Microsoft’s Smartphone Marketshare Down 0.4% Since January | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft’s Smartphone Marketshare Down 0.4% Since January

mashable.com

26 pointsSlipperySlope25 comments

I personally just don't see why I'd ever want to buy one. As a developer, I'm not interested in the MS ecosystem (been there). As a consumer, WP7 isn't the cheapest option either (I'd rather use VirginMobile or StraightTalk), nor does it have the most active and exciting app store. A lot of the apps I care about aren't ported (yet at least) to the OS. Most likely won't be as long as its market share is around 4%. Don't really care about XboxLive integration, I don't even have a TV to plug a 360 into. Zune integration is nice, simply because the Zune pass is a great offering and they killed the music player that used to support it. However, now that Spotify is almost completely caught up to Zune pass's catalog, there's not much of a reason to use a Windows-only service either. Skydrive/Office online integration? Google's services do the job well enough that I don't see a particularly compelling reason to switch over to MS's counterparts.

Can someone give me a reason why I should care?

I can't but I can think of another reason not to buy one. Windows Phone 7 is not upgradeable to Windows Phone 8. There will be a Windows 7.8 update but it's end of the road for that particular ecosystem as well. So with that announced to be available "sometime towards the end of the year" they've probably hurt the few potential Windows Phone 7 candidates interested in a device. What was Nokia thinking?

> What was Nokia thinking?

"Microsoft needs our patents to extort more money from Android makers, but buying Nokia would irk their few OEMs. We need to make Nokia fail while it remains closely aligned to Microsoft so they will be in a privileged position to acquire our portfolio"

:-) I'm no telepath, but you assume Elop's best interest is a thriving Nokia. I am quite sure he'll make up for his lost performance bonuses in other, maybe less direct, ways.

It's sad to see how clueless people are about how companies are actually run.

Do you even know what a board of directors is and what it can do and does? Do you know much power over the company the chairman of the board has? Look at the profile of the chairman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila

Insinuating that Elop is taking a bribe to drive down Nokia is just conspiracy mongering with no basis in reality.

He's not insinuating he took a bribe. He's insinuating he's been on some sort of covert assignment since 2010 and he never betrayed his mission. It's an impossibly crazy thought, yet it gets harder to dismiss for every day going by...

> it gets harder to dismiss for every day going by...

I'm amazed at how common this sentiment is. Turning a company around takes time. It's likely Nokia would be in the same boat as RIM if they would've stuck to their same path (ie. without much hope). However there's massive potential with this new plan for Nokia [if] WP7 succeeds (which IMO is fairly likely looking at current trends and quality of product). However again, it just depends on WP7 succeeding, (which Nokia is trying their hardest to make a reality).

Can you explain the process by which Microsoft can assign someone to be the CEO of Nokia?

Replacing a CEO is not something that happens overnight. Headhunters are contacted, candidates are approached. It may be luck, it may be knowing the right headhunters, but once the "right" candidate is approached, you can pad his/her resume so that they become irresistible hires for the target company.

So you think MS padded Elop's resume to make him desirable to Nokia over other candidates? Like being the CEO of Macromedia?

What about the decisions after he became CEO? You think they were not done with the support of the board? Look what happened to Leo Apothekar, the board found a replacement for him within a month of him taking questionable decisions.

It seems very likely that Nokia wanted a partnership with Microsoft even before Elop was hired. Why else would they hire someone from outside Finland?

Elop was previously employed by Microsoft in one of their cash cow business units in which they were effective monopolists. It does not take much imagination to see how that environment so ill-suited Elop to run Nokia - and worse, to be empowered to make sweeping changes.

Few points:

- As the article states, WP7 has been getting excellent reviews and has very high customer satisfaction (much higher than Android to my knowledge). I'd say this shows potential? Personally I find it much cleaner and easier to use than Android (and iPhone in many cases).

- Many reports have been showing WP7 phones as best sellers on T-Mobile, AT&T, and Amazon, meaning it is gaining marketshare and apps are increasing steadily (now >100k). I believe this is a key point in the article, "It should be noted that comScore doesn’t break out figures for Windows Phone 7, which means that much of the activity may have been driven by Windows Mobile users dumping their old phones..."

- Concerning WP7 being the cheapest option -- there are phones in the entire range, just like Android (though to an even larger extent I believe)

- Just curious, most popular apps are available on WP7 now -- which ones wouldn't you be able to find?

