WP in the US.

a5cent

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MS is still playing catch up. At this point, WP still lacks even a single, easily marketable, stand out feature that differentiates WP from the competition. Good marketing is important, but even the best marketing won't enable WP (that lacks a clearly identifiable advantage) to enter a mature market.

The only way to sell WP today, is by explaining how WP does things differently, and hope consumers appreciate the differences enough to switch. Unfortunately, that argument is too nuanced and complicated to make in a 60 second advertisement.

WP can become mainstream, despite its competitors huge head start, despite terrible marketing campaigns, and despite WP8's various issues. However, it won't happen until MS offers a unique differentiator. Something instantly recognisable, unique and compelling, something that goes beyond just improving interactions (like live tiles did), but also changes what those interactions are.
 

hopmedic

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I'm beginning to think that my daughter is about their best marketing tool. She got her L920 over the summer and when school started her friends saw it and now a lot of her friends have dumped the iPhone for the WP. About once a week she tells me of a new one that switched. She's a bit upset because the newest person got the 1020 and now she wishes she had waited a bit and got that instead of the 920.
That's awesome! My wife has been telling me for about two and a half years that Microsoft needs to pay me. Sounds like they need to pay your daughter, as well! :wink:
 

AndyCalling

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Most Americans seem to want what is "cool". And, in their minds, this is what everyone else has.


Really? Surely 'cool' is not simply having the same as everyone else but instead standing out from the crowd? If not, please explain Punk to me.

North Americans don't buy Windows Phones because they don't like them. There's no question that they are cool phones, but they clearly don't work for the US whilst they are great for the rest of us.

The question is, what do North Americans want to do with their phones that the rest of us don't want to do much but that Windows phones won't do?

The day Nokia make a phone that looks like a burger is the day they take the US market. :)~
 

iamtim

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Really? Surely 'cool' is not simply having the same as everyone else but instead standing out from the crowd? If not, please explain Punk to me.

LOL, punk was never cool. Punk was the opposite of cool. By design. :D

Anyway, no... here in North America, at least in Orange County, CA, "cool" is having all the "right" apps as dictated by the trendsetters (or anti-trendsetting hipsters, which are so counter-culture and uncool that they actually are the cool culture) and being able to keep up with the Joneses. When all your friends have Instagram, you don't want 6tag. When all your friends have iOS 7 with all its cool animations, you don't want WP8 with its Live Tiles.

It's all incredibly vapid.
 

gsquared

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"North Americans don't buy Windows Phones because they don't like them."

North Americans don't buy WP's because they are told not to like them. Most have never even picked up a WP nor can answer even basic questions about them.
 

blzr409

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I actually only have encountered one, and it was just a couple weeks ago when I was in the airport in West Palm Beach. I have been playing around with a 521 testing out T-Mobile's service before I try to move a whole family plan over in a couple months, and I guess this other guy saw me with it. He came over and said something like "I see you've got the Windows Phone, I think we might be the only two people in the country who have these," then proceeded to tell me how much he hated it. He had an HTC 8X and went on and on about how bad the battery is and how he's had to replace the phone already and his battery went bad again. Then he started complaining about apps and told me he "might have to go over to the dark side" and get an iPhone. I was basically just like "oh...well...I've never had any of those problems..." but he just went on and on and on....
 

jswantek

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I think it comes down to two things, familiarity and apps.

People with iPhones keep buying iPhones because it's what they know, same as android phones. They're in the ecosystem, they understand the OS they know where their files are stored and what programs put music and ringtones on their devices. They don't want to have to learn that all over again, no matter how simple it is.

Apps are just as crucial, possibly even more so. If your friends are using a chat app or playing a social game on their devices, and your WP doesn't have it or can't get it, you're not involved. Nobody wants to put themselves in that seat. Sure, some people say, "but I have this app instead and it's better." That may be true, but your friends all have eighteen months left on their contracts, they're not going to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a new phone/contract just so they can play the newest word game with you.

