Speaking at Microsoft’s financial analysts meeting today, CEO Steve Ballmer was refreshingly realistic about the company’s struggles in smartphones and tablets. “Mobile devices. We have almost no share.”
Right. Now that Ballmer himself admits it, can we please settle the discussion? Windows Phone has been a failure up until now.
I’m sure Nelson will be able to spin this as something positive.
“When you reach the rock bottom, the only way is up?”
It depends, you can stay on the bottom for a looong time. It’s not pleasant but it happens.
Second largest smartphone OS in India 5.6% marketshare
http://m.bgr.in/manufacturers/nokia/windows-phone-claims-indias-sec…
Second largest smartphone OS in Latin America
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/aug13/08-21wplatampr…
8.2% market share in EU5
11.6% market share in Mexico
8.6% market share in UK
~10% market share in Germany
9.4% market share in France
http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/Global/News/Record-share-for-Window…
15% market share in New Zealand
http://i.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/business/technology/9169975/Hard…
Second largest smartphone OS, 11.8% market share in the Middle East
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2013/9/12/two_phones_in_five_in_the…
There are others:
Italy 9% market share
Australia ~5.8% market share
Spain ~7.8% market share
Poland 16% market share
Russia 8.2% market share
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-08/mts-bolsters-windows-sm…
FWIW, I’ve never claimed Windows Phone has a large market share, only that their share is growing, and that this growth is accelerating. Something obvious after reading the source links.
Also, Mr. Ballmer’s purpose (if you or Thom actually watched the FAM) is to illustrate the upside potential and was spoken specifically in the context of the Nokia acquisition.
Of course this,won’t change your mind, or Thom’s mind, or the other acolytes on this website, but the inconvenient truth for you all is that there is a clear and established momentum.
Well wish them luck Nelson.. Wish them luck. Because the only manufacturer that is pushing Windows Phone is Nokia. And all that market share you listed there can be attributed to Nokia. No other manufacturer. So those numbers you posted are basically as far as they will go until other manufacturers get on board and they are not because MS pissed them off with their Android extortion scheme. There is no enthusiasm from the device manufacturers to push Windows phone after how MS has threatened their business.
WP8 already has a bigger marketshare than Apple in many countries. This is remarkable achievement for a brand new OS.
What is remarkable is the decline in windows market share on mobile devices. Microsoft is really not a new player in this. On the contrary, of the three large ones, Microsoft has been in the smartphone business longest by far.
No one would have said it is remarkable if they had kept their market share from the early 2000. Now, that they’re way south of that mark, it is an achievement?
Considering the market is very different now, yes. It is an achievement. They are no longer a market leader. That’s their goal again, for sure, but not being able to commend them on milestones on the way there is absurdly small of you.
It is an achievement anyone could accomplish, if they were willing to take a big enough loss. That is what Microsoft is doing right now. All that cash sent to Nokia, all that advertisement money for Windows Phone – that’s what “achieved” this. Has anyone calculated how much that amounts to per sold Windows Phone?
I should commend them on that? Sure, I’ll play along. “You’ve got piles of money, Microsoft. Well done!”
How’s that for absurdly small of me?
Edited 2013-09-22 15:36 UTC
It takes money to make money. The only thing is that Microsoft’s offering has enough merit to put the money behind it. Makes sense that they would invest and leverage in order to push adoption. In a different way Google is also doing the same thing. They are not making much at all giving away Android. The Nexus line is just there to make sure that Samsung does not make them their bitch.
Edited 2013-09-22 15:44 UTC
No, I imagine giving away something doesn’t generate much direct income. But they do make a lot of money on mobile users. Android is not a loss leader.
Nelson thought I should congratulate Microsoft on being a loss… third place?
Fact is that Microsoft is pretty much fighting to stay relevant and are prepared to spend enormous amounts of money on that. And in doing so, they aren’t really doing the consumers any favors. Competition works very poorly when one player doesn’t need to care about a working business model.
When Microsoft can show that they’re actually have a sustainable niche that didn’t come from killing off competitors with long-running loss projects, then we can start talking about milestones.
So giving something away isn’t loss leading? Google sinks real money into the engineering of Android.
By giving it away they obviously hope to recoup the lost potential sales through ecosystem and service revenue. They take loss leading to the extreme. The fact that you can’t distinguish this only serves to underscore your naiveté in such matters.
You’re looking at this as some static thing and completely ignoring the very real possibility that they might become #2 and eventually #1 (Already #2 in some regions as my links have shown, and you have played down).
And that just about wraps up the quasi intelligent part of your comment. The really ridiculous part is that you think Samsung doesn’t spend inordinate amounts of money it derives from being a vertically integrated conglomerate on Android — and instead focus on Microsoft sinking a few billion (out of a marketcap of 200 billion)
They are giving away Android, but they’re obviously making money off of it. It’s not a loss leader if Android generates the revenue in other way than direct payment for the OS. You can’t say the same about Microsoft, which is a loss for Microsoft still.
Exactly. Except it isn’t a loss, unless you count Google Play as completely separated from Android, which is just silly.
And what does name calling underscore?
I’m looking at the current picture, yes. And you think that I should be more generous with praise for Microsoft based on the the current situation.
When they have a self-sustaining business, that didn’t come from killing off their competitors with huge losses, then I’ll reevaluate my position. Right now, I don’t feel they accomplished much.
Don’t get me wrong, Windows Phone is a decent offering, but like I wrote before – if you don’t need to have a sustainable business, most companies would be able to pull that off. And Microsoft had a head start since they have a long history in smart phones. What they’ve done so far is not above what I would expect from anyone in the same situation.
Did I mention Samsung?
You obviously have no idea how real businesses work. It is completely normal for companies to lose massive amounts of money for many years developing new markets.
In the mining and oil industries it is reasonably common for companies to invest $10+ billion and up to 20 years before a new project become profitable.
MS is a boring mature company run by adults. It will probably be around long after most of the other “exciting” tech companies such as Google and Apple are nothing more than historical footnotes.
