“There’s no kind way to say it: Windows Phone 7 will be a failure,” Galen Gruman writes for InfoWorld. “Announced to much bravado in February as the platform that would breathe life into Microsoft’s mobile ambitions, Windows Phone 7 looked based on very early previews as if it might bring something new and exciting to the table. Back then, I noted that I was impressed by what I saw — with the caveat ‘so far.'”
“No caveats now: Windows Phone 7 is a waste of time and money,” Gruman writes. “It’s a platform that no carrier, device maker, developer, or user should bother with.”
“Microsoft should kill it before it ships and admit that it’s out of the mobile game for good. It is supposed to ship around Christmas 2010, but anyone who gets one will prefer a lump of coal,” Gruman writes. “I really mean that.”
“In Microsoft’s in-depth demo this week at the Mobile Beat conference, there’s no mistaking the big pig behind the gloss,” Gruman writes. “Seeing the UI in action across several tasks, not just in a highly controlled presentation, shows how awkward and unsophisticated it is — I had the same feeling you get when you got a movie based on a great trailer, only to discover that all the good stuff was in the trailer and the rest of the movie was a mess. A pig, in fact.”
Gruman writes, “The bottom line is this: Windows Phone 7 is a pale imitation of the 2007-era iPhone. It’s as if Microsoft decided in summer 2007 to copy the iPhone and has shut its developers in a bunker ever since, so they don’t realize that several years have passed, that the iPhone has advanced… Microsoft is stuck in 2007, with a smartphone OS whose feature checklist might match that era’s iPhone but whose fit and finish would look like a Pinto next to a Maserati.”
Oh, there’s more, much more (three pages worth) in the full article – very highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ballmer’s days are numbered. When the ax finally falls, in the spirit of one clueless sales guy buffoon for another, may they promote Kevin Turner to CEO.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dirty Pierre le Punk” for the heads up.]
I’ve never cared for Microsoft as a company, but there’s definitely an Apple slant to this article. However there are some very valid points made by the author. Several of which are a lack of features that I’m guessing most MS fanatics slammed the iPhone for also lacking; 3rd party application multi-tasking, copy & paste, etc… The puzzling (troubling) part of this feature lack, is that those features were available in WinMo 6.5 and earlier, why couldn’t they make it into Windows Phone 7?
Anyway, you can’t count any company out of a fickle market. Just because Microsoft’s market share has slowly eroded away, doesn’t mean they can’t, at some point, come back. Consumers switch mobile phones as often as they change their underwear, there is very little loyalty in this market. And unlike the computer market where IT departments determined which platform will be king (and remain there), individuals will determine which mobile platform is best for them and help keep the market moving forward rather than falling stagnant.
@Michael
“Anyway, you can’t count any company out of a fickle market. Just because Microsoft’s market share has slowly eroded away, doesn’t mean they can’t, at some point, come back”
No, I think they`re pretty much toast when comes to win mobile. They can`t strong arm competitors, they can`t slog the just good enough model anymore, they`re going to HAVE to bat 1000 just to get people to notice, something they`ve never done before and it`s looking like something they CAN`T do either.
Con,
I will take you seriously (though did you realize your posting name is english slang for fraud, cheater or scam artist?)
At any rate I am an engineer and constantly need to use my phone in areas of very low signal strength and I can tell you my experience is that the iPhone4 is no only noticeably better than my 3G or 3Gs was but is also normally one of the best in the group (several times I have had people on sites borrow my iP4 because it was the only one in the group able to place a call)
Yes I can force the phone to loose a couple bars (but that is similar to any phone including the 3G you had) if take it out of the case and put my hand over the gap. All in all I would say that for me the antenna issue is a non issue, and apparently (based on the return rates announced friday) virtually all the people who actually own an iP4’s agree.
@ Michael
“Consumers switch mobile phones as often as they change their underwear,”
Okay, first off – ew. You know anyone with a 2 year panty contract?
