It's still that way today. They have no mindshare of the public at large, nor the developers, nor the carriers, nor the handset makers. Somehow, you have to make a product compelling to one of these. iOS is compelling for 2 of the 4 and Android is compelling for all 4. WP7 is compelling to zero of the 4.
For example, they have to fix the native C++ development option. This is especially important for games. Whether or not C# is nice, thanks to only being in C#, every development for that platform becomes a full-on port. If you design your code right for iOS and Android, you can use mostly the same code for both, and just a few glue points for the rest, AND you can develop for both on the Mac instead of having to fire up Windows just for that platform.
The 3rd party development option is so abysmal that Microsoft has been paying for apps to be ported to this platform for two years now. This situation is not sustainable by any measure.
At this point Microsoft is 4 years behind Apple and Google. No one cares if something is arguably better. That's the Zune. That's the Mac in the 90s. Microsoft has to do something that's _compellingly_ better, to someone, somewhere, on some basis that makes money.
$20 says Microsoft will take over the mobile enterprise market from the now weak grasp of RIM, by focusing on security and enterprise features.
Enterprises care about security. They want someone who owns the platform they can thump in the head when something goes wrong. They want complicated features to centralize control. They want the operating systems quickly patched when vulns are published.
The Android ecosystem is a disaster, in this regard. By separating the roles into OS developer, manufacturer and carrier (Google, HTC/Samsung/etc, Verizon/AT&T/etc respectively), it's created an environment with too many mixed incentives -- many that are at odds with the customer's needs.
Google produces the operating system, the manufacturer adds their customizations to differentiate, then also adds per-carrier tailoring. The carriers then have to validate/test and release.
Motorola detailed this process as an excuse/apology/statement in early December. [1]
New OS upgrades and security patches become the responsibility of the manufacturer, but the manufacturer's incentives to support the hardware platform for the long-term are weak -- in fact, if the platform is doing poorly, they are incentivized to do the opposite: cut their losses and move on. As customers, our influence is limited, since our relationships are with the carriers.
This if further complicated by the manufacturers rapid iterations with various hardware designs, to try and find the right price points to compete with the iPhone. They're shipping hardware platforms barely capable of running the current version of the OS, with no roadmap for future software upgrades.
Apple has done a great job managing the platform, but they do so in their typical Apple style: with little communication and inconsistent rapidity of responses. Being held at arms length and kept in the dark is not reassuring to any CISO whose enterprise data dependent upon the platform's security.
Of course, I think it's a safe bet those CISOs are more comfortable with Apple's silence than Android's clear security failures.
DeGusta's chart from October [2] captured much of this. There are hardware platforms where we sign two year agreements with the carrier, but receive only four months of security patches from the manufacturer. In whose world is that acceptable?
There are signs Microsoft recognizes the security updates problems and is putting the infrastructure in place to manage updates themselves, independent of carrier. [3] There are also signs they recognize the challenges Android's laissez faire hardware specs brings, and are more tightly controlling the hardware requirements. [4]
Microsoft's focus so far has been consumer-oriented, initial traction and to establish the ecosystem to allow _any_ platform. Ars had a writeup last week that captured current status in typical Ars completeness. [5] They'll work it out eventually. Microsoft can't fail in this, and the carrier and hardware manufacturers _want_ an alternative to the Apple gorilla. The next year will see some pivots, compromises and changes -- but ultimately they'll work it out.
And by then they'll have taken over the enterprise market.
1 - http://www.motorola.com/blog/2011/12/07/motorola-update-on-i...
2 - http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphan...
3 - http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/11/windows-phone-...
4 - http://www.pcworld.com/article/243268/microsoft_quietly_chan...
5 - http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/12/is-windows-pho...
I agree that the Android ecosystem is messy, but it also has better support for allowing "company specific" applications than the iPhone, which represent a huge advantage for large companies interesting in deploying internal directories, field sales applications, and other internal software to their mobile devices. At the same time, Apple has been improving iPhone enterprise support for years (exchange support, corporate app support, security, etc.), so it's not like they're ignoring this market, either.