Nelson, are you trying to push Windows Phone/Tablet positively even if the owners says it isn’t? And in my country, Windows Phone booth is a ghost town, I may check it if I get to the mall next time.
I don’t know Microsoft’s goals, but Nokia wanted a good ecosystem. Microsoft is failing at creating that ecosystem.
You piss off your user base and become a worse ass than apple. Then you have trouble getting your customers back. What the hell is the problem with a flash plugin? The stupid Gmail website works better on windows phone 8 than in 4.3! It runs flawless, even down to chatting, and there is no need for an app. Just about any website works just as expected. But it took me 4 years to go back to windows because they pissed me off with how they just killed off windows mobile for so long, then release something more mediocre than IOS 2. No copy and paste!
I wasn’t just going to go leave android because windows had a phone again. Unless 8.1 improves a little bit in October I am going to check out qnx and check out windows latter. But it is nice to have an os that I don’t have to root, change kernel and debloat to be fast. And it has stayed fast. In android I carried so much baggage with apks to do this and that. One example, I would install a lightweight launcher. if I removed trebuchet and ever had to delete user data then i had no launcher installed. I would have to put apks in system. I didn’t think it was annoying back then to adb install, shell, and push. But now that i have a windows phone and look back. Thank goodness. I work on android and IOS all day and its so annoying having to put adb online and permit a computer to connect. Dude i only need to install and push few things! Sometimes just ar.apk or triangle away!
iOS is only supplied by Apple. Your point?
Apple actually makes money selling its devices, for one.
Re-enforces my point. People are claiming a phone OS can’t survive with one hardware vendor. Apple does it. Microsoft isn’t even doing that.
YES
Windows phone has almost no share in the USA BUT in europe and other bizarre countries it is far more significant.
Edited 2013-09-21 13:27 UTC
Given that we can count on Nelson to have found the best possible pro-WP stats out there, I’d say a ~10% market share in the western world is at best staying in the game.
Now the truly interesting question is whether it will go up or down now after Microsoft acquired Nokia. They are trying now to be even more Apple me-too like (control both hardware and software).
I’m not personally sure the corporate culture of Microsoft and their brand can deliver. It certainly will be interesting to watch.
10% is staying in the game now? Wow. The goalposts move yet again.
How can I be moving my goal posts when I have never stated any in the first place? Wow, Nelson does it again and insults everyone left and right!
Considering that your very own comment history has you hurling an insult at me, I wouldn’t throw stones from a glass house if I were you.
As far as moving the goalposts go, I was talking more about the general trend on this website of refusing to give Microsoft credit for any kind of progress they’ve made with Windows Phone. It’s so insulting to people that, holy fuck, maybe we’re wrong and maybe the strategy is bearing out.
What’s the excuse going to be at 15% in some markets? Or better yet, what will make you admit that the strategy is working?
If Nokia posts another double digit volume increase for Q3 and then another in Q4 for example, will that be enough?
I’m just wondering what it takes to wake some of you up.
OK, fair enough, I do have a tendency of not taking your facts for face value. And in this thread I did hint that once again. But there’s a very good reason for this.
If we take your 10% market share claims, you deliberately are always only telling half the story to try boost your arguments. We both know the actual Windows Phone market share for high-end phones is lower than this. If you actually weighted all those numbers by population, including the US, then you’d see that it doesn’t even meet the magical 10% share.
But hey, I was already throwing you a bone by at least starting the debate assuming WP could meet the 10% market share. What I am personally not convinced is that it will be enough. The reason is that there’s some magical percentage (which we can only speculate what exactly is) where the ecosystem of a platform loses support from corporations.
We do have some hints of where the limit might be. The Linux (desktop) market share is clearly too low. The Apple OS X one proved sustainable in the 00’s, although it was clearly at the edge as they did have trouble getting many large companies to support their platform. I’m sure we both can agree BB’s new platform never stood a chance because of this effect.
We just have to disagree on this. All conspiracy theories aside, I don’t think it was ever Microsoft’s plan that they had to buy the Nokia mobile division. The way I view things, Microsoft had no choice but to buy Nokia at the end. It was either that, or get out of the mobile business. The PR disaster if Nokia had been allowed to die (or start releasing Android phones) would have caused most corporations to consider the WP ecosystem dead. (Yes, I know you don’t agree that they would have died. I disagree)
By buying Nokia I think they got themselves one more shot at turning things around. Steve Ballmer doesn’t sound like he thinks their strategy was bearing out.
Oh and just for the record, I think there are many things Microsoft have done right. For example, the new C++/CX thing looks quite interesting, even though it will take some years before I can actually try use it out in the field (due to it being Windows 8 only).
You will see me admit their strategy is working as their market share continues to rise. I have no set market share percentage since I have no evidence exactly at what percentage a mobile OS ecosystem is sustainable. Finding out exactly that is what I find interesting about this entire thing.
Holy fuck. They are not my claims. I didn’t source these numbers from myself. They’re from IDC and Kantar World Panel. They’re the same numbers people source Android figures from.
So is the Android market share, but people have no problem using that to boost their “Android has 80% market share claims”. Its heavily skewed to the low end.
All I’m doing is making it an apples to apples comparison.
Of course it doesn’t, and that’s plainly evident if you look at the global statistics. I’m not hiding that from anyone, it’s plastered all over this website. Thom has gone into that before.
What a region by region break down does is it shows momentum. Some regions are lagging indicators.
An example being iPhone’s early dominance. That dominance wasn’t as pronounced in Europe as it was in the US at the same time. People used the same argument to discount Android (even Microsoft did) but it ended up be a faulty premise.
The rest of the world went the same way the US went, albeit a little later.
My argument is that the same thing is happening here. Nokia has never been powerful in the US — not even when they were #1 in phones. You’re not going to see fantastic numbers there over night. I’d say including the market effectively skews the comparison for the sake of charting Nokia’s progress.
Here’s the chart that I personally use to judge adoption metrics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
What you need is volume, profitability, or both for developers to come. There’s evidence it’s already happening — this year has seen a flood of first party apps. I’ll list some now.
