We reported last week that our sales figures for Windows Phone 7 showed the fledgling OS being outsold by Android and even Symbian 3. We’ve received loads of feedback, some of it blasting us for “Microsoft Bashing” and some of it blasting Windows Phone 7.
Contrary to what you might expect from the figures, most of the Windows Phone 7 handsets are actually rather good, particularly the HTC HD7, they’ve mostly had good reviews from the technology press and owners seem to be happy.
But our data aside, data from Facebook shows that only a small number of people have accessed their accounts from a Windows 7 phone, and given that Facebook is one of the key apps on all the handsets this doesn’t bode well. In the US, AT&T are offering all Windows 7 Handsets on BOGOF, and other retailers are following suit prompting speculation that they are struggling to shift their stocks. The majority of mobile phones get discounted as they move through their life cycle but half price less than a month after launch is unprecedented.
Perhaps the most telling figures though are those that have not been released, Microsoft are not usually shy about sales figures if they are good, the XBox Kinect has been selling like hot cakes and MS have made those figures widely available so why the hush about Windows phone 7?
So what’s the problem? Why aren’t these phones selling? To reiterate, there’s nothing wrong with them, but apart from Xbox 360 compatibility there’s really nothing that you haven’t been able to get on an iPhone, Blackberry or Android phone for the last year.
Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have a killer handset yet, the handsets are good, but they are all fairly generic, and in most cases each manufacturer offers a very similar model with Android. It doesn’t seem from the range of handsets on offer that any manufacturers have really got behind Windows Phone 7 yet, they’ve dipped their toes but no more.
Perhaps most importantly the Windows brand, despite Microsoft’s best efforts, just isn’t cool. People associate Windows with work, spreadsheets, power point and worse, viruses and crashing. You have to wonder if the Xbox would have been the runaway success it undoubtedly has been if it had been called “Windows Games Console”, perhaps Xphone would have been a better idea?
Some of the feedback we’ve had asked if it was too early to count Windows Phone 7 out of the mobile market, well that’s not what we’re doing and yes it is too early, but we have to remember that this isn’t a new product, it’s a new version of Windows mobile. Microsoft aren’t new to this, they’ve been in the mobile market for years.
Another reader said “you obviously cannot discount Microsoft’s presence in the corporate sector, which may help them cross-over to that space; a transition the iPhone has struggled with so far.”
This is a good point, MS still holds huge sway in the corporate sector and the iPhone hasn’t really made inroads there. But again, this isn’t a new OS, previous incarnations of Windows Mobile didn’t make an impression in the corporate sector which is still largely occupied by Blackberry. Aside from MS Office compatibility – which can be done on Android, Blackberry, IOS and Symbian – there’s nothing new to persuade business users.
Personally, I hope that Windows Phone 7 succeeds, I really do, if only to prevent Android or any other OS from getting a monopoly.
This is NOT a new version of Windows Mobile, it is a brand new product. People need to get Windows Mobile out of their heads when thinking about Windows Phone 7.
There is nothing from Windows Mobile in Windows Phone 7, the only commonality is that they both share a Windows CE kernel/OS core, but even that is a vastly newer version.
Windows Phone 7 is version 1.0, this is a brand new product that will take time to gain traction in the market. Initial sales mean nothing, and MS are unlikely to announce sales figures as they don’t make/brand the devices themselves (unlike Kinect).
WP7 is not at all a new version of Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile was an open, feature-rich OS, whereas WP7 is closed and lacking most of the features Windows Mobile had.
But you’re right, the fact that there is an Android version of every WP7 phone likely hurts their sales a lot. Why would anyone choose WP7 when there is the same phone with a mature, customizable OS?
I disagree that an Android monopoly would be bad. Android is open source, which means that not only Google, but also everyone else can drive it forward. Thus, manufacturers who use Android will compete and innovate, while customers will vote for the best ones with their money.
Android’s open source nature guarantees innovation through differentiation, which is only beneficial to consumers. As long as Android is far ahead of any other OS, or in other words, as long as there isn’t anything in any other OS that you don’t get with Android, an Android monopoly has no negative effects.
(I’m not even sure whether one can speak of a monopoly, given that Android is open source and can be “split” into competing versions by anyone)
WP7 is a different version of Windows Mobile, it’s just called differently because Windows Mobile was bad that any association with it would have been dead on arrival. Consumers aren’t fools though, they know it’s still a mobile OS from M$ and that’s the problem, M$ isn’t knows to build a good OS period, despite owning the pc market, look at Vista, look at Windows Mobile, look at KIN ect ect….
Consumers have been burned by M$ too many times. M$ just doesn’t get it, WP7 just sucks big time, the whole OS just seems like garbage when you look at it. It’s the worst OS i have ever seen, even worse than those 50$ lg smartphones you can get at radio shack pay as you go.
For folks that might not have seen a Windows Phone they should be aware that you don’t need the FB app on the phone to access FB. FB is accessed via your Windows Live account (preferred way to establish social networking connections) so it may not show as being accessed from a Windows Phone. You just need to glance at the People Hub which consolidates all the friend updates. THis is one of the killer features of the phone.
I have used the actual FB app on the phone once maybe twice. It is redundant.
Thats because windows 7 phones does not have “flash 10.1” does not have “multi tasking” does not have “copy & paste” does not have “usb tethering” does not have “week view” in calendar and does not “removable micro sd card” the list goes on and on and on. Get your act together microsoft, it looks like I will hanging on to my windows mobile 6.1 device until things improve. Otherwise Microsoft will force me to switch over to android.
Andy you make a good point, but don’t blame the consumer, blame Microsoft. Why? MS called this phone, “Windows Phone”. It’s like when MS changes the name of something from “Live Messenger” to “Windows Live Messenger” and expect that people will notice the difference.
Second, why did they keep the number ‘7’ in the name? The fact that the next number in Windows Mobile was 7 just makes this confusing.
They really should have named it something completely different like XWin OS 1.0.
Microsoft was foolish to go head-to-head with Apple in their only entrenched cellular provider network as a launch choice. They either needed to broad-launch to all networks simultaneously (thus competing in ALL the other markets that the iPhone is not in) or focus launch just on Verizon (which has a real thirst for a windows based smartphone and where they had the opportunity to preempt the iPhone launch on that platform and potentially get ahead of the iPhone. Instead they reintroduced Kin on the Verizon platfomr – WHAT!? and went up against an installed base of millions of iPhones – who’s going to drop an iPhone smart contract for a win 7 phone unless the thing is a proven commodity? On Verizon people would drop their winmo phones, crackberries, and even potentially droids in a heartbeat.
ms failed…