So until WP starts getting all the apps that the other two get, at the same time; or when 13-year-old girls stop thinking that having an iPhone is "SOOOOO cool!", the WP isn't going to advance.

But kudos to Nokia/Microsoft for their Lumia 1020 commercials and sponsoring some NFL stuff. That's a step in the right direction, just a little late to the game.
 

jlzimmerman

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The reasons why WP is not "mainstream" in the US:
1) The media/critics are all over Apple's b@lls
2) To point #1 most people believe what the media/critics say in regards to tangibles
3) Microsoft has a bad image....even to a point as being seen by many as a large, cumbersome, government bureaucracy. And the fact that they have about 85% of the computer market, it will always be hip to hate the king of the hill
4) To point #3 Microsoft has too many skeletons in their closet (see 2004 antitrust case, Failed products like ME, Vista, XBox360 RROD, Zune, WebTV)
5) Microsoft's history of being horrible at naming conventions, PR, and advertising
6) Peer pressure and image are big to the sheeple in the US.
7) The current woes with Windows 8 (I love it btw) is leaving bad tastes in the mouth of many who would even think about a Microsoft phone
8) Lack of OFFICIAL apps
9) Lack of fully baked apps
 

lippidp

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It has already gone too mainstream for my liking. I would like more business features instead of all the consumer bull****.
 

hopmedic

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And in this day of consumerization and BYOD, how do you propose to enable the platform's survival without it becoming more mainstream?
 

a5cent

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The reasons why WP is not "mainstream" in the US:
1) The media/critics are all over Apple's b@lls
2) To point #1 most people believe what the media/critics say in regards to tangibles
3) Microsoft has a bad image....even to a point as being seen by many as a large, cumbersome, government bureaucracy. And the fact that they have about 85% of the computer market, it will always be hip to hate the king of the hill
4) To point #3 Microsoft has too many skeletons in their closet (see 2004 antitrust case, Failed products like ME, Vista, XBox360 RROD, Zune, WebTV)
5) Microsoft's history of being horrible at naming conventions, PR, and advertising
6) Peer pressure and image are big to the sheeple in the US.
7) The current woes with Windows 8 (I love it btw) is leaving bad tastes in the mouth of many who would even think about a Microsoft phone
8) Lack of OFFICIAL apps
9) Lack of fully baked apps

You are basically listing all the reasons why a Windows phone isn't perceived to be equal to an iPhone. Unfortunately, I think most of those things will be very hard or even impossible to change from MS' weak position in mobile. MS can't remove the skeletons from their closets, they can't change U.S. smartphone culture, they can't force the media to tell their viewers something other than what they want to hear, and they can't force companies to develop fully baked apps for an OS with low market share. Furthermore, even if they could change all those things, I don't think it would be enough. Catching up and shedding their negative connotations won't grab peoples attention, and it won't make people want to familiarize themselves with a different type of device that isn't iOS and isn't Android. WP will do better than it is now, but it won't get WP past also-ran status.

Certainly, MS must fix all the actual flaws in the product (stability, notification reliability, battery drain, etc), but beyond that MS needs to stop trying to be like Apple! Instead, they need to focus on two or three desirable feature-sets (like gaming, enterprise- or very tight ecosystem integration) and make sure WP is undeniably the best platform in those scenarios... by a mile. Only when that is settled is it really worthwhile to invest a billion dollars in marketing to spread the word.

In a nutshell, MS needs to focus more on strengths and less on weaknesses. Some of those weaknesses, like developer focus, will take care of themselves if WP can carve out a sizable group of people that swear by WP's strengths and nobody is left wondering why someone would prefer WP over iOS or Android.
 

emagius

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The question is, what do North Americans want to do with their phones that the rest of us don't want to do much but that Windows phones won't do?

Play music/podcasts, browse the web, and play games. Windows Phone fails hard in all three categories (as well as Google and other 3rd party support).

