually giving a good reason why they aren't.

In short, I agree with what you said here.

Ignorance is bliss, and the iPhone contradicts your statement. Just because the average consumer doesn't know they need an OTA update doesn't mean they don't need it. Android is riddled with security bugs discovered everyday that will never be fixed for a good chunk of phones. That the consumer doesn't know this doesn't somehow make it better. And the fact that iOS phones have such a high update record shows that consumers will in fact update their phones if given the opportunity.

I'd also add that U.S. telecom customers are only pleased because they don't know better. If U.S. customers had experience with another system, and were aware of what a free (ha!) telecommunications market actually looked like, they wouldn't be pleased at all. Ignorance is bliss...

LOL you guys did say the same thing! Either way, customers of both systems get good service, and both are happy. And by the way, those of you from outside the US who read only complaints about US carriers, you do realize don't you that this is because you're on a WP forum, right? The US carriers for the most part have good service.

Either way, this forum makes the problem seem bigger than it is in real life. But forums are like that. People primarily complain on forums, but seldom post the opposite.

As far as the free market, I should have said "free enterprise". This is largely synonymous with capitalist, which is the system the US operates by. Basically, businesses can operate as they please, and the consumer can take it or leave it. If a business is taking advantage of the consumer, a competitor appears to take its place. This is how the US carrier system settled at the place it is. Yes there is consumer ignorance, but there is in every system.

 

[dorelse]

Well, I think you have couple points in your original post incorrect. Windows 10 is absolutely MS's priority. Their focus was 100% on delivering Win10...the entirety of Win10 in July. By all accounts, its been one of the most successful launch in history. 110 Million installs in 8 weeks...not too shabby. So Microsoft absolutely pulled out all the stops to launch Win10. (You know...the thing that makes money to fund the parts that don't...ie. phones.)

Given that everything...everything MS puts out now will run on a Win10 core OS engine, that has to absolutely be right in order for devices, xbone, phones, hololens, band, IOT, etc, etc...they absolutely put 110% into its delivery. Furthermore, developing an OS is a monster task that is done by very specialized developers...you can't just grab those guys off the shelf and plug them into the development chain. ie..a Word coder is going to be of little use writing a binary radix tree sort...for an OS.

Since we're not privy to the inner workings of MS, your assumption that MS didn't pull guys from other projects to work on the OS or WM is just that...an assumption.

Once the 'core' for Win Mobile is solidified, probably very close on internal MS builds...they can start delivering those incremental builds to add functionality and patch the inevitable bugs we're going to see early on.

I think MS isn't going to really start the next product 'marathon' until the surface phones come out and Panos has had his say in the products. The 950/XL (to Dan's article) is MS laying the foundation for hardware components (CPU's, drivers, camera, etc) so that when the surface phones come out, they're solid & compelling with an OS to match.

Just my thoughts of course, but the 950/XL aren't the 'new' Microsoft ... they're transitional devices getting ready for a relaunch next Spring...when Project Astoria is in place and they have a complete & compelling story the entire spectrum of MS's devices & software offerings.

 

[Spectrum90]

What Microsoft, wasn't, and still isn't to this day, is willing to do ANYTHING to make sure Windows Phone succeeds.
...
If the integration between Windows 10 and Windows Mobile 10 ever becomes something market-worthy, their phones would be there waiting. And if not, their phones would still be there; the 1-OS dream is kinda needs a mobile screen to make sense. But expecting Microsoft to do WHATEVER it takes to make sure Windows Phone succeeds is naive.

Although, It's also naive to pretend that Microsoft can do *nothing* and still build a phone that fans or the enterprise could use.
It's not an all-or-nothing situation. They have to spend and incur in losses to keep the product viable even for a small number of users. Microsoft is in an exploration to determine the amount of resources they need to satisfy few niches with a good product. However, phones are computing machines of general use. A lot of resources are needed to implement a relevant subset of the use cases to satisfy a niche.

