Prediction sure to go wrong: Where I see WP headed in this brave new world...

[Jas00555]

*cries while laughing*

I feel as though I should invade Google HQ now and start shooting ......

*snowmutt leads a battalion on Google HQ. As they drive up to the HQ, he turns around to speak to his soldiers*

"Welcome to Mountain View. You're about to begin the greatest moment of your life.

The partners of Google have lost hundreds of sales and customers.

Page's brutalized hordes are now advancing towards Redmond over mountains of their own failed projects.

Our customers, our nation, our country have given us the task not to let the enemy take over the world and to defend the market share of Windows.

Forward against the enemy! Up into the unremitting battle, comrades, for Redmond, for our great company!

(Google's airplanes shoot at the truck, but then immediately crash from malware)

Not one step back!

Cowards and Android sympathizers will be shot!

Do not count days, do not count miles, count only the number of Chromebooks you have killed.

Kill the Android! This is your mother's prayer.

Kill the Android! This is the cry of Steve Ballmer!

Do not waver! Do not let up! Kill! Death to the privacy invader!"

 

[MaxyBley]

I'm sure WP will grow not really fast though.

 

[Laura Knotek]

*snowmutt leads a battalion on Google HQ. As they drive up to the HQ, he turns around to speak to his soldiers*

"Welcome to Mountain View. You're about to begin the greatest moment of your life.

The partners of Google have lost hundreds of sales and customers.

Page's brutalized hordes are now advancing towards Redmond over mountains of their own failed projects.

Our customers, our nation, our country have given us the task not to let the enemy take over the world and to defend the market share of Windows.

Forward against the enemy! Up into the unremitting battle, comrades, for Redmond, for our great company!

(Google's airplanes shoot at the truck, but then immediately crash from malware)

Not one step back!

Cowards and Android sympathizers will be shot!

Do not count days, do not count miles, count only the number of Chromebooks you have killed.

Kill the Android! This is your mother's prayer.

Kill the Android! This is the cry of Steve Ballmer!

Do not waver! Do not let up! Kill! Death to the privacy invader!"

http://youtu.be/CihGK92Q4vw

 

[snowmutt]

The low end market belonged to Windows Phone for quite some months however with the arrival of Moto G and E, Windows Phone has lost that place. I don't see it thriving any more than it did in 2014, sorry.

I actually see this as the area that drove the growth of WP through the second quarter of this year and it is the area that offers the most untapped potential for WP. When the 5XX can sing on half the RAM of an Android, I feel this can be the continued growth market. What is it the lower cost market wants? A great smartphone that will standup to long term use and hold up to daily use. I am not "anti-Android", but the truth is the truth: If you do not spend a good amount of time maintaining your Android, it bogs down especially on low end hardware. WP is designed to run on that Hardware. I believe a couple years from now Lumia 520's will still be in use, while all the ZTE, Samsung, LG, Huawei, and dozens of other Android devices that outsold them will be dumped.

Besides- how many of those low end Androids will get Android L? Like less the 5%? Every Lumia 52X will get 8.1. Users will remember that.

It is the mid-range and top end device range that WP has made almost no inroads. The L1020 can be called a success, but if you are being honest there isn't any other device which has accomplished what a WP needs it to.

 

[snowmutt]

I'm talking about sales, not performance. Yes, until recently WP may have had the edge in low end performance, but it never became a factor in sales volume, low end or otherwise.

Legitimate point. Android did not get over 80% of smartphone sales because WP scares it.

But when you compare year-over-year sales increases, WP growth is almost entirely in the low end market. That is encouraging. If those sales can continue to grow, when these markets start buying more high end devices, a good WP low end device should translate into better WP sales in the top end.

 

[snowmutt]

This isn't very funny, even saying as a joke. It certainly isn't something I would expect to see written by a forum moderator of this site.

I apologize to all I offended. "Moderator" certainly is never defined as "perfect".

Sometimes, my politically correct filter takes a post or two off. In no way do I want to reflect poorly on our site.

