A few years in, still believing?

[Simon Tupper]

I must admit that WP's progress has been more than disappointing, but it's not like I wasn't expecting it. Yet, I was hoping that WP8 or 8.1 would be more successful.

I have almost never thought it would overcome the iPhone, but I was certainly expecting 10-15% market share by now. I am quite disappointed, because I read an article from BGR which pointed out the possibility of WP being doomed and I'm starting to believe it more than ever.

Now I'm wondering why Microsoft is pushing it apps on its competitors' platforms before its own. I think MSFT stopped believing themselves. What about you?

 

[gMaesterUK]

Yes, WP progress has been slow and bumpy, I don't think anyone will disagree...
However, I do believe MS have a long-term strategy...

As for WinPhone being doomed, I'm more likely say Android will be severely damaged in next few years... Samsung are going their own way by virtue of releasing Tizen, MS 'investing' in CM... Google's Android is being fractured from the inside...

WinPhone just needs to hold it's own and have a few successes...

G.

 

[Simon Tupper]

Microsoft should release a Lumia 1 with Surface-like design. With killer features and specs, but I'm afraid it's going to fail and feed the trolls.

 

[Praxius]

I must admit that WP's progress has been more than disappointing, but it's not like I wasn't expecting it. Yet, I was hoping that WP8 or 8.1 would be more successful.

I have almost never thought it would overcome the iPhone, but I was certainly expecting 10-15% market share by now. I am quite disappointed, because I read an article from BGR which pointed out the possibility of WP being doomed and I'm starting to believe it more than ever.

Now I'm wondering why Microsoft is pushing it apps on its competitors' platforms before its own. I think MSFT stopped believing themselves. What about you?

There is a two-fold logic to them pumping out updates to their apps/programs on other devices first.

#1 - those devices hold a larger market share, pointed out by you, and in the profit sense of things, MS will earn more money faster by keeping those users happy compared to their fledgling WP user base.

#2 - by getting more and more users of alternative devices using and enjoying their apps and programs to the point of almost everything they use on their devices is a MS app/program..... Then MS can quickly patch/update everything on their WP devices and market the living snot out of their own phones saying, "thanks for supporting and enjoying our programs. If you enjoy our apps/programs so much, we have this nice device here with everything you enjoy and use every single day, all in one device and pre-installed/included with the device."

There is a logic to their madness and it's done in order for MS to get their claws into users of other devices and slowly brainwash them into moving over to Windows Devices.

My first Windows Phone was the Lumia 800 on 7.5... It was actually my very first mobile phone. After so many years not wanting a mobile/cell, in my 30's I figured it was time to finally get one of my own.... Especially moving to another country and having a son.

#1 - In case of an emergency with my family.

#2 - I got lost easily.

I have used mobiles often through the years, but when I decided to get my own, I spent over a month studying each available device. I went into each dealer and picked up, handled, interacted with each and every device through 4 different carriers.

At the time, it was a toss up between the Lumia 800 and the Blackberry Torch.

I did not like the iPhone design in anyway, not to mention I have had nothing but bad experiences with Mac products in my almost 20 years of using them.... Usually work related.

Android was just a mess. It was an ugly UI and made so over complicated for what little it could do, for me, it just seems tacky and cheap.

Blackberry isn't supported very well here in Australia, not like it was back in Canada of course, but many of the features the Torch had, required additional fees added by the carrier.

The Lumia 800 was slick, smooth and new at the time. It had it's limitations of course, but it did what I needed it to. The camera quality was great, far better than what my wife's Samsung Galaxy (whatever S# it was at the time) could manage.... The video quality was better too.

I eventually upgraded to the 925 and now to the 930. Each time my experience has gotten better and better.

I knew MS and the Windows Phone was fighting an uphill battle from the start, but since that time I got into WP, my wife now uses a 1320, my co-worker has a 1020, my wife's mother had a 625 and now a 630.... My old boss got a 630 for his son and was talking about getting a Lumia of his own when his current phone hits its day.

Oh and my wife's aunt has a 1320 as well.

Those I have known personally who have switched to Windows Phone, have not yet switched to anything else. It looks nice, it runs smooth, it's simple and does exactly what it needs to do. If you pick up another Lumia device, it doesn't matter if it's an 800, 925, 930, 630, 625, 1320, 1020, 830, 730, 435.... Whatever.... You instantly know how to use it.

To be completely honest, I don't give a crap what the market shares say. They do not dictate my enjoyment or anybody else's of the device/OS.