I'm still optimistic about Windows in mobile. The market will experiment relevant changes in the next few years and that always opens new opportunities. Microsoft has strong assets and a few advantages over competitors in some areas, so they can still build an attractive product for a segments of the market.

 

[JohnIvory]

Well, I think you have couple points in your original post incorrect. Windows 10 is absolutely MS's priority. Their focus was 100% on delivering Win10...the entirety of Win10 in July. By all accounts, its been one of the most successful launch in history. 110 Million installs in 8 weeks...not too shabby. So Microsoft absolutely pulled out all the stops to launch Win10. (You know...the thing that makes money to fund the parts that don't...ie. phones.)

I agree, but notice I was talking about Windows Phone circa 2011, not right now. And also notice, that even with pulling out all the stops, Windows 10 desktop still took priority over Windows 10 Mobile. Windows Mobile, even with this merge is still behind in priorities for Microsoft. The merge makes it much better though. Because the OS's are the same now, they're not going to abandon mobile.

 

[JohnIvory]

Although, It's also naive to pretend that Microsoft can do *nothing* and still build a phone that fans or the enterprise could use.
It's not an all-or-nothing situation. They have to spend and incur in losses to keep the product viable even for a small number of users. .

While I agree with you about being optimistic about Windows Mobile, I don't agree with this statement here. You don't incur losses for a small amount of users. You incur losses if they help establish a (relatively) dominant market position. Look at Youtube and Xbox, two products that historically have lost money but commanded substantial portions of their markets. Those kinds of investments make sense. Windows Phone, with 3% share, simply isn't worth losing money on. It's worth investing in, sure, but not losing money on.

 

[Spectrum90]

Re: Microsoft is not ready to do "whatever it takes" for Windows Mobile

While I agree with you about being optimistic about Windows Mobile, I don't agree with this statement here. You don't incur losses for a small amount of users. You incur losses if they help establish a (relatively) dominant market position. Look at Youtube and Xbox, two products that historically have lost money but commanded substantial portions of their markets. Those kinds of investments make sense. Windows Phone, with 3% share, simply isn't worth losing money on. It's worth investing in, sure, but not losing money on.

There are big fixed costs in developing phones, so the relation between units sold and losses has a U shape. We don't have details of the operation so we can't estimate the number of units that minimize the losses. However, lets analyse some hypothetical scenarios (quarterly):

Losses: $500 million.
Units sold: 8 million.
This is the current situation. It's unsustainable, losses are too high even for Microsoft.

Losses: $200 million.
Unit sold : 4 million.
I'm OK with this, specially if they manage to increase the share of high end phones in the mix.

Losses: $100 million.
Units sold:1 million.
This would be a disaster. The low market share would have a huge negative impact in the product quality, developers would leave the platform. The platform is effectively dead and Microsoft loses the optionality.

Losses: $200 million.
Unit sold: 0.5 million.
Absolute disaster. Microsoft underestimated the sales effort and destroyed the platform.

 

[Paisley Pirate]

If they did, Pocket PC would still be a thing.

I was an early adopter of the Pocket PC back in the day (HP 100LX) I was severely disappointed when MSFT went to CE and had a basic train wreck over graphics on a screen. Then I got an HP CE6 phone - loved that darn thing even though it kept resetting itself if you breathed on it wrong... queue up to today, when I been slumming through a bunch of other hardware over the last few years wishing and waiting for a true Pocket PC to show back up. My little Stream 7 is great, and I can pair it with my BB10 Z10 to get internet (shhh! don't tell Net10/ATT) when I am out in the world... I WISH I could get it all in 1 handheld with the power to do full PC work stuff, the phone covered, and the battery life of the Stream (the battery life of the Z10 - let's not talk about that) BBRY had a good thing running with their Playbook a few years ago, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot with a repeater... I hope to heck MSFT doesn't do the same - as Win10 shows a lot of promise.