– Official Pandora app
– Official NASCAR app
– Official Tumblr app
– Official Vine app (coming soon)
– Updated Facebook and Twitter apps
– Official Hipstagram app
– Official Wells Fargo app
– Official Yelp app
– Official Bing suite of apps
– Official Fresh Paint app
– Official MLB at Bat app
– Official ESPN Fantasy Football app
– Official ABC app
– Official Walgreens app
– Official Voxer app
– Official XFinity Remote app
– Official 9gag app (coming soon)
– Official Mint app
– Official Temple Run Brave app
– Official Adobe Reader app
– Official E! Online app
– Official untapd app
– Official Jet Airways app
I share this opinion. Nokia (through some maneuvering that Mr. Elop doesn’t get a lot of credit for) set themselves up to have the implicit financial backing of Microsoft should things go south.
Microsoft would have preferred to have HTC, Nokia, and Samsung all enjoying the same level of success in the platform — it’s insane that some people think all Microsoft wanted from the start was to acquire Nokia. If they wanted that they would’ve done that last year when the stock was tanking, not when it was up to $4.00
I think Nokia had some fight left in it, but there was a lot of uncertainty. I’m of the opinion they could’ve made it, perhaps down the road with a renegotiation of terms with Microsoft. They had cash on hand, restructuring fading away, and a lot of credit lines they could tap into as well.
What probably factored into it was the fact that Devices & Services was a potential distraction from their NSN ambitions. NSN was showing clear upside, where as Devices & Services was a longer game.
The negotiations for purchasing the division from my understanding started out as a renegotiation of the current terms.
BTW, a lot of hay has been made about Nokia going Android. I’d argue that given that their agreement with Microsoft lapsed in 2016 (iirc) and phones are generally in the pipeline 18 months (maybe more for an OS transplant) that it would’ve been incredibly shortsighted of them not to be working on an Android device. It also doesn’t hurt to have leverage at the negotiation table with Microsoft.
Not as they intended, no. I’d agree with that as well — but you have to look at it from SteveB’s point of view. He wanted not just Nokia, but all OEMs to be enjoying success. Nokia happened to be the only one trying, and that’s not enough for Microsoft relative to the investment they were making.
For a second let’s say Nokia kept the same volume they have now in some alternate reality. But HTC was also selling 7 million Windows Phones, and Samsung was also selling 7 million Windows Phones. That’s a tripling of the volume and a huge booster to the ecosystem.
Microsoft would’ve been singing a different tune regarding the partnership had that happened — and in hindsight it might’ve been foolish to assume that Samsung would want to distract themselves from Android to that extent. HTC also didn’t have the resources to make a major play for both ecosystems, so they went the safe route.
I wonder, what’s another billion or two to Microsoft. They should’ve struck a deal with HTC as well and moved them firmly into the Windows Phone camp. They have mindshare in the US — and more of a chance than Nokia at pushing volumes there.
I think that’s fair — I’m interested in how Nokia’s Q3/Q4 results will impact the purchase by Microsoft. If Nokia is strong in both earnings, will they have less of an argument to sell to MSFT?
Don’t matter dude, WinPhone is still gonna flop like a fish on the bank and the reason why is simple, its that MSFT stopped listening to their customers and instead listens to Wall Street and that is the kiss of death.
As a retailer it baffles the hell out of me, you give folks what they want and your share grows…why is that so hard for MSFT to grasp? instead with Win 8 and WinPhone you get MSFT not listening but DICTATING and for every customer they get they completely turn off a dozen,that is NOT how you grow a market!
I have been a Windows guy since the days of Win 3.x yet when it came to a phone I chose Android, why? Because after the bad attitude coming from Redmond, the “just deal with it” comments, the screwing of the WinPhone 7.x users by refusing to port WinPhone 8, and Ballmer basically giving the bird to their desktop customers? the entire company has turned me off as a customer.
I was always on the bleeding edge when it came to their products, no more. I always had their latest OS, now I’m on Win 7. The entire culture at MSFT has become toxic and they seem to care not what the customers want or think, only Wall Street, and they only change course if the backlash to their flipping the customer the bird becomes so great they can no longer ignore it, see the Xbox N and refusing to play used games without whipping out a CC.
So I’m sorry but MSFT could have the best thing since sliced bread and it will still end up a failure, not because the product is bad, but because the company has become toxic. I personally hate fricking Linux but if SteamOS comes out and supports most of my games? I’ll end up switching simply because I feel I won’t have a choice,MSFT trying to tie everything into a walled garden, forcing me to use their services to log into my own PC, and other consumer unfriendly behavior has made their products a total turn off. this is what is plaguing WinPhone, not the OS, its the culture.
All of that may be true, but none of that is what I addressed or even want to get into. The point behind my comment was to show clear (and accelerating) momentum towards Windows Phone.
We can debate all day why it’s not more share, and I’d be inclined to agree with some points, but that’s a different argument.
Like Apple listens to their customers lol. Good theory and rant but little truth.
Apple users can piss and moan all they want but Apple is NOT a tech brand, its a FASHION brand. What other products do you see people line up to buy? Ohh Air Jordans, the latest flash in the pan hipster brands, things like that.
Appleites can try to spin it all they want but for every person that buys it for the *nix or design there is a thousand that buys it to be SEEN holding an Apple and that all comes down to price. Why do you think Steve Jobs said several times he wouldn’t sell to the low end? because he saw what happened when Porsche, another fashionable brand, tried to compete with Mustang…it nearly killed the brand.
So comparing Apple and MSFT is completely pointless, its the difference between Macy’s and Walmart. sure macy’s may have the branding but there is a pile of money to be made on the low end, but MSFT is burning their bridges because they want to be a hipster brand and it will NEVER EVER happen, most hipsters would go without before they used something as pedestrian as WinPhone.
The point and shoot digital camera market is an example of initially expensive technology becoming extremely cheap within a decade.