It is a little hard to NOT offend in this day and age, but that is no excuse to not own up.

 

[anon8962102]

Just give up source code. MS you can do this.

 

[AG VK]

Legitimate point. Android did not get over 80% of smartphone sales because WP scares it.

But when you compare year-over-year sales increases, WP growth is almost entirely in the low end market. That is encouraging. If those sales can continue to grow, when these markets start buying more high end devices, a good WP low end device should translate into better WP sales in the top end.

There is no data I've seen that breaks out WP marketshare/sales by model/price range. Please provide a source? Would be interesting.

 

[Laura Knotek]

There is no data I've seen that breaks out WP marketshare/sales by model/price range. Please provide a source? Would be interesting.

I know there have been a few stories on the blog page. I found this one and this one. You'll probably find more if you search the blogs.

 

[Jas00555]

The low end market belonged to Windows Phone for quite some months however with the arrival of Moto G and E, Windows Phone has lost that place. I don't see it thriving any more than it did in 2014, sorry.

It depends if Lenovo finishes acquiring Motorola by early next year (which they almost certainly will). Google is able to subsidize Motorola's losses because of the search business, while Lenovo only makes money from hardware. Their phone business is already a moderate success, so I really can't see them taking the reported $1 billion per quarter losses that Motorola brings in. While the Moto series have been well received, Lenovo's track record of buying a company with high quality hardware, then reducing the quality coupled with the fact that they're not going to subsidize these phones to take a loss pretty much means that the days of the Moto series dominating are going to be coming to a close soon.

 

[salmanahmad]

I actually see this as the area that drove the growth of WP through the second quarter of this year and it is the area that offers the most untapped potential for WP. When the 5XX can sing on half the RAM of an Android, I feel this can be the continued growth market. What is it the lower cost market wants? A great smartphone that will standup to long term use and hold up to daily use. I am not "anti-Android", but the truth is the truth: If you do not spend a good amount of time maintaining your Android, it bogs down especially on low end hardware. WP is designed to run on that Hardware. I believe a couple years from now Lumia 520's will still be in use, while all the ZTE, Samsung, LG, Huawei, and dozens of other Android devices that outsold them will be dumped.

Besides- how many of those low end Androids will get Android L? Like less the 5%? Every Lumia 52X will get 8.1. Users will remember that.

It is the mid-range and top end device range that WP has made almost no inroads. The L1020 can be called a success, but if you are being honest there isn't any other device which has accomplished what a WP needs it to.

512 MB RAM does not ensure a very seamless and smooth experience on any operating system, except maybe iOS. But having used two devices in the past with 512 MB RAM, the Lumia 520 and an antiquated HTC Explorer running Android 4.4, I realized something pretty interesting.

When Google said that Android 4.4 was optimized for 512 MB RAM, they weren't kidding. My HTC Explorer multitasked faster than my dual core Lumia 520, which often greeted me with a "resuming" message.

It's a myth that Android isn't optimized for low end hardware, it is. But if OEMs like Motorola can fit 1GB of RAM into their lowest end devices, what's the harm?

If 512 MB of RAM was enough why did Nokia make a Lumia 525? Because there are a lot of games that are either poorly optimized for 512 MB RAM or not optimized at all!

The state of updates on both Android and Windows Phone are pretty identical. For the Android side all OEMs have given up updates in the low end side except for Motorola, and in the Windows Phone side all OEMs have given up any future updates except for Nokia.

Now if you were to ask me what budget device to buy, or someone else asked me, I would have for sure recommended 520(or 620) an year back because Windows Phone we're the best bang for the buck devices, but they've been beaten with phones that have better internals, more RAM and a higher resolution screen(Moto E and G)

Plus Google is also taking initiative with it's Android One Program. And since you are so concerned about Android updates, I would also recommend reading this:

http://m.androidcentral.com/android-fragmentation-seemingly-impossible-conversation

The future for Microsoft looks even more bleak than it was ever before.

Again I'm not trying to be anti-Windows Phone, but I am trying to convey what I think is the truth.