 

[fdalbor]

While there is a lot of ideas floating around lets remember that MOST of the people who will buy smartphones are not going to be willing to put out the money it would cost to buy such a beast. (Surface phone), no matter what it can do it will not appeal to the general public and may become a great nitch product; but it will never be popular except to a small group of people. Plus the phones that the public can affort cannot do what this phone can do so how can it ever be a real success. Android became a sucess because it was cheaper than a Iphone and appealed to what most people wanted to spend on a PHONE and in the end Android covered all the bases. Now if this Surface phone can be had for a price no more than a good Android or Iphone then they might have a chance. But its aint going to happen. Remember when Microsoft said that any Lumia phone that could run 8.1 would get W10. You don't hear that anymore. Wonder why. I will stay with my midrange Windows phone and midrange Android phone and hope that one day this all works out. I just hope it happens before they shovel dirt in my face.

 

[JohnIvory]

I was an early adopter of the Pocket PC back in the day (HP 100LX) I was severely disappointed when MSFT went to CE and had a basic train wreck over graphics on a screen. Then I got an HP CE6 phone - loved that darn thing even though it kept resetting itself if you breathed on it wrong... queue up to today, when I been slumming through a bunch of other hardware over the last few years wishing and waiting for a true Pocket PC to show back up. My little Stream 7 is great, and I can pair it with my BB10 Z10 to get internet (shhh! don't tell Net10/ATT) when I am out in the world... I WISH I could get it all in 1 handheld with the power to do full PC work stuff, the phone covered, and the battery life of the Stream (the battery life of the Z10 - let's not talk about that) BBRY had a good thing running with their Playbook a few years ago, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot with a repeater... I hope to heck MSFT doesn't do the same - as Win10 shows a lot of promise.

I don't deny there're customers like you, I just don't think you make a substantial enough part of the market to justify Microsoft giving you sole focus. What you want is definitely the future; I don't think the current set of consumers will move to Windows Mobile just because of that.

 

[ejlee072006]

Microsoft is not ready to do "whatever it takes" for Windows Mobile

I think att has EXCLUSIVITY RIGHTS with MSFT!! it's the same thing what happen the IPHONE, until then
Att,tmo are GSM
SPRINT,VZW are CDMA
this is not the IPHONE
even Apple had the same issues before!!!
We shall see


VAPE ON

 

[John Steffes]

This is Palm/HP webOS all over... Microsoft has a good platform, Reboot, another good Platform, Reboot, another good platform, reboot.. Now Windows 10 Mobile, I want to see it on a tablet.. will then justify it on a phone...

FYI Palm, has PalmOS, WinCE, webOS... Microsoft had Pocket PC/WinCE 6.x/Windows Mobile 7.x/Windows 8.1, now Windows 10 Mobile...

Palm/HP died... Microsoft may stick around, but for how long..

 

[CygnusOrion]

This is Palm/HP webOS all over... Microsoft has a good platform, Reboot, another good Platform, Reboot, another good platform, reboot.. Now Windows 10 Mobile, I want to see it on a tablet.. will then justify it on a phone...

FYI Palm, has PalmOS, WinCE, webOS... Microsoft had Pocket PC/WinCE 6.x/Windows Mobile 7.x/Windows 8.1, now Windows 10 Mobile...

Palm/HP died... Microsoft may stick around, but for how long..

MS has $100 billion in cash and $20 billion/year in free cash flow. Mobile is dying on the vine, but MS as a whole is not in any danger bro! Worst case scenario(RIM), they go out of business in 2027.