Secondly, yes, people switched phones all the time – when phones were all pretty much the same level of ‘shitty’. But they aren’t like that any more. They are personal computers and people actually care about them now.
The old game is over, but MS is still trying to win at it.
http://digg.com/apple/A_response_to_Droid_sheeple
Uncle Fester’s cousin
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he… yes I was being serious, thank you!
You are right about the Con, but it is mostly used in the states, when I was in the UK some used it cause Constantin was way too long for Brits to say!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”raspberry” style=”border:0;” /> You are right though.
As for the phone ok, as I said it is not going to be an issue for me as well cause I will have it wrapped in a bumper case anyway.
However my point was that it is an issue and I think that Apple should have handled it better. I am not a PR expert nor do I have any proposal as to what they could have done better, not my job. As a consumer however it doesn’t feel right!
Cheers!
Microsoft mobile is an oxymoron.
Twenty-five years and countless promises later, to deliver a veritable desktop operating system, which was the culmination of a razor-like focus on the issues Microsoft so pridefully ignored for decades, will now yield to a mutually exclusive set of choices to take to the sky?
When pigs fly.
Windows 7 has done much to revitalize Microsoft’s hope for the future, but not before expending innumerable resources and suffering ridicule from every sector of society. Their new-found commitment however, is too little too late, for a world that has already discovered a vista beyond their windows.
The mobile paradigm is a powerful construct, yet to be fully realized by even our most nimble frontrunners, whose modus operandi has been to deliver us from the ball and chain that is the desktop.
In that light, why would we look for a mobile solution from a company like Microsoft, who’s very existence depends on the very thing we are trying to escape? Is that not like offering to give a scorpion a ride across the pond?
While Microsoft has been busy trying to bring you the ideal office, Apple has been devising ways to take the office with you.
The most significant trend at Apple, since its inception, has been to get small. Every aspect of their existence has been about reduction; doing more with less; efficiency and microeconomics, values infused in this company by the other Steve.
The original Macintosh was portable from the outset and every iteration since has been a balance of form and function and reduction, resulting in even more portable iterations.
Apple has been in lock-step with mobility; from its original computer to its meme-changing iPad, the culmination of their efforts has been a lesson for the ages. They are the epitome of efficiency in a world gone mad for excess.
Compared to the relative giants like Microsoft, Nokia, General Electric, and Exxon, Apple has accomplished more with less, for so long, they can do anything with nothing; that is to say, their products sell themselves because they just feel right. Each one brings with it an epiphany of the future and what it holds for our progeny.
Microsoft will go through several incarnations of Bill Gates’ before they realize a paradigm shift is necessary. In the meantime companies like Apple and Google will discover ways to bring corporate America along for the ride, by devising workarounds for 19-century business memes, like two cans and a length of string.
Go AAPL!
Interesting looking at old mad Thurrotts blog, that’s what they call honest objective debate eh? Well my call is that they don’t like it up em.
Why is Galen Gruman an authoritative voice when knocking Microsoft but not Apple? He’s been a mass of contradictions since he stopped working for Macworld magazine. He’s lost credibility with me- I don’t consider him objective, I consider him flaky and self-serving. (But I agree with this particular article.)
For the few who are still whining about the iPhone 4’s “antenna problems,” here’s an interesting anecdote: I was having lunch today with a good friend, and I was demonstrating the loss of signal bars on my iPhone 4 that has some in such a tizzy. When held in the so-callled “death grip” the iPhone 4 lost from 5 down to 2 bars. Then, I asked him what phone he was carrying, and he produced a Moto Razor. I asked him to hold it the same way he just held the iPhone 4, and what do you know? His Razor loss ALL its bars! My friend had never known it would do that.
Steve was right. It is a problem with all cell phones.
The race started when the iPhone car left the pits and crossed the starting line 3 years ago. After a few laps all the other competitors skidded off the track trying to keep up. Most of those competitors returned to the track with a better Android engine and started fighting it out for second place. Everyone updated their engines as quickly and as they could. The fight for second is good entertainment.