- Concerning not being interested in MS ecosystem -- my understanding is that this is a brand new ecosystem, meaning you haven't been there (unless you've been part of the WP7 one)?

Edit: Added some details.

> reports have been showing WP7 phones as best sellers

You can do that by limiting the number of models offered. If you sell 1M WP7 phones of 3 models, all three are best sellers and your share is still low.

> brand new ecosystem

It doesn't have the new car smell - you use Visual Studio, on Windows, to develop for it. I've been there (Win+VS) and I feel no urge to go back.

> You can do that by limiting the number of models offered. If you sell 1M WP7 phones of 3 models, all three are best sellers and your share is still low.

I agree, it's clear that the share is still low, however my point is that contrary to much news (or a seemingly common perception), the phones are actually selling and the share is steadily increasing.

> It doesn't have the new car smell - you use Visual Studio, on Windows, to develop for it. I've been there (Win+VS) and I feel no urge to go back.

Honestly, what's stopping you? Is java/objective-c much better than c#? Do you hate VS and love Xcode/Eclipse?

A choice other than Android and iOS?

Personally, I absolutely think the Metro UI is great and that is really what I enjoy about Windows Phone. Zune is probably second for me. I do have an Xbox and a Zune HD so I appreciate the convenience that offers for me. I understand you could have a similar experience with other services.

The article is not clear if this is Windows Phone, or also including the old, sucky Windows Mobile. If the latter, I would expect to see their share continue to fall as people get off those old devices...

I don't know if they updated it since you read it, but, the following excerpt made it clear that this includes all windows phones. " it should be noted that comScore doesn’t break out figures for Windows Phone 7, which means that much of the activity may have been driven by Windows Mobile users dumping their old phones for Android-based phones and iPhones. "

Which really does two things:

1) makes this drop completely meaningless as it could be 100% Windows mobile

2) makes you wonder just how low the WP7 numbers would be without Windows Mobile

Since they don't break out the figures it is hard to tell if WP7 is going down or up. However in some ways that is not the point - if WP7 was doing anything like what Nokia needs it to do it would be busting out of that figure. Static sales mean a disaster for them, and perhaps ironically a windfall for Microsoft: now that they have decided to screw their existing WP7 users the last thing they need is for sales to pick up at this point, and if they do have an eye on purchasing Nokia (or its assets) the price for that is going rapidly down.

The data was collected with these methods

> MobiLens data is derived from an intelligent online survey of a nationally representative sample of mobile subscribers age 13 and older. Data on mobile phone usage refers to a respondent’s primary mobile phone and does not include data related to a respondent’s secondary device.

I don't think that the 0.4% figure is statistically significant considering the much larger margin of error likely to be in the results.

I am starting to wonder if Microsoft's problem is something quite other than the quality of the product they produce. From everything I have read, WP is a well made platform: smooth, stable, and a pleasure to look at. While I have not personally done anything other than casually play with a demo model, none of the reviews I have seen have said anything seriously negative about it. MS has put a lot of time and effort into this, and it seems that they are doing everything (or at least most things) right from a technical perspective.

And yet... Success is not following.

Personally, I wouldn't consider a Windows phone simply because I have been so badly burned by Microsoft in the past. It has nothing to do with the quality of WP per se, but rather lingering negativity I built up from using some of their less than stellar products over the course of 20+ years.

I'm starting to wonder if this isn't more widespread than is generally acknowledged.

> none of the reviews I have seen have said anything seriously negative about it.

So, basically what they built is a phone that doesn't suck. Had they done it 6 years ago, they'd be on to something. Now others have successfully done that.

> I wouldn't consider a Windows phone simply because I have been so badly burned by Microsoft in the past

And now they managed to burn WP7 owners with the no upgrade option thing.

Success is not following because smartphones have become a word of mouth trend. Everyone buys iphones because everyone they know has an iphone and they won't trust a rogue entity and they don't take the time to review a thousand dollar over 2 year commitment.

The Metro UI is great and the phone is OK, but now Microsoft get's to taste how it is to be the minority platform.

There just haven't been many notable Windows Phones lately. The most notable one to have come out recently is the Nokia Lumia 900. Meanwhile, Android has the HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy Nexus, pretty much any Samsung phone really, and Apple is, well, Apple. The OS might be great, but the devices are forgettable.

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