By 2018 even entry level mobile phone models will have all the features now found only on the most expensive phones. Very few people will pay a huge premium for wholly intangible benefits. So the post-2018 phone market will offer very few models over $100. This will make phones an extremely low margin business.
Phones are already close to their maximum practical specifications in the areas of speed, screen resolution and camera size. The only real improvements for consumers are going to be in better software and lower prices.
These countries are buying the Nokia 520 off contact phone. These are not the 920 series phone. These buyers buy nothing from the store. A 99 dollar phone will not get Microsoft in the game unless the only game they want is the lowest end.
The Lumia 520 has a 30% usage share according to in app analytics, so if what you were saying is true, why is the 520 the single most used model in applications?
http://wmpoweruser.com/adduplex-nokia-now-has-close-to-90-of-the-wp…
And tell me, do we get to count out the Android devices at the same price point as the 520? Of course we don’t, that would make Apple look too good relative to Android. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
That’s been the basic MS business plan for over 30 years. So far it has done very well for them.
MS will sell phones at cost to gain significant market share. When the cheap WP models become popular they will progressively move into higher end products while still selling cheap models.
Except that there is actual competition at the higher cost models
Definitely agreed.
I think the view about Nokia and Windows Phone in general is clearly influenced by superficial comments and remarks which usually come from mindsets focused on old OS wars or glamourous/gossip-style behaviour.
In my opinion, even Nokia-Microsoft deal is grossly mis-interpreted and underestimated. As you reported, a more careful analysis would be needed.
I could not have worded it better myself.
The forums here and there are full of stupid device or OS wars based on yesterday analysis and rarely able to focus on where we will be next.
Just a small handful of tech press can “think” by themselves and analyze what “may” happen in the future, while all other press just repeat like parrots what others said. And in turn the forum posts by brand loyal fanboys.
Facts are facts, opinions are opinions. The facts say: WP WW market is growing.
Any opinion based on or suggesting WP is declining market NOW and heading to its death is in principle a worthless opinion because it ignores the facts.
If people want to express valuable opinions then they have to think of solid reasoned arguments that can justify changes in the current market trend. Like a mayor change in the tech world that will affect WP but not iOS or Android, a licenses issue that will only affect WP, … something that shows a well thought logic that can apply worldwide (and not only to the micro market only existing in the mind of the user expressing a flamed and biased opinion) and would justify that 2014 will be different.
But as said there are only a few tech press that are independent enough, brand agnostic and intelligent to analyze what will come, not like all others that can only talk about what is now, hooray …
WW= Worldwide?
In my country, I’ve only seen one Windows phone being used. All were using old Nokia brands(now minority) the majority were using Android devices mostly made from Samsung, HTC, LG etc. I’ve asked a friend how Lumia penetrated our local market, and its negative, so from where I was standing, Nokia Win Phone is not declining, its a failure.
I could agree to your comment if we are evaluating WP IN YOUR COUNTRY, but most statements say “failure” with any clarification of region/country.
This said, it seems like many are naïf thinking that a player can come with his products into a mature markets and just get a 20 or 30% share just because of their pretty face. Be it cars, furniture, cooking tools, clothing, or food, when you sell similar products to your competitors you are happy to get 5% of the market.
The story behind the iPhone is kind of different as it evolved a market and yes it magically became the main player. Good for them. It took Nokia ages to get a similar market share because Nokia phones being good where not that revolutionary from all other phones.
Should I be considering the 5-10% market share of Apple computers an utterly failure? Apple fan boys can be talking for hours about the Airbook, but honestly in WW sold units … it sells like a Nokia Lumia or worse. You won’t hear me saying the Airbook is a failure. Perpective.
Now any company, be it Microsoft, Jolla, Jaguar, Rebook, Logitech or whoever, expected to come with a similar product and all of the sudden get a 30% market share? Why should it?
You may get those numbers when you really have something new everyone wants. And WP is not the shock the iPhone was 6 years ago, or Nintendo Wii at the time. So selling 3%, 5% or 15% is not that bad figure if people get perspective of things.
And Audi R8 sells less than that. Also a failure? Toyota Prius … great product …. Do they have a 30% market share? Is Toyota a failure? Perspective.
Agreed.
There’s simply no more room to sell devices in the tens of millions in a few months. Apple and Samsung capitalized their chances ealier when market was growing much faster than it is now. Which has been good for them but definitely non-conclusive.
Apparently, no-one remembers when people were making fun of Xbox. Who’s leading that market today ?
Speaking about latin america, specific Brazil case, let me tell you I never, ever saw a person with a WP device, and on stores, Android tottally rules here.
I see often iPhone on the hand of layers and physicians, as they bought those as symbol of status – most of them don’t even know how to use internet on the phones.
Kids and teenegers I see even on bus, typing as a fanatic on their Androids and a few (1 to 10 os less) iPhones.
WP? None.
All the old consumers from Nokia (that had a huge market share here, > 80%), were not sold by the new Lumias, simply put.
As Brazil is the biggest market in the whole latin america, I think this tells a lot about this report. It seems to focus on Mexico and Argentine mostly, ignoring countries where WP/Nokia is a no-go.
Please don’t mix the numbers. 8.2% in EU5(Germany, France, UK, Spain and Italy) and separate numbers for those countries do not relate well.
The Live Tiles screen. Make it pretty. It’s even worse on WP8 than on W8.
In my mind it’s just the other way around: the desktop version of Metro is simply hideous. The tiles hovering above the background image look detached, the Metro environment as a whole lacks unity.
On the phone side the style almost works, although the lack of visual appeal is discomforting. Too much black and too little color variations.
Very surprising to see such honesty from Microsoft’s supersalesman/head cheerleader. Maybe his exit date makes such honesty possible?
Ballmer said pretty much the same thing before (http://www.mobileburn.com/16632/news/microsoft-ceo-ballmer-says-win…) so the suprise being expressed in blogosphere is actually a symptom of low memory capability than actuallity.
People have short memories.
Memo to Steve:
Maybe your existing and potential customers are trying to tell you something – they don’t want what you have to offer.
Of course, Microsoft has plenty of money if they wish to continue to throw it down the mobile “rat hole”.
