My oh My where are the Premium Windows phones? Missing the Holiday season is a disaster

[rebornempowered]

Do you honest think that the holiday shopping season would help Microsoft sell more phones? Nothing can, the moronic consumers have spoken, all they care about is ios/android. Even if WP is better.... it doesn't matter

While I would like a premium phone at Christmas it wouldn't do any good in the U.S. How many kids are going to open a package and be happy to have a WP in the box? MS needs to play the long game. It would seem Windows 10 is that game. If they are going to win back mind share/cool factor it will be the connection between desktop OS and Tablet/Phone OS and universal apps.

 

[MikeSo]

No, Microsoft did NOT buy Nokia. They bought PART of Nokia, but Nokia itself is still a separate company. That company allowed Microsoft to license its name for a limited period of time. Microsoft must stop using the name at the end of that time, so they're working to a plan to replace the brand. Short of pursuing a hostile takeover of the rest of Nokia or making an offer that Nokia can't refuse, it's something they have to do.

I know all that, just didn't feel like there was a need to detail it. Microsoft has the right to use the Nokia name for another 10 YEARS if they want to. They certainly didn't have to ditch it this year.

 

[theefman]

As someone else alluded to, what do you want flagship specs for? Just so you KNOW you have more RAM or a faster CPU? How many flagship features are we seeing on other flagship devices, maybe the odd one or two here and there but overall there are no features that would make all these sky high specs actually worth it. I'm pretty sure by the time denim hits the 930 & 1520 will have most of the functionality of today's top flagships and even a few exclusives, people are just blinded by the specs and can't see all these specs are literally being wasted in current devices.

 

[jlzimmerman]

....before they rush out another sub par flagship.

It doesn't matter if the flagship isn't subpar. It doesn't matter if it blows everything else out of the water. Until the three things below are addressed, sales will be stagnant.
1) Carrier exclusivity - Stop doing it. We understand the business reasons but it's not working.
2) Address salesperson biased against WP. People who even want to buy a WP and give them a sale are turned toward another platform.
3) Advertise, and I mean advertise smartly, not typical MS derp ads that have no substance.

 

[MikeSo]

It doesn't matter if the flagship isn't subpar. It doesn't matter if it blows everything else out of the water. Until the three things below are addressed, sales will be stagnant.
1) Carrier exclusivity - Stop doing it. We understand the business reasons but it's not working.
2) Address salesperson biased against WP. People who even want to buy a WP and give them a sale are turned toward another platform.
3) Advertise, and I mean advertise smartly, not typical MS derp ads that have no substance.

Yeah, without phones in the stores where people buy them, they could have a Xeon-based 3D phone with 100 hours of battery life, it doesn't matter. You go in to any store except AT&T corporate stores and in 90 out of a 100 you won't find WP, and certainly nobody promoting them. Until they address that, nothing matters.

They might as well stop caring about the carriers at all and sell everything online at microsoftstore.com or amazon.com. I'm not sure there would be much difference in sales numbers.

 

[Igor_BL]

If Lumia 930 had glance screen, it would be my first and only choice, and flagship by all means.

 

[chezm]

This is terrible news for anyone.

but its the truth in most respects, its become quite clear Microsoft would rather attempt to capture the low-mid range markets in everywhere other than North America where apparently they're not doing too badly.

 

[MicrosoftMobile4me]

I'm thinking Microsoft will release their flagship phones during the first half of the year, so they won't have to compete with Iphone and Samsung releases. You could say they are late or you could say they are early depending how you look at it. They could, however, always "one-up" everybody else by releasing their phones at a different time of year. Coincidentally, Windows 10 will be coming out around that time. And, the Qualcomm 808/810 should be coming out next year some time. Combining all that together would be a true flagship.

 

[stickyshocker]

Ohhh god another thread complaining about another flagship device. Please stop making new threads about this for all that's good and holy. Use one of the 50 other threads. A new device isn't coming till next year and looks like around win 10 release so get over it!

 

[rebornempowered]

2) Address salesperson biased against WP. People who even want to buy a WP and give them a sale are turned toward another platform.

