Five Reasons Why Windows Phone Will Make A Big Splash In 2012
forbes.com
forbes.com
"Originality Means Fewer Forays Into The Patent Wars" - Why? Just about everything is already patented ("An object oriented interface to the operating system" by Apple), so I don't think this is a valid claim.
"Uniformity Across All Devices and Carriers" - Apple has that too. Also, the non-uniformity is one of the selling points of android.
"Zune Is Baked Right Into the Operating System" - Remember Zune? No? It was the next iPod killer. By the way, the iPod is baked into iOS.
"Xbox Live Gaming Support" - IMHO this is the only valid point. Still it's not a unique point, with play station integration into Sony's androids...
It matters in that it's something that people can't complain about. If it had a non-unique UI, then it would be dismissed almost immediately.
"Originality Means Fewer Forays Into The Patent Wars" - Why? Just about everything is already patented ("An object oriented interface to the operating system" by Apple), so I don't think this is a valid claim.
They got this wrong; in actual fact the reason they don't need to worry about patents as much with WP7 is because they have the patents from windows mobile to attack pretty much anyone who tries to sue them.
"Uniformity Across All Devices and Carriers" - Apple has that too. Also, the non-uniformity is one of the selling points of android.
It's also one of the major annoyances of android, as we've seen updates go completely ignored by OEM's and carriers. From a developer point of view it's also a more challenging experience due to fragmentation.
"Zune Is Baked Right Into the Operating System" - Remember Zune? No? It was the next iPod killer. By the way, the iPod is baked into iOS.
Not every music service/player is born equal, and far too many people gloss over its excellence. Zune has the Zune pass, which is unique to it and allows it to have a far richer music discovery experience, which is unrivalled in the marketplace. Speaking of which, also has as much content as iTunes these days (same # of songs etc.)
"Xbox Live Gaming Support" - IMHO this is the only valid point. Still it's not a unique point, with play station integration into Sony's androids... This is actually one of the lesser interesting parts of WP7, as there aren't many multi-player games.
Someone else mentioned press releases - this article is far too error-prone to have come from Microsoft. It's more likely just someone with a passing interest who's been asked to write something on it.
MS is currently hiring engineers to bring Xbox live to Android and iOS:
http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-eyeing-xbox-live-gaming-o...
Current consensus seems to be that WinMo is a promising foundation that lacks apps, customizability and polish (the browser is slow).
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/3/2534861/nokia-lumia-800-re...
1> It doesn't capture the "I WANT CONTROL" people or "I WANT SEXY ALUMINUM" people. These are significant, and vocal minorities on the two platforms. So all that is left is the not so particular middle.
2> It limits developers to Sandboxed C#. This means software written in C which is portable to pretty much every other device (Android included) isn't portable to here without a rewrite.
3> The simulators don't run in VM's on Macs. Why does this matter you ask? Because people putting out things for the other platforms OVERWHELMINGLY use Macs, due to the "Must have mac to make an iPhone app" requirement. So yes, you can dual boot to make this, but that costs an additional $150 for the OS as well. You might try to argue "why doesn't apple have to put out windows compatable SDKs", but you'd be ignoring the fact they're currently the dev environment which is the revenue leader, so aren't playing catchup, while MS is playing catchup.
4> It doesn't have any penetration to the crossplatform tools. It doesn't work in Adobe Flash Builder, it doesn't work in Titanium, it doesn't work in PhoneGap, it doesn't really work then for the people who publish on multiple platforms.
I think it's a beautiful project. I just think the guys running the developer relations programmers spend too much time buying iOS developer groups beer and not enough time making the toolchain usable by iOS and Android devs without hardware outlays and hard disk reformats.
Honestly. If you aren't number 1 or 2 in a market. Get out.
Users want gadgets that they can wrap their head around, they won't care about "Uniformity Across All Devices and Carriers" also carriers and device makers will certainly not appreciate this move.
Apps matter the most, but I think Microsoft will be stuck in catch 21 on this one, the fact that they want tighter control over the phone only makes things horribly worse: for apps, you need critical mass, for critical mass you need devices, but that will only happen if carriers and device makers embrace WP7, but they will probably ignore it, because they can't differentiate themselves because MS wants control.
So unless Microsoft makes something that is leagues better than the iPhone, they have zero chance to compete. Why the iPhone and not Android? Because both of MS and Apple want to have full control, which most device makers reject.
Beautiful design + great apps + crappy camera + small screen = slightly increased OPEX + greatly increased margin = happy times
Microsoft has no follow-through lately.
Pedantry alert, but ugh. Uniqueness is binary: either something is unique or it isn't.
hahahaha