Should MS concentrate on Europe for Windows Phone and forget the US?

[Jaskys]

It would prefer it being a global company, rather than MicrUSoft

 

[colinkiama]

I wonder if Microsoft actually check their statistics.. Anyone can clearly see Europe is where the money is for Windows Phone.

 

[Citizen X]

Funny that apple, Samsung, htc and others don't seem to have a problem with launching handsets in Europe without ridiculous delays, just Microsoft and Nokia.

I don't know about HTC, I wouldn't consider them a model to follow in the cell phone business, but Samsung is the largest cell phone company in the world and Apple is the largest company in the world. The shear amount of resources and competitive advantages Samsung and Apple enjoy when it comes to cell phones out classes everyone. People think of Apple as a computer company. It's not. Most of what they sell is iphones and ipads. And for most of their history they were launching a grand total of ONE phone every 1-2 years. Nokia is launching how many different handsets? Samsung launches a lot of handsets but again the resources dwarf Nokia.

Europe is a continent. The EU isn't.

The fact you posted this as your opening argument tells me you are wrong.

And are you seriously under the impression that Microsoft and Nokia only have one office working with all their markets?

This is the second piece of evidence that tells me you have no argument. I mean a strawman should at least be kind of plausible for it to have any effect.

I mean for heavens sake, the mere fact that companies like HTC...

I would prefer if Microsoft does not follow HTC trajectory. I like their OS and and I want them to be around for awhile.

For everyone quoting the HTC model...

HTC shareholders absorbed some pain today as the stock dropped almost 4% on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The drop followed the company?s release of its Q4 results for 2013 along with a discussion of expected Q1 and 2014 results.

The main reason for the stock?s decline today is probably the Q1 outlook. Revenue guidance is between NT$34 billion and NT$36 billion whereas analysts expected, on average, NT$39.3 billion according to a survey by Bloomberg. The company is also expected to post a wider loss than analysts had been anticipating.

I don?t think there?s any argument that HTC makes very nice phones. But gross margins are really low. For Q1 they?re forecasting just over 21% gross margin, and it?s tough to make a profit on that after subtracting their R&D, selling, general and administrative costs.

Analyzing HTC's latest financial result | Android Central

I can't tell you guys what exactly the issue is but given the volume of handsets Nokia sells it wouldn't surprise me that there would be a disparity between their distribution and that of the likes of Apple and Samsung. I'm not an expert. I'm just trying to offer a possible explanation. Does anyone have an alternative explanation other than "they just don't like me"?

 

[Beijendorf]

I don't know about HTC, I wouldn't consider them a model to follow in the cell phone business [...]. Samsung launches a lot of handsets but again the resources dwarf Nokia.

I would prefer if Microsoft does not follow HTC trajectory. I like their OS and and I want them to be around for awhile.

Regardless of what you think of HTC, they're a struggling phone manufacturer who still manage global distribution of their handsets. And just like Nokia, they have a long list of devices released every year. You complain about argumentative fallacies and you construct red herrings in order to make it seem like it's the size of Samsung and Apple that make their business model possible. Yet here we are with HTC, Jolla, etc, distributing their devices to the whole world rather than giving one nation preferential treatment.

The fact you posted this as your opening argument tells me you are wrong.

The fact that I know the difference between Europe and the EU makes the rest of my arguments wrong? That's called argumentum ad hominem, your second fallacy. The EU have stardardised market rules to make trade simpler and faster. EU =/= Europe.

This is the second piece of evidence that tells me you have no argument. I mean a strawman should at least be kind of plausible for it to have any effect.

Your argument was that because the EU isn't one nation it takes a lot of time to work with each country. Yet they have an office in every single country who work parallel to the US office. They can easily just submit any paperwork in each nation simultaneously. The other manufacturers do this, and that's why they are also able to release their devices in every target nation at the same date.

It's been fun seeing you go into brain-melt mode by saying I'm wrong because I know the difference between Europe and the European Union and then say I can't compare Nokia to HTC because HTC publishes bad quarterly earnings ... Just like Nokia does.

Edit: I should also point out to you that rhetorical questions are not the same thing as strawman arguments.

 

[Pierre Blackwell]

WP has seen in increase of market share value that currently have it at 4% globally. Of course that is laughable stacked up against Apple and Android if you're looking and thinking about right now. Last year WP wasn't at 2%. The year before that not even at 1%. Every year WPs popularity in increasing, its the fastest growing ecosystem. Next year they may be at 6%, which in the competitive mobile market that's a good sign. There are always more that MS can do like any corporation, but they're not the fastest growing ecosystem for a reason. Their popularity in Europe is as good as Apple now. They know what they're doing.

 

[BobLobIaw]

If they do, Microsoft could print up shirts that say "I'm big in Europe." All joking aside, I do agree with OP that Microsoft should put more emphasis on Europe because WP has more traction there at the moment.