 

[Win10all]

I am in Australia, two years ago, when i was going to sign a 2 year mobile contract with Telstra (Australia's No.1 mobile provider), i looked at one windows phone at one of the biggest Telstra shops. but the sale guy a the Telstra asked me like this ' that is a windows phone, are you sure you want that phone?', i said ' please give me a reason , why not?'. he replied, ' you are the first and only person to pick up that phone.......'. so i am from Andriod background, i have used about 8 google phone, and last week, i finally bought a Lumia 640xl which is my first wm. and i myself is the ONLY one among all friends to use WM. the reason i start to use WM, is simply because i use a windows 10 PC, and i want to use a W10m which is fully compatible with my PC. after upgraded to win10m, the basic phone function is much improved compare to the win7m. however still gaps compare to andriod system. to be honest, the reason wm did not sale well has nothing to do with the Microsoft marketing, or anything, but simply because the wm7 is a very bad system, no body want to use it. most my close friends in Microsft China have 2 mobiles phones. one WM for work, and one andriod or ios for real daily use. If the wm is good enough, why people in MS need to have 2 phones? Now, all my hope is the W10M to get things right - for both the phone function and also the apps.......this is the only chance, and the last chance. i still carry my google phone as a back up today, but i hope when the time Microsoft lunches the w10m, i can drop off my google phone....

 

[Chinocop]

Little extreme to say MSFT will go out of business considering that all major corporations and most governments depend on MSFT to run their organizations. If Microsoft were to go bankrupt, business would grind to a halt, and we'd be left in chaos. Just because consumers don't buy their phones, doesn't mean that they're doomed.

 

[xandros9]

"Are you prepared to go all the way with this, Microsoft?"

 

[Steve Adams]

Little extreme to say MSFT will go out of business considering that all major corporations and most governments depend on MSFT to run their organizations. If Microsoft were to go bankrupt, business would grind to a halt, and we'd be left in chaos. Just because consumers don't buy their phones, doesn't mean that they're doomed.

What do you mean? no one uses MS anymore. They all use apple now! ha ha ha!

So the hokies would have you believe. The lemmings will say even large scale businesses all use osx now and that windows is dead. ha ha.

 

[onlysublime]

I'm happy with my HTC One M8 and I'm going to have to go with it longer than I expected.

I was so excited for the 950XL. But the latest events have soured me. It was one thing to expect me to pay the entire $650+tax upfront. But then to hear that it wasn't compatible with Verizon. You can't keep putting up barriers to your fans. Fans will meet you halfway but you have to go the other half too.

There's a lot Microsoft can do. It's not entirely out of their control. For example, they could do a payment plan like Apple. Give a way to lock people into your ecosystem the way Apple is doing with the iPhone. People are so high-minded about the freedom of unlocked phones and paying the full cost of the phone. But people prefer not to blow all their money at once. Monthly payments are much more palatable. Monthly plans can work out for Microsoft too. Rather than selling $650 phones which eventually get price reduced, they can sell the $650 phones at a lower monthly cost that never gets reduced. Guaranteed stable income. Isn't that the real reason to go to subscriptions with Office 365? Guaranteed consistent income versus the feast and famine phases of sales.

People are quick to sound smart by saying a $200 subsidized phone is really $2000 if you include the plan. But you have to pay for a plan regardless of whether you are locked into a carrier. I'd rather pay $200 for a phone than $650 for a phone even if the $650 phone allows me to jump from carrier to carrier. What's the point of jumping from carrier to carrier if the plans and prices are almost the same between carriers? It makes sense for Europe where there are so many small countries in close proximity. But in the US, the freedom doesn't give you any true benefits.

Anyway, the turn of events means I can focus money on the Surface Pro 4, the Microsoft Band 2, and the rapidly incoming Halo Xbox One. So excited!

 

[mariusmuntean]

My gut feeling says W10M will be a huge success in few yrs.

Same guys like you said this before with WP7, and again with WP8. None of those versions were able to bring more than 3% market share and none have managed to bring devs to build and actually support the platform.
I remember back in 2011, was almost summer and I decided to pick a HTC Trophy 7 just to see how WP7 was. Bad mistake! no turn by turn GPS software available, no good games, missing apps, no USSD support, terrible email client, horrible IE performance, no separate volume controls for apps,tones etc. Was the worst experience ever. Returned it within the 2 weeks of purchase and bought a Xperia X10 on Android. So the start was bad for MS, WP7 was bad from the start comparing with the ongoing competition at that time.