It depends if Lenovo finishes acquiring Motorola by early next year (which they almost certainly will). Google is able to subsidize Motorola's losses because of the search business, while Lenovo only makes money from hardware. Their phone business is already a moderate success, so I really can't see them taking the reported $1 billion per quarter losses that Motorola brings in. While the Moto series have been well received, Lenovo's track record of buying a company with high quality hardware, then reducing the quality coupled with the fact that they're not going to subsidize these phones to take a loss pretty much means that the days of the Moto series dominating are going to be coming to a close soon.

If Lenovo's smart they are going to continue providing the same level of quality hardware and software updates. So don't worry too much about this.

 

[prasath1234]

Though android can come with android one still OEM who roll out device under this will take their own sweet time to update their phone.especially oems like micromax will not update their phone by delaying updates.Its because they want to sell new devices with new version of android which I a trend happening in India.if u want kitkat buy a new device in that way cost of devices bought exceeds so called low end budget.people update android because they think update will solve hang and lag but they wont since android requires high quality hardware and more ram to enjoy true android experience for at least one year.just imagine even mid end android don't get updated.if we buy two mid end android it can equal to cost of flagship Android devices.in that way cost of owning device exceeds your budget nd you are pushed to the habit of buying phones even in your limited budget.Actually smartphones are much like drugs.
From Windows phone

 

[prasath1234]

Oh really then it means 1 gb android does not lag.k

 

[anon(8985111)]

Establishing Windows Phone is certainly not an easy task from a strategic point of view, but it's nothing one couldn't achieve. However, the one thing that I'm actually most concerned about is Microsoft as a company itself. Almost everything that has to do with communication needs to improve drastically rather sooner than later. I'm seeing some rolemodel developments happening at the Xbox department of late which has started communicating with its community and is now delivering nice updates on a monthly base. If they can do something comparable with Threshold that would help a great deal.

The WP 8.1 rollout was a disaster. You can't start selling new low-level devices that woo a critical userbase with a Music App that isn't working at all. To be very clear on this: That should never have happened and the way they have been communicating about that afterwards is alarming. As a platform supporter I'm willing to stick to it and wait for some improvement to happen, but the ordinary consumer is not. They need to understand that it's not only about making people buy those devices, but delivering an outstanding experience when this thing is switched on for the first time so that people start spread the word.

I think Satya Nadella is very well aware of the fact that he needs to address all these problems related to an outdated corporate culture. I'm just curious as to whether or not they can turn the tide that fast with Threshold due to be released in early 2015 already. And Threshold is going to be a game changer, in either a positive or a negative sense.

 

[vlad0]

They are still technically on version 1.x of WP8 .. the only reason they called it 8 was because with Windows CE they were at 7 by the time they decided to switch to NT. Once they did that, they reset the version numbers.. at least in my opinion. And of course there was the marketing aspect..

There is a reason why the whole "eco" system feels like a "beta test" .. its very new. Most people think that its been 5 years, but in fact its been only since the end of 2012 when WP "8" came out.

So, if you look at andro/iOS, the first stable/out of beta feel versions came post 4.x .. with iOS it wasn't until 6.0 that it started to feel complete.

So, if threshold is .. let's say ~ 3.0 software, things should get much better.

On the 3rd party app thing tho... well.. that's a major problem.. too many "beta" apps out there

 

[HeyCori]

I've always been of the opinion that the two biggest reasons for the sales dip is a lack of new devices and the amount time it took to release 8.1. I assume a big part of that was related to purchasing Nokia's hardware division, especially since it took months longer than anticipated. Then, with the lengthy wait until 8.1, you had vanilla WP8 display devices sitting next to more feature rich OSs. Even BlackBerry 10 had a notification center while WP8 was sitting there looking bare bones. Even worse, those plain jane WP8 devices are still on display. Consumers can't even see Cortana, the notification center, or the new features in WP8.1. So carriers, through sheer laziness, are also hampering WP adoption.