 

[gwinegarden]

Hell, Canada wont even get Cortland second. As for the 930, etc. who knows? I think Microsoft has heard of us but is not really sure where we are.

 

[Beijendorf]

Much like how the rest of the world denies the existence of Australia, I get the feeling Microsoft believe North America is just USA and no other country. It's much of the reason I worry about how they will handle global releases from Nokia.

 

[radmanvr]

Basically, what I understand from the OP is why is Microsoft focused more on the United States when numbers prove that if they changed their focus to a different region they would make a bigger impact.

OP uses Cortana and Bing as an examples. Cortana and Bing working primarily for the United States and not "full" support (Language) of other regions.

Base on my readings of this thread it seems as if the OP is suggesting the Redmond to change their primary language of operations to a language in EU example would be Italian or Wales. Code in these languages, push out to these countries first and then work their way back home.

I find the above mention method a big harder than just using their primary language and coding in their primary language, for their primary people and then branching out to other regions.

 

[Beijendorf]

OP uses Cortana and Bing as an examples. Cortana and Bing working primarily for the United States and not "full" support (Language) of other regions.

Base on my readings of this thread it seems as if the OP is suggesting the Redmond to change their primary language of operations to a language in EU example would be Italian or Wales. Code in these languages, push out to these countries first and then work their way back home.

I don't want to put words in Chris Sandiford's mouth, but from what I understand he mentions all launches, including hardware and software (pitch in if I'm wrong, Chris!). It wouldn't be hard for Microsoft to launch the English language versions of Cortana on the European markets. We're fully capable of speaking English in Europe. They can then roll out specific-language versions later.

As for handsets, we've mentioned this earlier. It would be extremely easy for Microsoft/Nokia to release their handsets in both the US and EU at the same time. Yet unlike the other handset manufacturers, they choose to prioritise the US and leave Europe several months behind.

I find the above mention method a big harder than just using their primary language and coding in their primary language, for their primary people and then branching out to other regions.

The US? Primary language? Primary people? That's a bit insulting for the European customers. We're not their target audience? We just scrape up the leftovers like second-class customers?

 

[a5cent]

Base on my readings of this thread it seems as if the OP is suggesting the Redmond to change their primary language of operations to a language in EU example would be Italian or Wales. Code in these languages, push out to these countries first and then work their way back home.

I live in Switzerland. I once developed software. Comments, source code and documentation were never in any other language but English. My point is that MS doesn't have to change anything about their language of operations to develop software for other countries. That is pretty much irrelevant. Furthermore, during my time in software development, the applications we worked on were released in at least three languages simultaneously. If we can do it, MS can do it too.

Finally, a huge part of the European population speaks more than one language. Most people I know simply don't care what language Cortana comes to us in, as long as it gets here, fast. Many would actually prefer English, despite that not being our native language. I also know many people in the Netherlands and Germany who think similarly.

Cortana aside (based on language differences) you can't really argue the facts. The US is slow to adopt and MS should invest where the real money and interest is.

Cortana initially being U.S. only has little to nothing to do with language. I've used MS speech recognition technology for over a decade in many languages other than English. The technology has existed almost forever already. If language was the reason for the hold up, you'd also have to explain why Canada, Australia, and the many other English speaking countries are not part of the rollout.

The reason is Bing, and the fact that in order for Bing to answer questions, it must be hooked up to national data sources. You can't track flights from non-U.S. airlines, if U.S. airlines are the only companies hooked up to Bing. You also can't reserve restaurant seats in Switzerland, make concert bookings in Germany, or answer questions about French national monuments, when Bing knows nothing about the world outside the U.S. That is what's holding up Cortana's international debut.

Despite all this, I don't think changing emphasis is a good idea. WP's biggest problem is the app gap, and most of the companies that provide these mobile services and apps are U.S. based. I think MS must have more success in the U.S. in order to have success world wide.

IMHO there is nothing wrong with servicing the U.S. first. What is problematic is the amount of time that passes before those services are rolled out internationally. Often times some services don't get rolled out at all (podcasts, audio search, xbox music subscriptions, etc). By the time Cortana reaches mainland Europe, we will be well into 2015, maybe even close to 2016. Cortana will be old news. At least for Europe, Cortana will be irrelevant in terms of marketing affect. That is a shame, considering all the time MS invested to build it.

A lot of people I work with view MS as a backwater U.S. company that just coincidentally does some business oversees, whereas Google and Apple are truly international companies. Apple rolls out most of their services in Switzerland just as fast as they do in the U.S. Apple have even integrated features specific to Switzerland into iOS. Is it any wonder that Apple commands more than 50% of the smartphone market share in Switzerland?

TL;DR:
IMHO the U.S. must remain the first country MS targets, but they must also be able to role out their services world wide within a matter of months. Not years. In a nutshell, more emphasis on rolling out new features everywhere faster, not a reversal of emphasis.