The Real Reason Windows Phone Has Struggled - Motley Fool

[Spectrum90]

A picture speaks a thousand words. Below is the true picture.

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Even though Google is top in smartphone sales, as a company its profit is below that of Apple and Microsoft, because all that google is doing is disrupting the mobile market with cheap and unstable android devices that have very less to no profit (Through their OEM or manufacture themselves).

Microsoft makes a lot of money with the enterprise software. In the consumer market is declining fast. Some people is saying Microsoft is the new IBM.

In the smartphone market, Microsoft and Google offer their operating system for free. Google make a lot of money with services, Microsoft not much. In hardware, Microsoft is losing a lot of money with phones. Apple takes almost all the profits of the industry.

 

[yihong kang]

You were doing fine until you made a silly statement.

Google doesn't make money on the Android OS but on apps. It only makes some devices but they are not the best just the vanilla experience.

There is nothing wrong with the Android OS not sure where you statement about it being unstable is coming from.

If you want to be technically correct, MS is disrupting the low end market by flooding it with WPs...

Google doesn't earn much money from android. google play revenue is about 4b for 2014, it is just a fraction of their total revenue (66b). This is just revenue, they probably spend more than 4b on development.
Similarly, Microsoft doesn't earn that much money from Bing.

They are just trying to attack competitors core business.

 

[Spectrum90]

They already lost the smartphone war, like apple lost PC war.

The PC market is different, a technological change (the web) broke Microsoft's domination.

Apple could dominate the consumer PC market if they wanted to, but they choose to sell only expensive products, they make more money that way. In the smartphone market It's the same.

 

[Kieta]

There claims to be a Windows Phone app for 7-Eleven, supposedly updated this month. However, I sat in my car in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven store, and the app just kept doing nothing and could not find the location of the nearest store, even though I was at the store!

When I went inside the store, they had a sign mentioning using the app to buy 6 cups of coffee and getting the next one free. However, that's a different app called 7-Rewards, that is only for iOS/Android.

The Windows Phone app is completely broken and doesn't have the feature I'd use it for anyway.

Hmmm, I use that app for buying coffee and get my 7th cup for free. My issue with the app is it doesn't keep me logged in. So every morning I have to log in before I get to the counter and then only one checkout person understands to put the cross hairs on the QR code thing for it to scan correctly. Frustrating at times but it works.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Hmmm, I use that app for buying coffee and get my 7th cup for free. My issue with the app is it doesn't keep me logged in. So every morning I have to log in before I get to the counter and then only one checkout person understands to put the cross hairs on the QR code thing for it to scan correctly. Frustrating at times but it works.

Lucky you! It hasn't worked for me for at least 6 months.

Sent from my Moto X using Tapatalk

 

[Jazmac]

The PC market is different, a technological change (the web) broke Microsoft's domination.

Apple could dominate the consumer PC market if they wanted to, but they choose to sell only expensive products, they make more money that way. In the smartphone market It's the same.

So are you saying that Apple doesn't want to dominate the consumer PC market? So all this bluster with the billions in Mac Vs PC over the years was just them proving some unprovable point? Where did you get your information about Apples intentions in the PC market?

 

[neo158]

By the way, my favorite is still this:

Match.com | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States)

Match.com is still the heavyweight in dating sites. Their WP app is still active in the store. It is still version 1.0.0.0, from 10/25/2010.

WP is a dying operating system as far as app development goes. Anything good happening is just the death rattles. Wish it wasn't so, but it is. I guarantee that Microsoft and their leadership knows this, which is why they spend more resources on integrating their services in the competing OSs instead, and removing them from the core OS functions in WP and made them into apps instead (presumably to streamline multi-OS development on their part).

There will probably be a halfhearted attempt at hardware parity when W10 is released, but I can't imagine even Microsoft thinks that W10 will entice mobile developers (there is zero reason for it to do so if the excellent WP8.1 OS didn't).

Interestingly that app is the US version, the UK version got an update in February this year. This is the point, a lot of the time it's the US versions of the apps that aren't updated.

 

[Spectrum90]

So are you saying that Apple doesn't want to dominate the consumer PC market? So all this bluster with the billions in Mac Vs PC over the years was just them proving some unprovable point? Where did you get your information about Apples intentions in the PC market?