This is arguably the biggest obstacle in the U.S. I have literally had to raise my voice in order to get the phone I want. My wife went in for her Lumia 928 on launch day and said she had been waiting for it and they tried to talk her out of it. When I went with a friend to get her Icon (which she loves, by the way) the lady who was checking people in told her in a snotty, your not cool high school girl kind of way "You know we don't sell a lot of those". I asked her what that had to do anything and that we came to get something we didn't need her commentary on it.

I don't know how you bust that bias. Offer commission for selling WP? Give premium WP's to the salespeople along with a $100 app credit? I don't know what you do but I know someone who used my phone (L928), loved it, decided to get an Icon and came home with a S4 because the person at Verizon talked her out of getting the phone she wanted. She is currently very unhappy with her S4.

 

[aikidaves]

I know all that, just didn't feel like there was a need to detail it. Microsoft has the right to use the Nokia name for another 10 YEARS if they want to. They certainly didn't have to ditch it this year.

Only on low end feature phones. See Nokia?s Licensing Its Name To Microsoft, But It?s Free To Keep Building Hardware, And Could Even Dial Up To Mobile Devices Again By January 2016 | TechCrunch

 

[MikeSo]

Only on low end feature phones. See Nokia?s Licensing Its Name To Microsoft, But It?s Free To Keep Building Hardware, And Could Even Dial Up To Mobile Devices Again By January 2016 | TechCrunch

Thanks for the correction! I was under the impression it applied to all devices.

For smartphones it says: "Upon the closing of the transaction, Nokia would be restricted from licensing the Nokia brand for use in connection with mobile device sales for 30 months and from using the Nokia brand on Nokia's own mobile devices until December 31, 2015."

A little odd wording, but it seems to mean that Microsoft can use the Nokia name if they want to, but that Nokia can start using it again for their own devices (if they make any) in 2016. So I guess MS is just planning ahead by giving them the Lumia name now instead of a year from now.

 

[trivor]

If you're on a carrier like Verizon where there is little incentive to buy a phone full price (you only get a discount if you are on their Edge Program, NOT if you're out of contract). If you're like me with an old grandfathered plan that needs Verizon coverage then you are wasting money if you DON'T upgrade when you have an opportunity because you are paying for a phone on your plan whether you buy a new one or not so you might as well buy a new phone every time an upgrade is available.

 

[jdballard]

I want a nicer, high end, phone too. But the highest adoption rate has been at the lower end of the market, so they are going to go where the sales are. I have no idea how it breaks out: sell more lower end phones at a lower margin or fewer phones at a high margin, but I'm assuming someone at MS has done the math and determined that's what they need to do. It may be the wrong play but I'm sure they have a reason to do what they're doing.

 

[anon(123856)]

Yeah, without phones in the stores where people buy them, they could have a Xeon-based 3D phone with 100 hours of battery life, it doesn't matter. You go in to any store except AT&T corporate stores and in 90 out of a 100 you won't find WP, and certainly nobody promoting them. Until they address that, nothing matters.

They might as well stop caring about the carriers at all and sell everything online at microsoftstore.com or amazon.com. I'm not sure there would be much difference in sales numbers.

Because I have a Microsoft store near me, I may go there to get my next phone instead of a Verizon store. The MS store is a pleasure to go to while it just rains pain at the Verizon store.

 

[JamesDax]

I always said this and I will say it again and again until Microsoft gets it right. We want premium phones. Someone in MS went down this path of putting WP OS on cheap phones in this scrape to the bottom to somehow bolster numbers of the WP penetration. What has this fools errand done? nothing... in fact while the os is maturing and getting phenomenally better the penetration is decreasing. I am not saying cheap phones aren't important but why is that your target market?

Think about this for a second... You can buy a phone for 200 bucks every two years. That is cheap to be honest. This is why people working at mcdonalds on minimum wage have Iphones. You creating a phone off contract for 150 bucks is NO BIG DEAL. Furthermore, after waiting for 3 - 6 months I can get your premium phone for a 2 year contract for 100 bucks. Now this is even cheaper than the no contract phone.