While Windows Phone may be struggling in the US and perhaps Canada, that is not the same for everywhere else.

While iPhone and Android attempt to keep the status quo and don't seem to have much to worry about, MS is actually trying to innovate and come up with new ideas.... Eventually time will catch up and things will be different

There is potential in this OS.

I have also seen all the nay Sayers on the internet with their blogs and opinions talking about how Windows Phone is dead and W10 has been written off before it even got out of the gate.

But if these so-called experts knew anything, they would have learned from past history.

By their logic, Google didn't stand a chance when it came out.... By their logic, Apple should have stopped making PC's years ago.... By their logic, the XBox didn't stand a chance.... By their logic, Sega and Nintendo were the only two options for gaming....

.... Now look at where they both are.

Nintendo is in a distant 3rd behind Sony and MS and Sega hasn't made a console in years and can only make the odd video game for the other three consoles while re-packaging their old Master System and Genesis/Megadrive games on Steam for a couple of bucks.

So when someone tells me that Windows Phones don't stand a chance and are already dead, I tell them they don't have two frigging clues to rub between their **** cheeks.

 

[Praxius]

Windows 10 Is Dead on Mobile? Not So Fast.
Windows 10 Is Dead on Mobile? Not So Fast.

This week, a smartphone operating system report was issued by IDC that showcased that even though Microsoft sold more Windows phones last year, currently shipping ?only? 35M a year, it was the junior player in a massive mobile market. This is still more smartphones than yet some are concluding that . A lot of folks thought the same thing about the iPhone, and look how that turned out.

Let?s talk about the danger of drawing trends from single data points, particularly when trend lines point in the opposite direction.


The iPhone?s Formula

When the iPhone was launched, the smartphone market was mostly business phones and the vendors in power were Palm and RIM (later renamed BlackBerry). This was a business-oriented market and a lot of folks thought that Apple would crash and burn when it brought out the iPhone. Most of those folks were in the cell phone market at the time. How could a company known mostly for being a poor underdog to Microsoft build a successful phone? The iPhone was branded a failure before it launched. Apple?s first attempt at a phone, , was an abysmal failure.

I recall that the iPod went through the same birthing process; it was a $450 music player in a world dominated by products under $200, and it was far smaller. Turns out, price and size were secondary to customer experience and Apple stole the market. As a side note, the iPod was launched in 2002 and it wasn?t until late 2006, or four years later, that Apple sold more iPods than Microsoft now sells Windows phones.

Apple simply repeated this formula with the iPhone and again went after the premium space. Google basically created a clone of iOS and gave it away for free in what was clearly a value play. Entering after Apple, with literally no hardware experience at all, it now has around 80 percent of the market (Apple has around 17 percent of the market). But that 17 percent is virtually all premium business, and since Google gives its OS away for free, Apple clearly is vastly more profitable with what is a vastly smaller user base.

So, on paper, while the overall market numbers would favor Google, the profit that Apple makes off of a smaller base gives it the more successful business. The other lesson here is that both Google and Apple, starting with nothing, were able to dominate what was an established market and were successful in pulling customers from Palm, BlackBerry, and even Nokia in order to get to dominance.

The problem with projecting success or failure before a product exists is that it is all a guess. Even if you did focus groups, you?d have to use mockups and it is really hard to get an accurate read with mockups.

Windows Phone?s Problems

The big problem with Windows Phone is the apps, but with sales of around $35M a year and far less choice, an application vendor could make more money with a similar app on the Windows, or BlackBerry, platform than Android. This is because Android tends to preset the mind of the buyer on free apps and even the freemium model hasn?t worked particularly well. Apple does move a lot of premium apps on iOS, but the marketplace is so crowded that it is often hard to get through the noise to find a buyer.

Let?s look at the . Both Android and Apple had 800K apps, but supporting the revenue advantage of being on a platform tied to customers who pay for apps, Apple took in over three times the revenue on apps that Google did. So an app on iOS is worth three times what an app on Android is worth. suggesting that every app potentially has four times the visibility. With four times the visibility, and one-fourth the market share, if everything else was equal, that should result in similar revenue potential for an app developer on iOS and Windows Phone, and potentially far more than Google, given that the dollars per app are far lower.

Wrapping Up: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

In the end, we should learn from all of this that while calling something dead may make for great page views, you need to do some analysis to get to that conclusion. Windows Phone, while clearly having a smaller market share, is growing. And the value proposition for apps may be second only to Apple, suggesting potential for an upset. Next week at Mobile World Congress, Microsoft could have some surprises for us and, really, we?ll need to see what Windows 10 looks like on a phone before coming to any conclusion about the platform?s future.