They're only interested in the high margin part of the market. Google, Microsoft and their OEMs are free to race to the bottom.

 

[N_LaRUE]

Android OS being unstable is due freezing and slowing down of devices.

Aside from your own personal experience can you provide some proof of this statement?

 

[wpn00b]

Aside from your own personal experience can you provide some proof of this statement?

This most definitely happens. My day job depends upon it. The existence and continued prevalence of task killers is indicative of it.

I don't think it is always Android specifically having the issues (I see many more Samsung devices exhibit this behavior than any other manufacture so that's saying something) but when I get support calls for Windows devices it is always something minor or service related(email not syncing, update not completing which requires a restart) vs the device overheating, battery draining, or just locking up and rebooting repeatedly.

Android is a great OS but it's main strength over Windows is applications. "Customization" is an overrated selling point. Almost all of its customizations follow the same general template anyway or isn't worth the average users time to figure it out (or are plain ugly).

Just wanted to chime in and say that plenty of Android users would back that person up on the lag/freezing. It's less prevalent in Windows. Every OS has its issues but I truly believe that WP is better written than Android. It's not nearly as accessible to developers apparently though... Hence the app gap!

 

[ajayden]

Aside from your own personal experience can you provide some proof of this statement?

There are numerous occasions when my friends all over the globe have sent me messages to help them recover their phones.
Mainly due to slow down of phone, phone freezed & need to be reset, camera not working (camera cannot be initiated error) etc.

It is know worldwide that android devices tend to slow down and freeze as time goes by. Every user has to go to settings and clear app cache for the phone to perform well. Also the need for using task manager frequently to close apps in the background.

Below is a thread in android central as an example.
Fix for Your Internet Connection is Unstable error message since Android 4.3 OTA upgrade - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com

 

[Jazmac]

They're only interested in the high margin part of the market. Google, Microsoft and their OEMs are free to race to the bottom.

I'm not debating what they are doing with IOS.

 

[Spectrum90]

I'm not debating what they are doing with IOS.

I was referring to Macs, PCs and Chromebooks.

 

[Tien-Lin Chang]

In hardware, Microsoft is losing a lot of money with phones.

Really doubt about that.....

In hardware, after the first gen of WP8 flagships(Qcom S4+), I didn't see M$/Nokia give product matching their price tag besides 1020/1520/930. Take a look at those chinese brands wanna gain market share like xiaomi, they press their hardware profit very low to create good Cost/Performance ratio which give protential customer a direct impact. If you really compare the hardware M$/Nokia had used in their product to android product across the price tag, you'll see that M$/Nokia actually keep the profit ratio from hardware. It is very obvious if you look at the mid-low end product from M$/Nokia, they still doing the same **** like no front-facing camera or no primery camera LED. If WP really wanna gain the mid-low end market in 3rd world, they have to provide full-hardware features rather then giving them ill-featured product. Their lower avg. income means they couldn't afford try and error purchase so you have to fulfill them at first place(then make them stick with your software/OS) which I falled to see M$/Nokia had done anything towards that direction. (lumia 520 once closed to that point)

Try google "readphone 2S", It packed a 1.2Ghz Qcom S400 SoC(same as lumia 830), 5" IPS 720p screen, 2GB RAM/16GB ROM and a sony 8mp camera with flash/2mp front-facing camera for just 100 USD w/o contract. How can WP platfrom provide same level of hardware attraction besides their "high-end product exclusive" camera?

I think most of the M$/Nokia products are over-priced. MAYBE due to the slow pace of hardware/software improvement, WP users tending to upgrade their phone in a longer term compare to iOS/Android users. This trend pushing M$/Nokia to keep higher profit ratio from selling devices to feed their RD team for maintainess.

If M$/Nokia recon they are underdog, then they need to fight back like a underdog instead of a undernoble. They have to bring out whatever they can to attract potential buyers which I couldn't see that kind of effort since 920/1020. Take 930 for example, one plus one hit the market earlier then 930 yet they provide a much energy-saving SoC : S801 and it's pin-to-pin compatible to the old S800. However lumia 930 still hit the market with the old S800 end up embrassing battery-time. Not to mention the poor SoC support ability from OS side and the same low-fequence S400 all-over the product line. They have to concentrate and stop making mutiple product lines on the market or carrier-exclusive variants which increase the fragmentation(and the cost) of hardware/firmware maintainess.