Hello - this is fundamental Apple and Samsung strategy. We are charging a crazy price for a 5 inch device that is 1000x less powerful than a laptop and charging you more than a laptop. How are they able to do this? With the insane contract system we are on. lol, we all got put into a lease program and now we think this is normal. To us the phone cost $200 - period.

So why the hell is Microsoft trying so hard for this cheap-O strategy? It's a fools errand and proving to be a disaster.

Next, where in gods name are the updates to the premium phones like the 1020 and the 1520. I probably want the 1020 or 1520 update. But spec me out like full bore - blow my socks off - and charge me $250 - $300 for a 64gig device - 41 megapixel camera - cortana. I want to buy a premium freaking windows phone.

Microsoft what are you doing? Why is it about to be the holiday season and you don't have this ready? Something... Anything... my lord.

This is like Halo 5. You had 10 years knowing you were going to update the Xbox. 10 years. How in gods name did you not prepare to have Halo out a launch and a year later still not have it ready. You just fired thousands of people - Instead, perhaps they should have been shifted into helping get these product launches out much FASTER.

And lastly, nokia made some UGLY ****. Let's be real about this. people do care about the design quality and build of their devices... Make design a premium thing in your planning. Funny, I actually think the Iphone 6 is an ugly designed device and would have been an awesome time for WP to come out with a great looking device for such a premium OS that WP 8.1 is.

It is SAD that MS is going to miss this holiday season. SAD

My oh my another in of these threads. Oh and the One M8 is a premium phone and in my opinion the 1520 is premium as well. Disaster averted.

 

[LumiaIcon]

My oh my another in of these threads. Oh and the One M8 is a premium phone and in my opinion the 1520 is premium as well. Disaster averted.

M8 is ONE premium WP phone in a sea of competing devices from Android and Apple which also INCLUDE the M8 anyway. The 1520 is a premium phone for 2013 and still relevant only because of its quality. I would argue you can only ride something for so long before no one cares.

 

[JamesDax]

At the end of the day Windows Phone has three(including the 930/Icon) premium devices available today. 'nuff said.

 

[undulose]

For the OP, it is also a good strategy to sell low-cost but relatively better-performing phones (compared to low-cost Androids) because there's more people capable of buying them than rich people like you buying flagship phones. Do your research and realize that not every person in the world avails a contract to buy a phone. In our country (which is a third-world country btw), most people buy phones off-contract. Maintaining a contract is a lot more expensive in the long run since poorer people cannot afford to pay the monthly fee for a contract. Where the minimum price for a contract is $8 per month, the average poor consumer here can afford just between $2-4 of cellphone load per month. And that difference is already substantial for them.

Another problem of my fellow citizens is the availability of a regular job, since contractual workers aren't allowed to avail telco contracts.

And yes, phone manufacturers should also consider these people. I'm defending already against any anti-poor sentiment you may comment.

 

[surfacedude]

true there are three premium devices, but they are three odd devices to have as your premium devices. one is a phablet. and if i'm not mistaken, it's the biggest phablet on the market.

the htc option is also a android phone, so you're essentially making folks choose one os or another. that puts windows phone at a disadvantage. the stronger position is to win people over w/ both software and hardware.

the lumia icon was recently discontinued at verizon so that's not really even an option anymore. if you want that phone, then you're subject to "while supplies last" situation.

imo, all three options are weak options given the windows phone lineup. i think microsoft should be attacking the phone market from both ends by producing flagship and low cost phones and getting them on every major carrier. make choosing a windows phone that much easier for anyone on any carrier. i'm actually a big fan of windows phone, but i'm thinking of switching to someting else because i'm on att and don't want the m8 or the huge 1520, and i'm really ready to replace my 920 w/ another flagship. maybe i'll get the 830, but that's not an upgrade really. i could jump to verizon for an icon if one is available in a local store, my att plan on verizon would cost me more money. ....so android is looking very tempting at the moment.