If I'm a CIO choosing which devices I want to support beyond Blackberries, am I really able to say with a straight face "we're not going to support iPhones or Android, but we'll offer Windows Phone 7"??? Not if I don't work for Microsoft.
And I'm wondering how anyone in MS marketing is still employed. You just blew $100m on promoting a product and sell 100K units - how are you not fired? (out of a cannon)
Where did all of that money go? I remember seeing a single TV ad at WP7's launch, and nothing more. In comparison, Verizon practically plastered my local transit system in Droid ads for that launch, and guess what, people were talking about it.
Between Seinfeld and this, I'm not sure why there hasn't been a complete and thorough house-cleaning in MSFT's marketing department.
Remember the "Really?!" campaign? I saw this ad at least 50 times last fall.
Here it is in glorious Silverlight: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/showcase/details.aspx?uuid=b8...
They could also benefit the platform a lot by either backing MonoTouch/MonoDroid hard or come out with their own way of running .Net on those platforms. Oracle has already ported Java ME's JVM to both iOS and Android for running JavaFX applications.
XNA is a .NET-based game SDK that some people have used for Xbox Arcade games. As far as I know it hasn't been used for any disc-based games. Games like Modern Warfare are written in C++, top to bottom, with potentially some Lua for scripting.
Lack of C++ is a huge issue on WP7, ask any game developer you know who is working on the platform.
Microsoft lives in an echo chamber. The last thing they need is a product people say is good, but that doesn't sell. This is going to stall them and they are going to wait for the sales to catch up to the hype - which in their mind it absolutely must/will. And when it doesn't, rather than acknowledge just how bad their brand is or how late to market they continue to be, they'll look at the outside world for what went wrong (it couldn't be them, people loved their products!).
1. Getting the mobile networks to take handsets running Windows Phone.
2. Training handset retailers on this new platform and promoting it enough to ensure that these handsets are actively sold to consumers.
3. Their advertising and PR must not be lame, like Microsoft advertising sometimes is.
4. The UX must be consistently slick enough over a long period of time that word of mouth among non-technical people really takes hold and the phone moves beyond the early adopter segment of the market. Phones must run for several days without a reboot. Calls must not be dropped because of crashes. UI Lockups or moments where the slick facade falls away to reveal clunky technical menus are a big no no. And the inevitable bugs must be fixed and rolled out in a timely and seamless mannor. Otherwise, when Bob from accounts notices you have a Windows Phone and asks "what's it like?" he'll sense the hesitation in your voice and choose the iPhone.
5. If things start to work out, the team will need top level executive cover to prevent in-fighting or politics from ripping the team appart or forcing an unwanted technical strategy tax (think "Windows Phone - Bing/Azure/Office Edition") from destroying the product.
6. Microsoft need to make money from these things, otherwise the project will be shelved and resourced diverted to MS Office 2020.
The UX must be consistently slick
This argument pisses me off because it's completely unfounded, yet I constantly hear people saying "Well, I have my doubts since it's a Microsoft product" without ever using it. The biggest hurdle to Windows Phone 7 is ignorant techies casting misinformation to the general consumer just because bashing Microsoft is a fun talking point.
I have read that there are issues with proper implementation and understanding of UI conventions with WP7. Certainly, this is true for the iPhone as well: not all iPhone apps are consistent or slick, and the UI conventions have some key differences from desktop apps. It will be even more critical for WP7, since they have a markedly different set of UI conventions.
Given that the developer pool for WP7 is much smaller at this point, a few highly visible but poorly implemented apps are going to have a disproportionate effect. That would be a pity, as Metro really is a setup up in UX design from iPhone.
I understand that this is a complete re-write of their phone OS, but I will still be waiting for a couple of years to see how others find it before I'm willing to trust that division of Microsoft again.