M$/Nokia are way below the effort they should addressed in hardware.

 

[N_LaRUE]

There are numerous occasions when my friends all over the globe have sent me messages to help them recover their phones.
Mainly due to slow down of phone, phone freezed & need to be reset, camera not working (camera cannot be initiated error) etc.

It is know worldwide that android devices tend to slow down and freeze as time goes by. Every user has to go to settings and clear app cache for the phone to perform well. Also the need for using task manager frequently to close apps in the background.

Below is a thread in android central as an example.
Fix for Your Internet Connection is Unstable error message since Android 4.3 OTA upgrade - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com

I'm not going to get into a Android vs Windows argument with you.

As the person above you stated, every OS has it's issues. No OS is perfect, regardless what Apple thinks. Some just do things better than others and are able to hide things better.

Your link is also talking about an old issue and most people are shifting to version 5 last time I checked. It also appears, looking at the thread, that this seemed to be mostly a Samsung issue, unsurprisingly.

Updates are one of those things where it goes great for some and horribly wrong for others. There's many many threads on WC with people experiencing all sorts of issues with updates. So it's not an Android only thing, happens to all mobile OS.

There's also many apps that have issues on all OS and many hardware defects. There is no perfect solution for everyone and WP is no better than any other. I'm all for being a fan but I like reality a bit. I'm a fan of tech have been for many years. I have nothing against WP I just don't like the blind allegiance.

 

[Spectrum90]

Really doubt about that.....
.

There is no need to doubt about it. The information is public, just read the MSFT financial statements or an analysis about the industry.


Xiaomi and One Plus don't invest in marketing and don't invest in distribution, they only do direct sales. Those are two big costs of the product, that's why they can sell with lower prices.
Xiaomi in China has services, an app store, so they sell hardware under the cost and then recover the loss with that revenue.

However, none of those companies make money, and obviously Microsoft can't operate like that.

 

[gwinegarden]

Even MS contributes to the problem, in Canada. In their store, they list only 5 phones, locked and unlocked.

 

[Spectrum90]

There is no perfect solution for everyone and WP is no better than any other. I'm all for being a fan but I like reality a bit. I'm a fan of tech have been for many years. I have nothing against WP I just don't like the blind allegiance.

Do you have hard data to back that claim?

 

[N_LaRUE]

Do you have hard data to back that claim?

I've spent almost two years on this forum. Where would you like me to start? With the amount of L920s that were returned or the defects of my own phone? Would you like me to point to the hundreds of threads on here of people having issues with every single update that has occurred on WP? Maybe the hardware defects with every single WP? What would work for you?

There's a great search function on the forum, and also every phone forum has a Bugs and Defects thread. I'm sure you'll be able to find that information by yourself.

Since no company ever officially releases this information you'll have to either find it yourself or just agree that what I'm telling you is correct. Also being a realist I know from many years personal experience that all manufacturers have defects. It's the nature of mass production and part of the risk strategy in mass production. Since I was in manufacturing at one point in life I know this to be very true indeed.

Anything else you'd like to ask?

 

[Spectrum90]

I've spent almost two years on this forum. Where would you like me to start? With the amount of L920s that were returned or the defects of my own phone? Would you like me to point to the hundreds of threads on here of people having issues with every single update that has occurred on WP? Maybe the hardware defects with every single WP? What would work for you?

There's a great search function on the forum, and also every phone forum has a Bugs and Defects thread. I'm sure you'll be able to find that information by yourself.

Since no company ever officially releases this information you'll have to either find it yourself or just agree that what I'm telling you is correct. Also being a realist I know from many years personal experience that all manufacturers have defects. It's the nature of mass production and part of the risk strategy in mass production. Since I was in manufacturing at one point in life I know this to be very true indeed.

Anything else you'd like to ask?

So, there is not hard data, and you only talk about your little anecdotes.