“Microsoft marked the one-year anniversary of Windows Phone 7 development details with an attack on Android, iOS, and RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook,” Electronista reports.
“The company’s Brandon Watson said WP7 had reached 11,500 active apps by focusing on ‘quality over quantity’ where other rivals had been padding,” Electronista reports. “”We recognize the importance of getting great apps on our platform and not artificially inflating the number of actual apps available to customer by listing ‘wallpapers’ as a category, or perhaps allowing competitor’s apps to run on the platform to increase ‘tonnage,” he said.”
Why settle for one? Apple has both quality and quantity. One person’s “quality” app is another’s “junk,” especially if it doesn’t do what that person needs to be done. Apple’s iOS is the only platform with not only the best apps, but also the most. Microsoft’s sales pitch lacks substance, as usual. Note also that with the Mac, because it came first and actually had Human Interface Guidelines in place, it had high quality even where it lacked quantity. In some cases, the Mac even had both quality and quantity; for example, Photoshop plugins have always been more varied and generally better quality than on Windows.
Electronista continues, “Google’s willingness to accept almost anything as an Android app, Apple’s ban on trial apps, and RIM’s decision to emulate Android apps on the PlayBook were all hiding the number of meaningful apps, Microsoft’s Brandon Watson said… In a criticism of Apple, he noted that most Windows Phone Marketplace apps took an average of 1.8 days to get approved. Apple has usually touted the vast majority of apps getting approved within two weeks and has notably taken months for some apps with no explanation, especially for apps from Google that it saw as competition. Microsoft has been helped by the considerably lower number of apps it needs approve, where Apple needs to approve thousands each day.”
Read more in the full article here.
For quite some time now, the only thing Microsoft has had left is talk. Empty, meaningless words.
Did you know that Microsoft has outspent Apple roughly 8-1 in R&D over the last decade (8-1!) and in that time, Apple has produced Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, tens of groundbreaking Mac models (multiple iMac versions, the iBooks, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Air, Power Macs, etc.), iPod, popularized Podcasting, iTunes, iTunes Store, iPhone, iOS, Apple TV, the App Store, Mac App Store, and, oh, yeah, iPad.
Microsoft, on the other hand, for 8X the money, has come up with yet another upside-down and backwards Mac OS X clone, a service pack pretending to be a new Windows version, and some bloated Office retreads, plus the Zune, Kin, Bing, and Windows Phone ’07. If it wasn’t for the Sony-inspired Xbox (sans product quality, i.e. Red Ring of Death) and a Nintendo-inspired Xbox controller, Microsoft would have nothing but a sting of failures to show for roughly 80 billion dollars. The ratio of R&D to revenue for both companies couldn’t be more telling.
$80 billion for a PlayStation clone, an accessory to make it work like a Wii, an also-ran search engine, and what’s left of Nokia.
That’s just laughable.
Any random person picked off the street could have run Microsoft better during the last decade (May Ballmer remain Microsoft CEO for as long as it takes!). Microsoft is an expert at two things: Stupid product names and waste. They waste their money and time and they waste their customers’ money, time, and patience.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
“May Ballmer remain Microsoft CEO for as long as it takes!”
Your wrong as happened in HP and Nokia with CEO changes they self destroyed because the new CEO saw the problems and to fix them made them worse.
Ballmer’s Microsoft has momentum – change it and it will be destroyed.
You know what they should do over at MS? Have some sort of “Mock Funeral” for the iPhone. With 11,500 apps, the writing is on the wall for the iPhone, right?
Well, I’m sure they’d never do something so stupid, clueless and short-sighted. But a man can dream.
I see your point. You’re saying that today represents where the iPhone is 5 years from now. I think THAT is “stupid, clueless and short-sighted.” You are dreaming.
Listing wallpaper as an App…
Is that a bit like those Vista Ultimate Extras?
I’d wager WP7 has more wallpaper apps in its 11500 than Apple has in its 300,000.
1. All I can think of when I see that Ballmer video is the monster in Young Frankenstein.
2. 11,500 apps is incredibly impressive, since that’s more apps than phones sold 🙂
You will be happy to know that as soon as human cloning becomes legal, I’m on my way to cloning Ballmer. Just one is doing plenty, imagine what more could do? Oh, the possibilities!
MDN,
Maybe your best take ever!
I agree that M$ has largely screwed the pooch. But I need to give them credit with the XBox. I think it is one of the best products they ever came out with. Have not tried the new controller, but it seems to work as advertised. If they stopped trying to compete with Apple and just stuck with game consoles, maybe they would have more fans…
Most of the people I know that went from Windoze to Apple computers swear they will never go back.
If it was not for XBox and Excel, I would not care if M$ dropped off the planet.
J
“But I need to give them credit with the XBox. I think it is one of the best products they ever came out with.”
Best for who?
(1) Microsoft BOUGHT their way into the gaming market by selling the XBoxes below cost. The hardware to this day does not make a profit. The games make all the profit.