EDIT: I'll give you an example, our CTO recently got one of the new Windows Phones, I asked him what it was like and his response was: "Good... but I can't seem to get it connected to our Exchange server". If a rock star techie can't get his phone talking to Exchange what hope is there for the non-techies out there.
Microsoft made a nice OS but there is just no reason for either the carriers or the manufacturers to want this OS to win. Right now it is a nice option to have around to keep Google honest and that's about as far as MS partners will go to promote it. Beyond that, WP7's success is a net loss for everyone except MS with no compensating upside. Microsoft has to figure out an equation that wins for everyone like Google did, and then we'll see things happen.
1) Distance themselves from the "Windows" branding (like they did with the XBox) -- as most people just upon hearing "Windows" won't even wait for the "phone" part and will automatically associate it with a negative connotation, whether warranted or not, with the desktop OS and Windows Mobile.
2) First impressions are the most important, and while people might actually like it if they were forced to use/try it for a few days the most crucial thing is it appeals to the consumer during the first few mins in the store. Every time I've watched someone at the store play with a WP7 they just immediately move on to the more "glossier" home screens of iPhone/Android. If it requires them to add embellishments to the home screen for the sake of sales despite violating a Metro design principle then that's what needs to be done. You have to give people what they like/want and not be stubborn about sticking to certain principles and/or give options in addition to Metro if you're struggling and about to go down in flames.
3) Treat developers better. Right now there's so much uncertainty in the WP7 development ecosystem wrt Silverlight and XAML/C#. Personally I'm at stalemate on the platform as I don't know if it's a waste of time to focus on XAML/C# if Silverlight/WPF is going to die, and whether all of that is going to be replaced with HTML/JS and/or WinRT/C++. Maybe after a year or two the dust will settle and the messaging for what to use for development will become clearer. But that's a significant time of lost opportunity to market share as developers will just stick to Objective-C for iPhone or Java for Android to avoid wasting time throwing away XAML/C# code for later HTML/JS, WINRT/C++, etc...
MS' main problem has been the "ugly on first blush" problem and even then, their interfaces have been ugly in the way an American cars, a twelve year old boy's toy hero or a supermarket tabloid are ugly. They've been flashy. lowest common denominators items that work perfectly for their intended purposes.
One example: Have you ever actually tried to change settings or preferences in any version of Windows (for the PC)? It’s a clusterfuck and it hasn’t gotten better. The problem is not that it is ugly, the problem is that it is a pain to use.
Windows 7 has done many things right and is pretty awesome in many respects but there are important areas where its usability cannot reasonably be called good.
This is one reason I think people stay with XP so much, there are too many stupid changes. I couldn't be bothered learning all the new stuff with Vista/7, so I skipped them both.
Really, my biggest gripe is the lack of apps that meet the same levels of functionality as their Android/iOS counterparts. I feel like the stock Twitter app is terrible and none of the other Twitter apps are as good as the top 5-6 on the other platforms. The same goes for Facebook. That comprises a large percentage of my usage outside of built-in functionality.
I will say though, I dig the People hub for managing all of the contact information. The social networking built in is good for at-a-glance usage but wouldn't replace a dedicated client for me.
It makes sense, but I've never really heard of it being done much in the past.
http://scobleizer.com/2009/01/08/palm-did-what-nokia-rim-and...
I also thought it was interesting that I recently had a neighbor get his first smart phone ever and he chose a WP7 and he loves it. He made the choice on his own (no other nerds were consulted) which I think is a good sign.
I can't wait for Windows 8 and mobile integration myself and feel that picking up some MSFT stock might be very wise for the coming years.
Is this truly the case or are these apps just leveraging developer APIs? The former would make Windows Phone an automatic never for me.
One unique feature on WP is the ability to group users (such as family or co-workers), and create live tiles on the main screen for such groups. New activity from those users (such as tweets, pictures, facebook postings, etc) will be visible at a quick glance. It enables me to keep in touch with important people without opening various apps and digging through mountains of noise.