In an unexpected turn of events, we’re seeing ‘FUD’ being spread about Microsoft, for once. Lots of articles on the web highlighting how the support lifecycle for Window Phone 7/8 and 8 is to end in July 2014, as if WP8 devices won’t be getting any updates beyond that point. This already seemed unlikely early to me, and with my magical unicorn powers of, you know, common sense I already made the assumption that this only applies to versions 7.8 and 8.0 – not 8.5 or 9.0 or whatever the next version will be. WMPowerUser shares my unicorn powers: “On the other hand the OS support date is reset with any never version of the OS, so a Windows Phone 8.5 or 9 update in November 2013 would bring along its own 18 month of security updates. Microsoft has already promised all current Windows Phone 8 handsets will receive the next major version of the operating system.”
This is a consequence of a hyper-connected media we live with. There must always be tea leaves, there must always be something to be made from nothing.
People refuse to accept that such information is just at this point not available, and instead do something I think is more dangerous, which is to start trying to see things that don’t exist.
I understand why people might make the leap. Yes, Microsoft really did burn WP7 adopters. A terrible idea, but one they’ve likely already paid the PR costs for. However it is unrelated to support dates completely.
Microsoft and others could avoid a lot of this destructive misinformation by simply being more forthcoming. By now, its common sense that something will exist beyond WP8. Why not say that? It would be trivial for them to say “Windows Phones will get the next major set of updates — at the very least”.
I know they’ve sorta kinda have said it via various executive interviews, but a direct and forceful statement is a powerful thing.
Exactly.
Microsoft provides those end support dates for the purposes of enterprises who need to know product support lifetimes.
Did you spot the tragic part of that statement? Enterprise! No other mobile operating system will provide those metrics, so they look kind of scary to consumers not used to paying attention to such things. They could have included more information on that page to explain to a consumer why they don’t need to worry, but they never really expected consumers to pay attention to it in the first place.
In fact, I think people should be afraid for windows phone 8, if there wasn’t an end support date. That would kind of indicate that Microsoft wasn’t going to introduce a new mobile operating system.
Anyone know when the support for the microsoft Kin ran out?
Slashdot’s trolltastic headline was probably the worst:
“Microsoft to abandon Window Phone?”
Hardly…it’s Slashdot, you know what to expect…
I understand your comment, and I’m not trying to soften your slashdot criticism. But obviously we don’t know if windows will update Windows Phone.. we don’t know if they’ll abandon it in 6 months, or a year. We simply do not know. And lately Microsoft hasn’t been all about consumer confidence.
Just a minute, I need to update my Zune… err.. oopsie!!
I think Zune is a bad comparison. It received a ton of updates, years after it was released. The Zune 30 received firmware updates for something like three or four generations after it.
Well, Microsoft abandoned Visual Basic, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Windows Phone 7, Silverlight (abandoning in progress) and XNA game studios while still being popular.
So, it’s not that unlikely that they’re simply dropping WP at some point if they’re not able to compete in perspective. Microsoft would be losing money if they tried pushing the platform over the years without gaining any significant market share.
Adrian
I think it is offensive when people who never used said technology claim to speak for their popularity. XNA was never popular. It was almost universally panned as a gimmicky toolkit with limited uses beyond being good for XBox Live Indie Games.
Microsoft dropping VB is so nonsensical it’s not even funny. VB is one of the most annoying beasts that just won’t die. Its an almost universally terrible idea, but the problem it solves is so crucial that it refuses to die, almost 3 client versions after Microsoft would’ve liked it to.
I’m personally glad they killed XNA. We need a better solution. If Microsoft themselves won’t provide it, someone else can. There is no rule stating that only Microsoft can create a good DirectX wrapper.
I’d be happy if Microsoft partnered with Unity or someone else to offer free or discounted licenses to Windows Phone / Windows 8 developers. Its all about the middleware.
Windows Phone put XNA into WP7 for the same reason they adopted Silverlight. They needed “good enough” frameworks they could get onto their fledging platform with minimal work.
At this point in time the Windows Phone division had no backing from WinDiv, so there weren’t many parallels to exploit.