Just remember… the end is uncertain and the future is always near (apologies to The Doors).
And it’s a damn shame, too, because Windows Phone is a very nice OS.
It is a very nice OS, it does what is supposed to do quite well and very dependably. And therein lies the rub. The geeks don’t want it because it’s not customizable. No replacement shells, wholesale new widgets for the Home screen, switching out icons, jailbreaking, new launchers, etc etc etc, everything that they love so much about Android. None of that is possible on Windows Phone, or at least that I have read about online. Even as locked down as iOS is, it can still be jailbroken and some GUI elements switched out to make it look and operate completely differently, making it attractive to customizers.
Ok this is where I seriously see Microsoft failing so bad! HTC and some Samsung can be hacked, but for nokias you need paid solutions. If they would allow for developers to improve their system, it would sorely fill in the gaps. Like in 7.5, hacked you had Bluetooth file transfers. Microsoft is stupid for closing the only real way to side load apps.
Actually apps can be side-loaded on Windows Phone 8. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj657971.aspx
As for “hacking” the OS…doesn’t this open up security holes and other issues?
One of Microsoft’s biggest issues is pricing on their mobile/RT platform.
Not only are the price of apps crazy expensive when you look at the likes of the iOS and Android counter parts… but cross platform latching doesn’t even work with any of Microsoft’s store purchases, yet they have the bast ability to do so with so much reward for it.
Take iOS, you buy a game or app, and chances are you’re going to get a version for your iPhone that same purchase will also work on your iPad.
The same goes for Android, it’ll work on your phone, tablet and pretty much anything else that is android based.
Even Valve’s Steam purchases, allow you to latch on to steam, providing PC, Mac and Linux versions with one purchase.
Microsoft on the other hand will be quite happy for you to buy a game, on Windows 8 app store using your Microsoft account, but then they’ll be happy again for you to have to buy the exact same game yet again on your Windows phone, using the same Microsoft account, that has the same achievements .. and then again on the xbox… Same account, same achievements.
It’s not giving users any reason to latch onto the ecosystem at all and for the people who realize this, it’s pushing people away from buying into the ecosystem.
I was quite buzzed by the surface RT and would have made a nice replacement for my laptop until I saw the price. A lot of the designers liked it (who are apple fans)
How are you going to do your job on a Surface RT? Has Microsoft ported over their entire tool chain already?
I don’t need it for work.
It’s pure sadness, as I´m pretty sure that this will be discouraging for other entrepreneurs like Jolla.
I guess the landscape at this point is pretty much set in stone for the coming decade. I don’t think there is a way for Android and Apple to lose their market share, as they both played their moves brilliantly.
I hope that at least they keep fighting each other in the innovation area instead of resting on their laurels.
IMO it is not discouraging. But they need to release an OS that is good.
WP8 is awful.
RIM/Blackerry dragged their feet for too long. They knew they had to come out with a new OS for a long long time and it took way way too long. On top of it the phones they released were always so far behind specs wise and just not very good.
Nokia had an OS they could have used and had full control over but abandoned it for an OS they had no control over and were burned as was completely expected. Then they complained about having no control over the OS. Idiots.
Good is not enough.
It has to make developers want to spend resources targeting them, while allowing them to be paid for the said investment.
Otherwise you won’t get any apps, besides Android ports.
And they need to make it easy for both developers and users to get into the ecosystem. The os is the lesser half of the picture, the apps are what will make or break a new platform.
…and WP8 is the easiest mobile platform to develop for with the highest quality Dev tools, Visual Studio.
If you honestly believe that, then you aren’t very experienced with other platforms and their available tools.
Microsoft’s inability to follow standards and give developers the API:s they want is also hinders them from gaining more market. OpenGL ES 2 is one of those API:s.
Visual Studio is very highly regarded by many, and I share the opinion that it is one of the best IDEs around. Not just that, but the quality of the documentation, debugging tools, and platform are top notch.
I’ve read articles comparing Windows Phone, Android, and iOS development and the WP environment is very competitive.
It is definitely an advantage for Microsoft that they have strong tooling with VS. That’s a lowered barrier to entry to a lot of people.
Visual Studio for WP smokes everything else as far as a dev platform goes and documentation is way more approachable especially from MSDN.
Working in Eclipse with pseudo Java is better, with no GUI IDE? Or using Objective C? There’s always Direct3d.
The .net and Visual Studio simply destroy Android tools and XCode by a wide margin. The only people who think otherwise are inexperienced devs. However developers work with what they know, and that is the best tool for them.
pretty much tools people are productive with they will be productive with. IMHO visual studio is junk and it forces a very anrrow paradigm on developers, but its what younger devs have always used. So “what I’m used to using and how I do my development” ends up being the best tools on the market. And I sit back and curse MSs craptastic support of open standards (STL, etc) and even marginal support of c++ and worse 64bit support…and the absolute worst sin not being able to mix and match debug and release object files for testing.
Compared with xcoede or android i can’t say as much but at least i can choose what platform for running android development and that *is* what I will target when the time comes.
People were productive with QBasic and TurboPascal but it does not mean we should still be programming in them.
Visual Studio is junk? LOL You obviously have not done any modern development. What is better and how is it junk? Eclipse? LOL By locking developers into a “narrow paradigm” does that mean writing garbage collection code and custom exception handling code also?
When you have a footprint like Microsoft you don’t necessarily have to follow open standards, you can define them like .NET. Some of the open standards don’t lead to the best development practices anyway.
Ridiculous. MS supports C++ in native code and with a CLI. If you don’t need to run closer to the bare metal why use it though when you can use C#?
You are free to develop for any platform you wish but with these uninformed opinions, I would be concerned relying on your apps in production. Managed code and CLIs lead to better quality apps.
Yes & No. Visual Studio is the best dev tool to develop for Windows-based OSes. And no, Visual Studio is junk for OS cross-platform development. Unless you install something like Oxygene, Visual Studio is for Windows and for Windows platform only.