Then there is Microsoft. They didn’t even try to compete with iPhone. They just went with the status quo, falling further and further behind everyone, living off their corporate sponsorship. They got so far behind they pulled out of the race and started working on a new, from the ground up, car.
The rest of the competitors are adding up the laps in their sleek, new, 2010 models and Microsoft will get it’s new 2007 era model on the track by Christmas, maybe, if all goes well.
Should we tell them the race ends in November?
Well, Microsoft still has the large ongoing revenue and profit from Windows (for PCs) and Office to fund a money-losing venture in mobile computing. It’s not like Kin, where Microsoft has to actually produce and keep an inventory of hardware.
I predict Windows Phone 7 will be largely unsuccessful, but it will not be cancelled. Look at Zune; it’s not successful and it’s still around. If no phone maker (or wireless carrier) wants to pay Microsoft to use it (because Android is free and better), Microsoft will initially license it to them and PAY THEM to offer a selection, just like they are paying developers up front to create apps for Windows Phone 7.
And as long as Microsoft has money coming in from Windows and Office to compensate for losses in mobile, there will be Windows phones. And there will be a small group of users saying how much better the “next version” is going to be…
It has a dial.
@Joe07
you lost me at “Paul Thurott is actually one of the most objective journalists out there.”
Seems they’ve run out of other people’s ideas to steal.
@Macbart
It would seam many phones have this problem…
Samsung I9000 Galaxy S:
HTC Evo Signal Attenuation:
Droid Incredible:
Nexus One (after Google’s update to correct):
Nexus One:
Balmer Should be gone already
The iPhone and Android will eat Windows Phone 7’s lunch.
“Paul Thurott is actually one of the most objet d’art journalists out there.”
fify
I’m not sure about the death of microsoft. I wish it were so, but consider this. My previous employer (jr. college) has moved to all microsoft products for their web presence. They’ve moved to sharepoint, everything has to be done in aspx. They have banned any development using php, coldfusion, ruby…only aspx and only microsoft based products. I hear that many parts of the cms will only work with IE. They have sunk boatloads of money into this. I left for greener pastures partly because of this. It seemed like a spectacular crazy blunder to me, especially in this day and age. But they did it, and I’m sure there are other institutions that are the same sadly.
I think some heads of IT departments are afraid because M$ is the devil they know. They don’t know linux or unix and they’ll do anything they can to it out of their shops. Fortunately where I moved to we can use whatever works best and suits the job, be it php, coldfusion and even the occasional C++ aspx stuff. In addition macs, iphones and ipads are allowed. Not every place is like that.
“Balmer Should be gone already”
Bite your tongue.
May Franken-sweaty-putz reign for as long as it takes.
What do you mean “gone already”. Not me, I want to be able to watch him go down with the ship! Don’t you find any of this the least bit entertaining? It’s going to be a slow lingering death (see my post above) M$ will flail away for some time to come. In the long run they can’t stay the same M$ many of us know and despise and survive. In the near term yes, I predict irrelevance in 3 years, last gasp is farther down the road.
Even if it was a SMASH hit (which it won’t be) Msft still wouldn’t make a lot of money.
Msft sells current Win Mo licenses at $15 to 18 a pop.
With free Android I doubt they can charge more for WP 7.
Msft sells fewer Win Mo licenses than iPhones.
Apple makes 500 – 700 per iPhone. (Apple was charging 29 for a bumper!)
Because it’s not a big money maker the Barons of Windows Desktop and Lords of MS Office who make the billions think it’s a joke, and will try to sideline it (a la dead KIN phones) as they don’t want their top dog positions (prestige, salary, bonuses, power) in the company disturbed.
WP 7 = Dead Duck Walking.
@ MDN Take
> Ballmer’s days are numbered… may they promote Kevin Turner to CEO.
Actually, when it get really bad for Microsoft, I think Bill Gates wants to do a Steve Jobs impersonation and make a comeback to save the company HE founded.
There’s only old meat in that time capsule.