If WP succeeds in earning significant market share, it will be with devices like the 520/521 that appeal to first-time, budget-oriented smartphone buyers. Microsoft has made clear their lack of a strategy to produce a high-end Windows Phone experience.
 

metalchick719

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At this point, aside from my Lumia 920 and 810, my best friend's Lumia 521 and 710 and my mother's 620, I've seen a few other WPs in the wild. First was a white 920 on the subway that belonged to a guy sitting across from me and my friend. I believe that was in February. There's a woman at my Weight Watcher's meeting who has an 822. I saw a woman at my local Rite Aid pharmacy with a yellow 920 and felt envious because that was the original color I wanted to get. Then, when I was at the NY Renaissance Faire in August, I saw a woman with a yellow 8X with a really cracked screen (I had a conversation with her about her phone and she told me she dropped it only 3 days after getting it) and later, I saw a guy with a black 920 like mine, taking a picture of his friends. So, aside from the WPs that are mine or that belong to people close to me, I've seen 5 in the wild. Pretty cool. :cool:
 

jlzimmerman

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You are basically listing all the reasons why a Windows phone isn't perceived to be equal to an iPhone.
Perception is reality.

MS needs to focus more on strengths and less on weaknesses.
I don't disagree with anything you said here. All valid points. But the first thing people notice when they switch are the things that they miss from their former platform that WP doesn't currently have. And it is the weaknesses (in comparison) of WP that the critics/media/haters prey on. News about how WP lacks in XYZ is a dime a dozen. News about how WP does something that iOS or Android can't are far and few between.
 

Usman Mubashir

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ya know, when i joined up, there wasn't single WP in my college, now three got Lumia 510,520 and 720 thanks to me and the rest are getting them cause they saw a bunch of girls in love with a 920 i suggested one of them.
41 million salutes to your daughter.
 

AndyCalling

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LOL, punk was never cool. Punk was the opposite of cool. By design. :D

Anyway, no... here in North America, at least in Orange County, CA, "cool" is having all the "right" apps as dictated by the trendsetters (or anti-trendsetting hipsters, which are so counter-culture and uncool that they actually are the cool culture) and being able to keep up with the Joneses. When all your friends have Instagram, you don't want 6tag. When all your friends have iOS 7 with all its cool animations, you don't want WP8 with its Live Tiles.

It's all incredibly vapid.






Wow. Really? Different definition of cool in Britain. Exclusivity rules. If you want to be cool, you need to stand out from the crowd. I suppose that's why the eclectic nature of punk is still embedded in British fashion, it's a pastiche of simulacra, a trend of unconformity. At least, that was the idea. Everything gets commercialised in the end. Hence that butter advert (all Brits will get that one, but I'm too embarrassed to explain here).



If uniform conformity is the US idea of cool, then I'm completely stunned. Honestly, I never realised. You lie in your films! Tut tut.
 

Christian Kallevig

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Play music/podcasts, browse the web, and play games. Windows Phone fails hard in all three categories (as well as Google and other 3rd party support).

If WP succeeds in earning significant market share, it will be with devices like the 520/521 that appeal to first-time, budget-oriented smartphone buyers. Microsoft has made clear their lack of a strategy to produce a high-end Windows Phone experience.

Could you elaborate on this? My experience has been mostly positive with all of the things you mentioned, so I'd like to hear what it is that you feel is so bad about it. The web browser is simple, but fast and does what I need it to. Podcasts are easy to subscribe to, download automatically, etc. Not that any of that is anything special, but it is enough to make it completely acceptable in my eyes. As for games, well that is an are where there is room to grow, but the actual experience of playing games on Windows Phone is certainly not substantially different from other platforms.

I think the lack of apps (or maybe more the perception of a lack of apps) is a much larger sticking point for most people. That and I think most salespeople tend to drive people away from Windows Phone.

As far as UX goes, the goal of Windows Phone has always been to provide a high quality experience on all hardware. And it's not like there isn't great hardware out there right now running Windows Phone (and more in the pipeline)
 

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