(2) This meant that Microsoft were NOT COMPETING, they were screwing the competition. This DAMAGED the market and the customer got screwed out of all the benefits of competition, such as further innovation.
(3) For years the XBox had an OVER 50% return-for-repair rate, again screwing over the customer. (And before the ignorami question this figure: It is published all over the Internet. Do your own homework!)
Having more competition in the gaming device market is excellent! But that is NOT what happened at all with Microsoft.
Excel is a ripoff of its predecessor Lotus 1,2,3. It is actually quite challenging to find ANYTHING Microsoft invented themselves. The most recent profitable Microsoft gadget is the Kinect. Microsoft BOUGHT the technology, as they have bought the vast majority of their technology, or ripped it off, or imitated it from elsewhere. That is what they do.
That is why Microsoft have consistently been a DETRIMENT to the computer community. I prefer REAL competition and REAL innovation. Therefore, I too would enjoy having M$ drop off the planet, like a cosmic turd. 💡
You’re an idiot my brother bought a mac, and then took it back within a couple of months… because he couldn’t do any of his work on it play serious games on it or download most of his torrents, they are useless you can barely even code on them…
How is “Apple’s ban on trial apps – hiding the number of meaningful apps” ?
OMG no “Trial apps”? That dumbass FUD died a swift death. The solution was free but minimal versions of apps. There are hundreds of them. If you like the free version, you get more when you buy the full version. Check the Top 10 free apps list and you’ll see plenty of the ‘try before you buy’ versions of pay-for-it apps.
Hey now! 80 billion buys some damn good copy machines. They use them so much they need one in each office—that costs you know.
“Did you know that Microsoft has outspent Apple roughly 8-1 in R&D over the last decade (8-1!)”
At Microsoft, R&D apparently means Rot & Dementia.
Microsoft: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Har…Har…Har…. One full year of development for Winders 7… That’s great! Unfortunately, they haven’t shipped one that actually WORKS yet.. so, for what it’s worth this may have bought Balmer one more quarter… that is unless he just moves to Espoo to run Nokisoft…
All of you fanboys crack me up. I don’t give a damn what side of the fence you fall on. It’s hard to take any of you seriously, especially when the majority of your attempts at making a point sound so bitter and tainted.
Anyway, on to some points of my own. MSFT dominates the PC market and they dominate the office market. They also dominate the corporate market computer usage. Those are facts and are very unlikely to change anytime soon. You can call it buying their way there, stealing it, being lucky or whatever other terms may enter your little head, but, I call it genius. They are also building a dominance in the console market. Once again, call it whatever you like, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re doing it. Windows 7 is the fastest growing OS in history and once again, call it as you like, but the facts are the facts. Also, let me mention a little fact to some of you: When you buy a technology from another company, you than develop and build upon that technology. Why some of you seem to be under this crazy impression that Microsoft just buys products and releases them without than developing them is beyond me. Maybe it fits whatever fanboy rant you’re on at the time.
Now let me talk about some of the products that anti-MS fanboys like to tout as failures. This one really cracks me up because of the absurdity of it. Bing: Bing has gained market share every month since it’s inception and as anyone who’s tried it should know, is most definitely a competitor to Google. Kin: This one cracks me up a lot also. A phone (that’s it! Simply a phone) that MS thought might appeal to younger users. They never in any way thought the Kin would turn into a platform to develop for the future on. It was simply a product that never took hold and really not that big of a deal for Microsoft (other than the fact fools always like to point it out anyway.) Zune: This one is simply a marketing failure more than anything else. The product certainly was just as capable and some would say more so than the ipod. WP7: We’re far from seeing where this goes, so anyone’s opinion on it means little to me. It could turn out to be the dominate platform in mobile one day or it could end up a bust, but it’s way to soon to see where it goes. I remember some fanboys of other products saying similar things about Android when it was released and well, I think we’ve all seen how those predictions turned out for them.
Now, I don’t want people to get the impression that I’m a Microsoft fanboy. Far from it in fact. I’m not a fanboy of any company and I can point out many things I like/have liked about Apple, Google, etc. I can also point out their negatives though, which seems to be what escapes fanboys of whatever company. I will use what works for me and what appeals to me in quality, aesthetics, etc. However, I won’t use a products simply because it’s cool to do so or on the flip side, not use one because it’s not currently cool to do so. You can all do as you wish, but the sad thing about using products because it’s the popular thing to do: When you discover that’s the reason you’re using it and there’s a better option out there or may be, but you have no idea, because you tie your loyalty to an inanimate object or faceless company. Think about it. How many have posted about how they hate a product and would never use it, but yet, they seem to know that product inside and out (according to them.) You know what that tells me: They’re either 1- A complete hypocrite or 2- Someone with no hands on experience with that product. It’s like saying, “I hate ham!” yet you’ve never even smelt it, let alone tasted it.