Microsoft always had the resources to win in this market, it just never applied them. Satya Nadella is far more like Bill Gates than his predecessor and he seems to have a clue, so this is more likely the beginning than the end.

The danger here is that making a prediction without enough information can lead to the wrong conclusions. I?m not saying Windows 10 on a phone will be a success. I?m saying that other successes started with far less and that Microsoft is executing particularly well now, which suggests it won?t be a failure.

Something to think about.

 

[D M C]

Yes, WP progress has been slow and bumpy, I don't think anyone will disagree...
However, I do believe MS have a long-term strategy...

As for WinPhone being doomed, I'm more likely say Android will be severely damaged in next few years... Samsung are going their own way by virtue of releasing Tizen, MS 'investing' in CM... Google's Android is being fractured from the inside...

WinPhone just needs to hold it's own and have a few successes...

G.

Lol!
Heard same thing when Nokia launch X series phone remember? Everytime MS or Nokia did something you guys start dreaming that now this will be end of Android and rise of WP.

How can you think to beat well established OS when you don't even believe in your own OS.
For the record MS provide much better quality apps to competing OS, and for their own OS they build inferior quality apps like music, lockscreen, videos etc, I wonder why?
This is simply indicate how much MS believe in WP(windows) success.

 

[Praxius]

Lol!
Heard same thing when Nokia launch X series phone remember? Everytime MS or Nokia did something you guys start dreaming that now this will be end of Android and rise of WP.

How can you think to beat well established OS when you don't even believe in your own OS.
For the record MS provide much better

The thing is, I don't personally want MS to beat or dominate the entire market. Financially it would be nice for MS, but they already have squillions' of dollars.... A sustainable % is all that is required for MS.

Beating or competing with Android or iPhone is not the user's concern.... Our concern is whether or not we enjoy using the phones we use and whether those phones do what we need them to do.

If those two factors are met, then we users are happy and will continue to support the system. In turn more people will try it out and figure out they enjoy using them too..... The snowball gets bigger and before you know it, that market share increases, MS gets more profit, and maybe then they will move up and start to take a better %.

The only reason why I personally don't want WP to dominate is because as soon as that happens and the majority of people are using WP's, the innovation and improvements start to stagnate just as they currently have with Android and iPhone. Those on top don't like to take chances and try new things due to fear of no longer being #1....

When all three companies are around the same %, that's the golden sweet spot for us users.... That's where the innovation really gets interesting as the competition increases between each company.

Think about the console years of the late 80' and 90's.

For the longest time it was either Sega or Nintendo.... Then when the 90's came around and the next couple of generations of consoles, you had the Genesis, Super Nintendo, NeoGeo, Jaguar, Gameboy, GameGear, Lynx, Virtual Boy, SegaCD, N64, Sega Saturn, Playstation, Dreamcast.... And so on.

As a Teenager of the time, that was the golden era of gaming as you had so much competition between all the different companies, which led to oodles of choices and innovative things to try.

Eventually the dust settled and we were left with three major players with three major consoles each generation.

Game development has still been interesting, but console development has begun to stagnate yet again.... Nintendo being third place has been trying new things/ideas and being innovative, while XBox and Playstation continue to keep the status quo. Granted the XBox has been more innovative than PS.... But you see my point.

Windows Phone / W10 is in the Nintendo position.... MS needs to maintain their innovation.

As Nintendo tries to toss out things to catch the masses again, so too does MS need to do the same.

Both are well known and well respected brands who have been around for years, but when you have two dominate brands holding onto a market like they do (PS/XBx/Android/IPhone), you need to fight hard and come up with things those companies don't have but users will love to have.

It is not impossible for WP to make a dent and get further into the market and Android & iPhone do not hold a definite position of dominance in the phone market. Nobody ever will.

I will say one thing... If MS can get W10 phones out there and to be a real challenger to the other two... We could very well see the golden era again but for phones this time. It could open a big crack large enough for more developers and phone companies to come out fighting and give us users a pile of innovative choices to play with.... Advancement like we have never seen in a long time.

 

[spideymaniac]

^

Whoa a point very well made, never though about that, I'd love to see WP has ton of apps, and I agree if WP doesn't need to beat Android or iOS

 

[Blade800]

15%? Then you were quite naive and dont know what youre talking about. I am myself an amateur but I expect Windows Phone to have 10% marketshare by year 2020. Its just my guess. I think with introducing Win 10 and new flagships, the marketshare will grow a little faster and hit 10% mark in 5 years. And 10% marketshare will be impressive which will close the app gap I suppose so from there it wont be that hard to rise forward.

