Before anyone gets too excited, I know this is my 1st post here and I know that this isn't a Microsoft site so Steve Ballmer isn't likely to read my letter. However, this site is a valuable resource to Windows Phone users, even long time lurkers like myself, and I just want to say this one thing:
Dear Microsoft,
I consider myself to be an advanced and dedicated user of many of your products. I am a middle-aged technical professional and I have been using Microsoft products since the very beginning. In 1984, I was a young engineer at a large company but given the privilege to work with one of the first IBM PCs with MS Windows. In the ensuing years, I have enjoyed (and sometimes suffered through) the evolution of Windows to what you have today, which I still prefer above all others. When Pocket PCs came along, I was an early adopter and I stuck with your mobile OS through a range of cell phones. Although I never considered myself a ******, I bragged to everyone about the things my phone could do that theirs could not. Until now. I have been using Windows Phone 7.5 since the first day of release but have reached the end of my rope (and the end of my arm) over its limitations. My biggest gripe: fixed system font size. This is probably a minor issue in the big scheme of things but it shows an underlying lack of concern for your user base. I have always thought that MS products have just the right degree of user flexibility and customization to allow the user to accomplish what they need to accomplish. But it seems that you have chosen to take that away and have moved to a one-size-fits-all mentality. That is what Apple does and that is why I have never owned an Apple product for myself. Apple products suit my children and my mother because they are easy. I don?t want easy, I want good functionality and flexibility to accomplish my work and you, Microsoft, have in my opinion been the stalwart of that line, at least in your thinking if not always in your practice.
I have been loyal to you going on 30 years but the end is nigh. Tomorrow I will discard my Windows 7.5 Mango phone and replace it with an Android phone. Yes, I have been cheating on you a little; reading about the Google Android systems, playing with the phones in the AT&T store, even going so far as to buy one from Ebay to check out the functionality. And guess what? ? I like it. I like how I can change almost anything to suit me, including accommodating my failing eyesight that can?t read the 6-point font size of the status bar clock on my Mango powered phone. But it is more than that. There are no useful apps for your phone. Sure, all the talking heads say ?Give it time, they will come? but they won?t come. The apps won?t come because you have so many limitations on developers and so many built-in development limitations within your OS that useful apps are impossible to create. I hope I am wrong and I look forward to the day that I can return because there is much that I will miss, but I hold out little hope.
You may not care that you are losing a customer, you may not care that you are losing a customer that has been loyal to your mobile products since Windows CE, but the bottom line remains the same: you are losing a customer today because you failed to remember that customer satisfaction is important to a successful business model. There are many more users like me out there so I hope you get back on track before Windows Phone becomes another one of those things that we can tell our kids about that used to be.
So, goodbye Microsoft Phone, it has been fun but I need to go where I am wanted.
Regards,
Brokenman
Dear Microsoft,
I consider myself to be an advanced and dedicated user of many of your products. I am a middle-aged technical professional and I have been using Microsoft products since the very beginning. In 1984, I was a young engineer at a large company but given the privilege to work with one of the first IBM PCs with MS Windows. In the ensuing years, I have enjoyed (and sometimes suffered through) the evolution of Windows to what you have today, which I still prefer above all others. When Pocket PCs came along, I was an early adopter and I stuck with your mobile OS through a range of cell phones. Although I never considered myself a ******, I bragged to everyone about the things my phone could do that theirs could not. Until now. I have been using Windows Phone 7.5 since the first day of release but have reached the end of my rope (and the end of my arm) over its limitations. My biggest gripe: fixed system font size. This is probably a minor issue in the big scheme of things but it shows an underlying lack of concern for your user base. I have always thought that MS products have just the right degree of user flexibility and customization to allow the user to accomplish what they need to accomplish. But it seems that you have chosen to take that away and have moved to a one-size-fits-all mentality. That is what Apple does and that is why I have never owned an Apple product for myself. Apple products suit my children and my mother because they are easy. I don?t want easy, I want good functionality and flexibility to accomplish my work and you, Microsoft, have in my opinion been the stalwart of that line, at least in your thinking if not always in your practice.
I have been loyal to you going on 30 years but the end is nigh. Tomorrow I will discard my Windows 7.5 Mango phone and replace it with an Android phone. Yes, I have been cheating on you a little; reading about the Google Android systems, playing with the phones in the AT&T store, even going so far as to buy one from Ebay to check out the functionality. And guess what? ? I like it. I like how I can change almost anything to suit me, including accommodating my failing eyesight that can?t read the 6-point font size of the status bar clock on my Mango powered phone. But it is more than that. There are no useful apps for your phone. Sure, all the talking heads say ?Give it time, they will come? but they won?t come. The apps won?t come because you have so many limitations on developers and so many built-in development limitations within your OS that useful apps are impossible to create. I hope I am wrong and I look forward to the day that I can return because there is much that I will miss, but I hold out little hope.
You may not care that you are losing a customer, you may not care that you are losing a customer that has been loyal to your mobile products since Windows CE, but the bottom line remains the same: you are losing a customer today because you failed to remember that customer satisfaction is important to a successful business model. There are many more users like me out there so I hope you get back on track before Windows Phone becomes another one of those things that we can tell our kids about that used to be.
So, goodbye Microsoft Phone, it has been fun but I need to go where I am wanted.
Regards,
Brokenman