Obviously times have changed and you begin to see the phasing out of older DevDiv technologies and the transitioning to new technologies.
Silverlight will transition to WinRT which isn’t as much of a killing off as much as it is a rebirth. A vast majority of your code will transfer over. It really takes experience with the technology to appreciate just how little of an issue Silverlight to WinRT is.
Windows Phone is not about making money to Microsoft. Neither is the XBox. They just need footholds into more consumer spaces to push their broader ecosystem.
I think you’ll see Windows Phone, over the years, become a significant player on mobile. There’s evidence that Microsoft is starting to make some inroads. Its not much, but it is a lot more than they had prior.
I think within a few release cycles you’ll see the true Windows Phone vision realized. This is just like how it took Android a while before all of Google’s puzzle pieces fell together.
Every company abandons products that don’t make business sense for whatever reason.
Just look at what Google has been doing in the last days.
The Verge and WMPoweruser (not “WMPowerUser”) did not post contradicting articles.
Microsoft has promised to release updates for the next major operating system release for all current WP8 devices. The Verge argues that whether users will actually receive these updates is dependent on OEMs and carriers.
The concerns seem not entirely far-fetched, considering that many WP7 users are still waiting for the upgrade to 7.8. And a minority of them might never get it.
http://nokiapoweruser.com/2013/02/02/t-mobile-has-chosen-not-to-upd…
As usual, I think The Verge has a decent writeup. Microsoft’s trouble is that their promised things would be different.
Largely, people wouldn’t care that this is happening because it already happens with Android, but the crucial difference is that Microsoft promised a better way.
I think they got too ahead of themselves and said something that they couldn’t realistically deliver. Microsoft didn’t have the influence to do all of that. No one, save for Apple really does.
What I think has changed with WP8, and it is a positive change, is that Microsoft can push out updates with less carrier discretion if the changes are not major. You’ve seen WP8 devices receive numerous OS and firmware updates since launch. The fact that these updates come from Microsoft directly through Windows Update is encouraging.
So far, so good for WP8 devices. Also, Microsoft still is set to unveil an opt-in preview program for Windows Phone users to enable them to get major updates faster, bypassing carrier restrictions.
The fact that users even have to WORRY, AT ALL, about being left behind is a clear warning to Microsoft! They need to get ahead of this, NOW, and announce OFFICIALLY, that WP8 users will have an upgrade path to 8.5 or 9!
They burnt users TWICE in the space of three years already. Once when they abandoned Windows Mobile, and then again, 2 years later, they did the same thing to Windows Phone 7. (worse, they held out Windows 7.8 as mitigation, only to have that update be delayed and have it’s own problems!)
This is a HUGE reason why your average customer is not taking a risk buying a WP device right now…they aren’t dumb, they see how MS has bungled over the past few years (Windows Mobile, Kin, Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 7.8, etc) and doing a few simple Google searches will tell the story.
Unless MS can convince people that WP8 hardware is indeed upgradable, people will shy away. End of story. The ball is in their court and they had better address this if they have any hope of staying in the market.
I don’t think users worry about this much, from a users perspective, they received a healthy list of updates. Especially if they adopted really early and bought a first gen Windows Phone device.
Oh come on, the Windows Mobile update situation was always non existent. Downloading and flashing an obscure ROM somewhere to me does not count as a software update. Things were at the discretion of carriers and OEMs back then, except to an arguably worse degree.
Windows Mobile was wholly incompatible, save for some HTC hacks, it didn’t even have capacative touch support, mostly had super low resolution screens, and again save for the HD7, did not support the minimum processing requirements.
So you think the average consumers Googles Windows Mobile, Kin, and even knows the difference about Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8?
I really don’t think that’s true, and even if it was true to a limited extent, I really really don’t think this is the limiting factor in sales.
I agree with your premise that they should be more transparent, that’s always good. I just think you draw the wrong conclusion. Spotty updates are a symptom of a larger problem, not the cause of the problem.
Microsoft needs to take Windows Phone seriously, and that includes updates, and with that, will come increased sales.
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