We were not talking about Visual Studio for cross platform development. We were talking about which platform has the best development tool.
What you are saying is the usual oldskool developer who thinks he knows everything attitude.
Personally I been working in about 3 programming languages using VS that are VB, C# or Managed C++.
A lot of complaints are when VB6 was at the height of it popularity.
You might want to read up on the behind the scenes at MeeGo, it wasn’t the rosy picture that FOSS lovers paint it, in fact they were being sabotaged on not one but TWO front as they had the Symbian team backstabbing and headhunting their best talent for fear they would steal their thunder and Intel stabbing them in the back for fear that the ARM version would steal the spotlight away from X86. For your education…
http://taskumuro.com/artikkelit/the-story-of-nokia-meego
I already know what was going on with Maemo and MeeGo. No one claimed it was a perfect situation but they had the ability to control what was going on as opposed to working with a vendor they had no control over. Symbian should have been taken out back and shot so to speak a long time ago. It doesn’t matter how you look at it WP was the wrong way to go and now Nokia is dead. But IMO they deserved it with such a poorly managed company.
Edited 2013-09-22 04:25 UTC
How EXACTLY could they “control the situation” because I’d like to hear this. Intel owned half, so they couldn’t just give them the boot and Intel was sabotaging, and they couldn’t give the symbian guys the boot as that was the only product they had at the time.
So I’d love to hear how, with a broken and incomplete product that had half the coders working against them and the other half being headhunted by symbian, that they were supposed to “control” squat? I would also remind you of the screaming fits the public had when Elop killed Symbian, how many here screamed he was “killing” the company, you honestly think anybody inside Nokia could have done that? They would have been crucified.
What makes it awful and have you actually used it for at least a week?
I used it for months as both user and developer.
It’s not awful and the screenflow is nice, but I still find that having icons with color codes helps you navigate around a small screen much better than the live tile / monochrom system.
It also leaves a lot to be desired, and several things about it are unacceptable, such as the terrible multitasking and the fact you can’t get another web browser.
As a developer, the phone is plain horrible. I’m sorry, but Android and iOS are miles ahead in both API and tools.
It’s not really “awful” and it shows promise, but it’s not quite there yet. The fact that Microsoft barely touched it in more than a year also makes it worse. Android did dozens of important changes and updates in the same time lapse.
What is terrible about WP8 multitasking again? Events are fired when apps get shut down…easy enough to save context.
Resuming
. ….
There is nothing, just corner case issues which have more to do with buggy tombstoning implementations than anything.
I’ve gone through this at length with reduz and Thom before but apparently they are one of the only ones who encounter this issue on the entire internet. No review mentions it, no support sites that I can find, nothing.
But its OSNews, so they’re free to post bullshit like that and get upvoted into the clouds.
Edited 2013-09-21 22:44 UTC
Uhhh…my dad had the same kinds of problems with his Lumia, which is why he sold it after just a month and got an Android which just FYI but at 73 he had ZERO trouble picking up and using.
The only “issue” he has had with android (if you can even call it that, I consider it a feature) is that he sees no point in upgrading to android 4 when his 2.3 phone works fine. I can’t really blame him as I’m hard on phones so intend to stay with my 2.3 until I kill it as well.
So I’m sorry nelson, you can wave the WinFlag all you want but there IS some pretty serious issues with WinPhone, you just don’t know how to look. Look for “WinPhone sluggish” “WinPhone hangs” and “WinPhone needs reboot” and you’ll find all the links you want, its just the folks with WinPhone don’t talk tech, you see the same with iPhone which isn’t surprising as that is the market MSFT has been trying to ape.
As a lifelong windows user I can tell you this nelson, I wouldn’t take a WinPhone if you paid me. after using dad’s (he offered it to me, I gave it back after 2 weeks) all I could think when I used WinPhone is “Apple but worse” as everything seems to be a poorly done copy, the appstore has higher prices and worse selection, it seems even more locked down, ironically Android is closer to windows on a phone (able to install your own OS, install apps from anywhere, ton of third party mods) than WinPhone!
If your dad went from Windows Phone to Android 2.3, he must have used a pretty early version of WP. WP8 is rock solid on my Lumia and the power and data management is amazing. Perhaps check out WP8 “Amber” release and see for yourself how good or not it is.
Edited 2013-09-22 07:37 UTC
Same kinds of problems? I’m only talking about one specific problem. Which problem did he have? My suspicion is that it’s not the same problem I’m talking about — ergo not related to my comment at all.
Android 2.3. I’m sorry that you put yourself through that. Really, I am.
Okay, since I can’t do a search, can you find me some examples? I adjusted my search terms and still came up empty. If there’s a hang or reboot, and it persists, then I’d attribute it to a one off error with a device (depending on the device, I’ve seen HTC 8X’s have a firmware bug which caused reboots, but it’s been fixed in subsequent updates by HTC).
As far as sluggishness goes, I’ve not personally experienced it, and from what the reviewers and majority of the internet seems to think, Windows Phone performs very smoothly. If there is sluggishness, it’s important to note the distinction between the OS and some apps, which may factor into play here.
Can we please stop this crap. I don’t care if you’re a life long Windows user or decade long window washer. It honestly makes no difference to what you’re about to say next.
And that’s fine. You don’t have to like it, but I’m still trying to figure out what that has to do with my comment on one specific issue raised by specific people.
The App Store having higher prices is a reflection of Microsoft trying to put a floor under the race to the bottom that kills ecosystems. Look at Android. A mess of garbage, low investment by the existing players, and a relatively strong 2nd party app base driven by volume.
The store is flooded by scam apps and people gaming the review system to hide discoverability there. App stores need a strong watch, and pricing is just one facet of that.
Its even more strict on Windows 8 where the minimum price for an app (aside from free) is $1.99.
Windows Phone is not trying to be Windows on the Desktop. It doesn’t want to be. It doesn’t have to be. It is enjoying a modest amount of success without it, and if it continues on its trajectory will have done so without compromising the experience.
Uninstallable carrier spyware is not something I want on my phone.
