WP 8.1 and The Exclusives

[Nogitsune Micah]

The Impending deal with Nokia/Microsoft had me caught up in a great convo this morning....

A couple of weeks ago, I met this guy here at Yale who saw my 1520 and was up for an upgrade. Cool guy and both same majors and all.

Anyway flash forward this morning, I ran into him again here in the Library and low and behold he now has a Yellow 1520(I am jealous because I had to settle for red). He is coming from a HTC One and he is loving it and had already flashed 8.1

We were talking about Nokia Exclusives and the pending sell of their devices to Microsoft and he said the very same thing I was thinking...I hope that when this deal goes through Nokia devices don't lose their exclusive and they continue on. With the apps that are in and popular coming to the Lumia lines as well as our other key apps that we have.

It's unfortunate, but necessary, I suppose that Here is now available for all Windows Phone but part of the reason of owning Lumias, is because unlike Non-Lumia devices, Our OEM has done a lot to make the experience good for us by providing us with coveted apps and services for our devices.

I really don't like the idea of Exclusives going away and Samsung/HTC devices getting them because they did nothing to bring them to the OS therefore why should they reap the benefit(or at least why should they reap them freely).

Especially since Samsung & HTC's exclusive apps won't be released for Non-Nokia devices(not that they have very much of anything that is worthwhile) so I do hope that present exclusives and future exclusives stick with Lumia devices.

Just my opinion(Apologies to anyone who is offended xD)

 

[drbanks]

In general, maybe, but...

If all phones get the benefits of the apps, I can only see that resulting in a greater market share for WP, which will directly benefit MS/the entity formerly known as Nokia. The WP market now simply isn't big enough that we can afford to cripple any subset of the product offerings. Sure, when Nokia was a separate company, their exclusives were product differentiators. The problem was that with Nokia absorbing almost all of the WP market, it had the probable effect of reducing the non-Nokia product offerings, just because Nokia had so much more to offer.

My first WP8 was an HTC-8X. I had one enduring gripe about the phone (not enough storage, but then again, I have that same gripe with just about every phone I've ever owned), and aside from that, I saw little or no benefit to owning a Lumia 920. Heck, even less so, since the 920 was an AT&T exclusive. But, what ultimately dragged me into Lumias was the realization that a non-Lumia was effectively half the WP experience.

Nokia could do that to compete with others, but with MS taking over that business, they can ill-afford to be alienating their OEMs like this. Unless they aren't serious about WP being a long-term phenomenon.

Of course, now that Windows Phone is starting to feel more like Windroid, I guess I'm a little less passionate about this than I would have been last week...

 

[shmsnh]

Some people might argue that opening exclusives to all OEMs would help increase market share, but I am of the opinion that OEMs should be invested in an ecosystem as well. To this end, I think Nokia's devices, or soon Microsoft's, should retain some exclusives.

 

[drbanks]

I think the main exclusive that the MS device will deliver is freedom from OEM crapware.

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

In general, maybe, but...

If all phones get the benefits of the apps, I can only see that resulting in a greater market share for WP, which will directly benefit MS/the entity formerly known as Nokia. The WP market now simply isn't big enough that we can afford to cripple any subset of the product offerings. Sure, when Nokia was a separate company, their exclusives were product differentiators. The problem was that with Nokia absorbing almost all of the WP market, it had the probable effect of reducing the non-Nokia product offerings, just because Nokia had so much more to offer.

My first WP8 was an HTC-8X. I had one enduring gripe about the phone (not enough storage, but then again, I have that same gripe with just about every phone I've ever owned), and aside from that, I saw little or no benefit to owning a Lumia 920. Heck, even less so, since the 920 was an AT&T exclusive. But, what ultimately dragged me into Lumias was the realization that a non-Lumia was effectively half the WP experience.

Nokia could do that to compete with others, but with MS taking over that business, they can ill-afford to be alienating their OEMs like this. Unless they aren't serious about WP being a long-term phenomenon.

Of course, now that Windows Phone is starting to feel more like Windroid, I guess I'm a little less passionate about this than I would have been last week...

I didn't start with Nokia either. Lol I had the 8x

But that's what I mean is that the whole exclusive thing is what makes people want lumias. That and the camera. It was a differential factor.

I really hope we dont that because I would hate to see our apps on a Samsung or HTC personally