 

[Grimlock]

I believe that Microsoft will be successful with Windows Phone, but it will be in the low end market where there is a lot of potential for growth and profitability.

I also believe they will eventually fail with the enthusiast and high end market. I think a majority of the people here at Windows Central will be using an android or iphone by 2017. I’d love for MS to release a groundbreaking flagship that will keep us going and attract people in hordes, but we all know that’s not going to happen and it will be on par with whatever else is out at that time.

A few thoughts:

1) Microsoft has been putting out many budget phones and dedicating a lot of resources in creating many models, and it has been at the expense of releasing high end models. It will become more difficult for them to release timely updates to firmware/OS since they will be juggling so many phones (not a big deal to the average consumer, so this is ideal for MS). This has been frustrating the enthusiast community to no end.

2) Microsoft CANNOT start over with windows phone every two years. The vision keeps changing and the focus/execution isn’t there.

3) Starting over every two years also affects the phone release cycle, not just for MS but also for Samsung, HTC, etc. Who knows, maybe HTC could release the M9 relatively soon but with W10 coming out in the fall they probably would want to hold off. By that time the M9 is six months old.

4) The 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] party “app gap” problem is overblown and the bigger problem with MS itself. 1[SUP]st[/SUP] party applications for WP tend to be way behind what is on IOS and Android. It’s not just the web browser but the calendar, email, text, notifications, music, etc. Windows Phone eventually catches up with 10, but by that time probably slightly fallen behind again. I’m not saying all of the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] party apps are bad- I really do like the Lumia camera app and OneDrive!

5) WP10 seems more like a remix than a new OS. Why are we still spending time rearranging the furniture rather than doing something new and innovative? I'm not believing in this code once and run everywhere and all the developers will come running. I'll believe it when I see it.

6) The WP community has been very patient and optimistic for the past two years but many are tired of making the same excuses and having false hope. The MS apps for IOS and Android are as competent as the WP versions, so current WP users won’t be losing a whole lot by transitioning over.

I know this is not well organized and more of a rant, but I really think MS is in very serious trouble in regards to the high end. This isn’t going to hurt MS much at all, but the WP enthusiast community that doesn’t generate much profit for MS is going to shrink dramatically. But in regards to budget smartphones and WP10 I think Microsoft has a bright future with increased market share and revenue!

 

[Praxius]

Grimlock, you contradict yourself with #2 & #5.

First they're starting over again with the OS rather than sticking with the existing 8.1, and merely updating it..... and then they're simply changing a few things around and not doing anything new or innovative to the OS.... Where the OS being Universal apparently isn't innovative enough.

Which is it?

While I agree that I would like a new high end to upgrade to down the road, I certainly won't be switching to iPhone or Android by 2017.

 

[heickelrrx]

It's not like that really matters.
Technology keep evolving. At this rate I can't tell whether we still have ios Android as mobile OS. Maybe they run the same os like desktop did.

Seriously guys we can't really predict what those companies project in future. Like hololens come unpredicted. Who know they will release a compact model which ppl uses everyday?

 

[Grimlock]

Grimlock, you contradict yourself with #2 & #5.

First they're starting over again with the OS rather than sticking with the existing 8.1, and merely updating it..... and then they're simply changing a few things around and not doing anything new or innovative to the OS.... Where the OS being Universal apparently isn't innovative enough.

Which is it?

While I agree that I would like a new high end to upgrade to down the road, I certainly won't be switching to iPhone or Android by 2017.

Actually you described my point very well. I was trying to say they are starting over, essentially trying to reinvent the wheel, but without really making any forward progress. I don't think substituting hamburger buttons for pivots is really pushing things forward, just a different way of doing the same thing to keep it consistent with the desktop. I'd be more excited about the idea of universal apps if it actually catches on.

Just google windows phone 8 shared core and you can read all about how in 2012 they were saying the desktop and mobile shared so much code and how it was going to be a leap forward in parity between the two and making it easy to release apps across the two. Here we are two years later, and I'm not saying it wont happen, but someone please tell me how its going to be any different. Developers aren't going to come running from all corners of the earth to make universal apps; this is not the silver bullet MS wants it to be. More app developers will stop supporting WP like we've seen in the past six months and WP will have to continue to survive with unoffical apps.