Maybe too many regulars mistakenly think that “OS” in the name is about open source, not operating systems…
And just why would this be discouraging for folks like Jolla. I would be discouraging if, like Microsoft, they decided to design by committee, play follow the leader, and not actually innovate except at very shallow levels. If that is the case, the Microsoft statement (and general malaise) would be discouraging.
However, my guess that is NOT Jolla (and others’) business plan.
Jolla seem to understand the difficulty of being completely new. They’re trying to tackle the problem by this Android compatibility, with which they’ve worked for a long time now.
Microsoft has just about gone around to every device manufacturer and threatened them to pay and extortion fee to use Android. Now if you are a device manufacturer and Microsoft twisted your arm into paying them for Android would you then push devices with Microsoft OS? You see. The manufacturers are not pushing MS products because they are already paying MS for Android so they will just stick with Android thank you very much. Microsoft shot itself in the ass with that extortion scheme leaving a bad taste in the mouth of manufacturers. They see no reason to help MS after these shenanigans. I don’t blame them.
Tell that to Samsung, they really want to move to Tizen in a big way to regain control. That ain’t gonna happen though.
The OS itself is very stable.
My first phone with the current WP Series was a Samsung Focus. Between the stability of the hardware combined with WP7 & WP7.5 it was a solid device. The device never froze up and there were no issues. The only issues came from a few apps that weren’t optimized for the WP7.5 update. Once those apps were updated, no issues at all.
Curretly have an HTC Titan II. Again, not a single issue with the device hardware or the OS (WP7.5).
One of the reasons I’ve stayed with WP is because of a few OS features. My wife has an iPhone and hates that she lost some of the OS features when she switched from her WP Device.
One of he better OS features that’s hardly ever mentioned are the ‘Caller ID’ settings. Most phones have only two choices; On or Off. Even the iPhone.
Since it first arrived, the Windows Phone OS has provided THREE options for sending your Caller ID:
1 – Everyone
2 – No One
3 – My Contacts
This little feature makes quite quite a difference when you have actually used the ‘My Contacts’ option.
There are more features that differ from most, but because my wife had severe issues when she went to a iPhone, that stands out for me.
Its ironic that Android on mobile now has the feature that so many of us trumpeted on windows desktops, the simple fact that thanks to a large third party ecosystem you can customize it and have it YOUR way. Several of the call blockers on Android let you choose who gets caller ID and who don’t that way those that care about that can easily add it and those that don’t? Don’t have to have it.
If you ask me this is where MSFT lost its way, instead of bringing what made windows popular onto their mobile offerings they instead merely aped Apple while ignoring that Apple users are a niche that is completely unlike Windows users. When I bit the bullet and finally decided to go with a smartphone I looked for the most “Windows like” phone I could find…I chose Android. With the Android I have the most control over the OS, can even easily change the OS if I want, the third party ecosystem lets me change the OS and functionality any way I want, I don’t even need to use their appstore if I don’t want, it behaves frankly more like Windows on the desktop than WinPhone which frankly felt more like “Apple but worse”.
Let us just hope that whomever replaces Ballmer starts listening to users, but if Elop gets the big chair? Sell the stock, they are toast.
…with better power and data consumption management than any other modern mobile OS. When enterprise customers start adopting WP8 in their organizations, things will keep growing. Visual Studio for Windows Phone, SQL Server for Windows Phone, built in office and new FIPS security certifications along with Microsoft’s cash and developers will keep the ball rolling. Let’s see how the landscape changes over the next two years. The Lumias really are excellent, smooth running phones. People are just bashing it because its new and it’s Microsoft.
It seems like markets only have room for 2 large operating systems, our 2 ecosystems if you like. One closed sand one open. Here is my reasoning, comments welcome.
Servers: the “open” position is for *nix, the closed one for windows server. No space left for a second closed system, such as OSX server.
Mobile: open is Android, closed is iOS. No place left for more open systems such as sailfish, mer etc: Android is seen as open enough. No place for other closed systems either, such as bb or wp.
Desktop/laptop: closed is OSX, open is….Windows. Yes, it was much more open than other systems, gave users a huge choice in hardware, software etc. So it its seen as open enough. Linux (my own preference) is of course much more open, but in the eyes of consumers this is not really needed. So: no space for Linux.
So my theory is that markets support one big open (ish) system and one big closed one. And that additional systems, be they open or closed, will get “marginal” market shares.
If this is true, windows phone will only have a chance once iOS is gone…
Only if you ignore the BSD’s, AIX, Solaris etc.
There will always be a small percentage “other” systems, like Linux or even Haiku on the desktop, Blackberry or Symbian on mobile and proprietary UNIX variants such as AIX or Solaris on servers…..
….or I may be over simplifying
The BSDs fit the definition of open *NIX, so that doesn’t contradict the OP. As for Solaris, AIX, and other commercial UNIX flavors… how many of them are increasing their share? Most of them are, when their specialized hardware dies, being replaced with open *nix flavors these days. Many of these are no longer even supported; I think Solaris and possibly AIX might be the only ones still under any sort of active maintenance.
Your theory might not hold true. Other phone OS’s have gone down in flames in the past and they had momentum too.
You mean, like Windows Mobile?
Yes. And Symbian. And PalmOS. The market is littered with the bones of the past kings of the segment.
Android’s dominance is far from assured, and Google would be very wise to remember that.
But mobile hardware has been advancing rapidly. It’s possible that once hardware evolution slows to a crawl, the OS market stabilizes and newcomers hit an increasingly steep barrier to entry.
…in two years or so?…were Windows Phone will be #2. Considering that 8 has only been out for a short while, and has made the pace it has, I will not be surprised at all when this happens. There is much more to this latest iteration than in Windows mobile or WP7.
Its Android, especially with TouchWiz. I can no loger count how many times that I have seen the prompt “(insert your app name here) Has stopped responding, do you want to close (insert your app name here).”
…it’s Samsung. If it bothers you that much, next time buy a Nexus. Or load Cyanogenmod on your Samsung.