However, I'm in no rush. I'm happy as long as the overall numbers keep going up. I wasn't delusional when I got my first WP7 device. It was clear that Apple and Android was dominating the landscape and WP7 launched with minimal OEM support and availability. I expected years before WP got some serious traction and I still try to keep my expectations in check. I purposely choose an OS that was in third place. Heck, WP7 wasn't even in third at launch.

However, IMO things are looking a lot better. This explosion of cheap OEM devices is exactly what WP needs to gain market share. I would argue that more devices in more places is more important than having 3-4 high end devices on a limited number of carriers. Visibility leads to market share. The numbers will shoot up once consumers think it's socially acceptable to have a WP device and not feel "gimped" or "cheated."

I understand, Microsoft still has a lot of work to do, I just don't see the situation as dire as everyone else. A bad sales quarter due to stiff competition, organizing a new hardware division and lack of new devices sucks, but not everything is the end of the world. I'd rather look at the positives. From the #moreLumia conference, the platform jumped from 300k to 320k apps within a few months, WP has more devices available than ever before and Microsoft continues to refine the WP experience with new features. Overall, IMO, things could be far worse.

 

[fatclue_98]

^^ What he said x 10.
Sent from a Fire Engine Red Lumia 1520 via Tapatalk

 

[Rodrigo Pereira Teixeira]

All I can say is...: I wanted to buy my father a 1020, which is only sold in Vivo, the biggest company in Brazil. I went to FIVE Vivo stores and only one had the equipment. On one of the stores, a sales rep told me "Vivo no longer sells Windows Phone", which is total BS.

Later on, I needed a second device for me and I wanted a cheap one... 520 or 620. I went to TIM Mobile and they only had ONE model, the 635... I bought the last one. I asked the sales rep and she said "that device is selling really well, we got the package this week and you bought the last one".

I think this could indicate... Keep focusing on low end?

 

[ChrisP1]

Here is how I see it.

With no cost for OEMs to use WP, the next version of WP and windows coming out next year, devices able to support WP or android, and seeing lots more OEMs making WP devices I see a really bright future for windows. I see that they are now pushing for a better os and more features and more devices. With this new focus I see it doing well. The problem with WP has been the lack of support for updating with new features and lack of devices and lack of apps. All seems to be changing.

I didn't buy my Nokia Lumia icon because I thought it was the best phone now but I bought it because I thought it would be the best in the future for me and that it would connect with my tower computerization and for the windows tablet I'm going to get in the future.

 

[MDMcAtee]

WP can be on all the low end and middle tier phones they want, and it won't change the perception that the majority of smartphone users and tech writers have of Microsoft.

Microsoft has to outshine the competition on every thing from the high to low on specs, and the OS. Flagship phones is what garners excitement and press coverage. This fact won't change. You don't cheap out a flagship phone, you give everyone what is important to them and charge accordingly.

The OS has to offer more customization and needs to be coded to allow different launchers, browsers, music and video players, and dialers. It doesn't need to be a either or proposition as it is now. It would allow the freedoms Android offers in choosing customization , and the perceived stability of ios.

If WP took the best that is and Android and IOS has and rolled it into the OS, presented flagship phones on all carriers world wide at the same time, and had a marketing firm that really knows how to produce Emmy winning commercials, they would out sell everyone.

As it stands now they have only 1 recognized flagship that can be compared directly with the same on Android, which holds it's own for the most part, but if wp had everything available to do everything that the Android "can" do and then some.... Close the door... Game over.

Daniel talked about perceptions and why Apple's fans are as they are and people perceive Apple as a better phone.. Right now it is a better phone because it's worth more even used than any other phone.. That's called value.. wp has to change and outshine all others to make a used phone just as valuable.

As long as you can make the majority of people happy you will be #1 even if it is a illusion... Apple has clearly shown this is true, and so has Samsung.

Microsoft could make WP with all the best all platforms has right now, and how to make it secure, the reason they don't is because of lack of vision that is clouded by a old business management establishment in their software division, their marketing division, and their sales division.

It all has to be changed if they ever want to be #1 in mobile.

Posted via Windows Phone Central App