I just ditched my S3 two weeks ago and switched to the Lumia 925. Much better.
Email app crashing is TouchWiz’s fault? Number of app crashes on WP8 since I got the phone, zero. It’s all about managed code.
Edited 2013-09-22 05:38 UTC
How does managed code protect you from apps that crash? I can’t get a NullRerferenceException on windows phone just as easy as NullPointerException on android?
Not all crashes are null reference errors and I hope you know that.
In fact ANR dialogs have to do with boggged down UI threads, something the application model for Windows Phone works hard to prevent (off thread animations, composition thread manipulation, composition thread scrolling)
I can’t speak for TouchWiz, but if it’s anything like HTC’s Sense, the default “Email” app is proprietary to the phone’s UI, and is not the normal Android-provided app. On my HTC One, the HTC Email app is buggy, slow, and lacks core features.
That said, it’s trivial to switch to Google’s Email app for non-Gmail accounts; I would assume it’s the same deal for Samsung phones.
how much of this “adoption rate growth” of Nokia/MS smartphones are related to old Nokia phones updates. From my limited experience (actually anecdotal as I only know 4 beings having a MS driven phone), all of them share the same previously cited path.
Nokia still has a brand recognition, and telco relation with big comm companies on all these areas Nelson reported and there are lots of people that like Nokia and that also take a long time to replace their phones.
My bet is that if it was not for Nokia, MS “Metro” phones could be way, way worse on sales. If you look for numbers behind Nokia sales on regions Nelson posted, you will see the strong correlation they carry.
What I am saying is: Nokia would grow on smartphone market with probably same numbers, if not bigger, even if they picked Android as the OS, because of their brand and business links, what is the same as saying that there was no palpable advantage for Nokia on picking MS OS from the point-of-view of their regular customers (this is not the same as saying that they had no advantages when getting MS money, obviously).
It is a futile argument, anyway, history has no option to be rebuild.
like me
today my old phone died (nokia 6021)
and i will buy another nokia
as it stands now i’ll go for an asha 210 (sorry ms :p)
don’t need a smartphone and 1100h standby sound really sweet
The Asha phones are really interesting devices, solid competition for WP and low-end Android. And of course the new FirefoxOS phones. For people who use phones to make phone calls. 🙂
I really hope that Asha 210 lasts as long as your 6021 did:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/3/4688888/there-will-never-be-anothe…
It’s sad really, the Asha platform looked really nice. I’m still tempted to get one just for the hell of it, but it’s not in the budget right now.
it lasted a mere houre before i demanded my money back XD
what a piece of shit it is
no syncing withe the pc, no contact-transfrer with a pc, and no contact transfer with another nokia phone
Wow, I really expected better than that from a modern Nokia phone, even a “feature phone”. As I recall, my Siemens S55 from days of yore even synced to my Slackware box back in the day, and it was not quite at the “feature phone” level.
that seems to be the problem
it’s a non-windows phone released during elops reign
don’T get me wrong, it has a great feel to it
but not fixing a little bug, and EOLing the connectivity-software for the pc stinks of elop
Edited 2013-09-23 22:53 UTC
Am I the only one who remembers the Courier project?
Right after it got leaked there was an incredible amount of excitement around it. And then Balmer decided to pull the plug on that, since it didn’t use the Windows interface but one specific AND appropriate for the device.
At a time when the ipad didn’t have such a strong grip on the market (they probably couldn’t have put it out before the 1st gen ipad came out)…
The courier had enormous potential. Everybody I talked to about it found it interesting and thought they would like one. Even after the ipad was out.
In my own case, I wanted one, when I’m a die-hard pro-opensource, anti-microsoft zealot who tends to avoid throwing myself at the latest “bling” device.
But it wasn’t windows, so it was killed (it needs repeating).
That’s microsoft’s way: they never aim to compete in a fair way, they want to level their monopoly to force everyone to buy their products (hence the WP/W8 debacle).
Techies don’t seem to understand that WP8/Nokia aren’t trying to compete with Android and iOS. WP8/Nokia It isn’t designed for hipsters or geeks. It is is a modern feature phone combination designed for people who just want to make calls, check emails, listen to music and take photos. It does that admirably at very low cost.
Except that it does try to compete in that space. You could use the WP advertisements as examples, or you could take the phone itself with the same top-tier apps and features as the competition (minus a few big names like Instagram).
In many ways, WP does “smartphone” much better than Android or iOS; the downside is, it lacks in other areas the competition excels in. But claiming it’s not a “smartphone” just to make it look better than it is, is disingenuous.
And don’t think I’m trying to slam the platform out of distate. I actually really like WP7 (I have yet to try WP8 but from what I’ve read it’s even better). I’m actually considering moving to a Lumia with WP8 now that it is the only real alternative to iOS and Android. I just don’t go around making excuses for its pitfalls.
…is because of timing. It came out a year and a half after the first iPhone and was the only real contender available to phone manufacturer’s outside of Apple without a huge investment needed. Would Samsung be where they are without Android…no. Android is capable and developed into something pretty good, especially when teamed up with Google Services, many of which are excellent, even though they spy on users
. I wonder if Eric Schmitt was not on Apple’s board if Google would had got into the mobile OS business as fast as they did. I mean Google did not start Android, they bought the project and adopted it. Considering that Windows phone 8 is really Microsoft’s first serious entry and it’s only been less than a full year since it’s been available, it’s made some pretty good in-roads quickly. It will continue to grow just because of the Microsoft software infrastructure behind it, along with Microsoft’s cash. Windows Phone 8 is the first mobile OS with the NT kernel and .NET technologies baked in. Yes, Balmer was very late figuring out that Microsoft should be serious in the mobile space, but Microsoft has been behind many times before. And although there were failures at Microsoft before, there were also many cases where they caught up, surpassed (Oracle) and made competitors obsolete (Netscape, OS/2, perhaps Solaris). Android is king of the hill right now, but architecturally, being based on Java and with a wide open security model, may not be the best platform for the future, and it might not be the king forever.
Edited 2013-09-23 12:51 UTC