Do Microsoft want Windows Phone to fail?

[Robbo]

Earlier today, a developer evangelist for Microsoft was quoted as saying that all Windows Phone devices would get an upgrade to the "next major version" of the operating system. Now, a trusted source close to Microsoft tells us that is absolutely not the case, that instead there will be no upgrade path from Mango to Apollo. This matches up with a previous report from Mary Jo Foley and explains the particular language Microsoft used when it responded to the story earlier today, saying "We have stated publicly that all apps in our Marketplace today will run on the next version of Windows Phone. Beyond that, we have nothing to share about future releases."

The news that Mango phones won't be getting an update to Windows Phone Apollo doesn't bode well for everybody who just purchased a Nokia Lumia 900, to say nothing of the other phones that Microsoft and its partners have managed to sell. If there is a silver lining to be found in the dark cloud besides future app compatibility, it's that this major break could mean that Apollo will contain some major feature improvements over Windows Phone 7.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/17/2956439/windows-phone-8-apollo-no-upgrade

This seems very odd. Coupled with the reported news of general sales being poor, why would Microsoft release (or leak) such a statement as this?

I think it's fair to say most people with a Windows Phone are invested in it for the future as at the moment it's lacking in a few areas, but this isn't good news at all.

 

[Glaucus]

Wouldn't surprise me if they aren't upgradeable. It wouldn't be an update. They are totally different.

I very much get the impression wp7 is a stop gap a bit of image and Market to get apps going and nothing more. I though mango would be the big push and allyhough it's stepped up we haven't had a slew of phones. Wp8 will have to be the big push along with the tablets.

 

[_Jimlad_]

they seem to make strides then wreck stuff...

 

[Fillado]

http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-phone-8-to-offer-more-os-customization-for-manufacturers

Over the last few days the news coming out has gone from bad to worse

They will seriously annoy me if I don't get Apollo for my Lumia 710. These days I expect original release of phone + 18months for updates.

 

[Operation]

Wouldn't surprise me if they aren't upgradeable. It wouldn't be an update. They are totally different.

I very much get the impression wp7 is a stop gap a bit of image and Market to get apps going and nothing more. I though mango would be the big push and allyhough it's stepped up we haven't had a slew of phones. Wp8 will have to be the big push along with the tablets.

This.

And this is not really a surprise, the consensus view when I researches buying my Lumia 800 was to expect an update to mango (not WP8/Apollo) sometime this year but no WP8 compatibility.

 

[ps3ud0]

Im hoping Mango is just Windows ME, while Apollo is Windows XP and so something special. Only alternative to iOS for me currently

ps3ud0

 

[bam0]

Im hoping Mango is just Windows ME, while Apollo is Windows XP and so something special. Only alternative to iOS for me currently

ps3ud0

The longer it takes MS to put out a product people want the fewer people are going to buy it. Inertia to moving off a platform people are already invested in is high.
Look at the recent reviews of the Lumia 900, the Verge review may have been the harshest but even on others you're seeing people cutting MS less slack. It's no good saying "don't worry guys, our next product will be AMAZEBALLS!", while fan boys might hang around a lot of other people will go off and buy something else.

 

[sarge78]

WP7 will be maintained/developed for many years to come, the Tango update showed us where MS wanted it to be. It's a solid platform for facebook and angry birds.

Windows RT is completely different.

 

[Amp34]

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/17/2956439/windows-phone-8-apollo-no-upgrade

This seems very odd. Coupled with the reported news of general sales being poor, why would Microsoft release (or leak) such a statement as this?

I think it's fair to say most people with a Windows Phone are invested in it for the future as at the moment it's lacking in a few areas, but this isn't good news at all.

That appears to be questionable. It appears to depend on what source you take as right.

Even with Nokia we seem to be getting conflicting views, with several european carriers having the new Lumias in their top 10 (or even at the top) whilst others are saying they can't sell them. Then in the US the 900 being top of the sales charts on Amazon and Nokia having trouble keeping up with demand.

I'd agree with the other companies though, they just aren't putting much effort in.

The same can be said for the will it won't it question. Depends on who you believe. I hope that MS won't shoot itself in the foot and not allow upgrades of existing handsets, especially the latest ones. They would have a huge amount of bad feelings from those owners!

 

[Fillado]

Even with Nokia we seem to be getting conflicting views, with several european carriers having the new Lumias in their top 10 (or even at the top) whilst others are saying they can't sell them. Then in the US the 900 being top of the sales charts on Amazon and Nokia having trouble keeping up with demand

While Windows Phone will keep going as Microsoft can keep pumping money into it it seems like Nokia is doomed. I really REALLY wish this doesn't happen but all the really in-depth views points to it. The problem might not be sales but profits.

First a quick bit of background:

• Nokia was actually GROWING prior to their announcement Symbian was dead and WP was the future. Both sales and profits. Just not as fast as the rest of the industry.
  
• They seemed to have only two (public facing) problems at the time. Brand perception of Symbian and the inability to not move at a snails-pace with software.
  
• Since announcing their switch to WP their sales and profits have TANKED.

See the article and graph here and if you have plenty of time to check out HUGE articles have a read here.

Anyway. Their Symbian business is dying so fast and their WP business is increasing (in comparison) so slowly they really don't have long.

My point is:

Charging £150 for a Lumia 710 and "nothing" for a Lumia 900 might increase sales. But the profits must be tiny for both.

 

[Fallen god]

WP7 will be maintained/developed for many years to come, the Tango update showed us where MS wanted it to be. It's a solid platform for facebook and angry birds.

Windows RT is completely different.

Not sure if you was joking with that or not but the facebook integration is actual really sweet on wp7, it works really nicely and maybe it's a bit too much for some but overall its one of the better implementations. On the other hand Rovio and many other devs just don't see enough money in wp7
right now.

That appears to be questionable. It appears to depend on what source you take as right.

Even with Nokia we seem to be getting conflicting views, with several european carriers having the new Lumias in their top 10 (or even at the top) whilst others are saying they can't sell them. Then in the US the 900 being top of the sales charts on Amazon and Nokia having trouble keeping up with demand.

I'd agree with the other companies though, they just aren't putting much effort in.

The same can be said for the will it won't it question. Depends on who you believe. I hope that MS won't shoot itself in the foot and not allow upgrades of existing handsets, especially the latest ones. They would have a huge amount of bad feelings from those owners!

They really have to upgrade their phones to Apollo or the whole closed system approach just fails, a lot f the 6/6.5 fans enjoyed flashing roms and they all found new homes on android, there few fans left would really have to reconsider if this is the case.

And secondly I think MS really needs to push this more, it isn't as attractive for most OEM's as they have android and its only really Nokia who is heavily invested, one of the many reasons is the limitation. Imagine a One X running WP7 that would truly be amazing and a real alternative for a lot of consumers. but currently most people don't want WP7, it's not advertised much, it doesn't have the big spec that make the typical person go wow or that cool hipster thing apple has going for it. It is doing very well in American but it is priced very aggressively and has a huge push behind it, this is just missing over here.

 

[Begbie]

Sounds just like MS to be fair, something doesn't work change it rebrand it and re-start all over again......

Not holding my hopes up for Windows Mobile ever being good.

 

[Amp34]

While Windows Phone will keep going as Microsoft can keep pumping money into it it seems like Nokia is doomed. I really REALLY wish this doesn't happen but all the really in-depth views points to it. The problem might not be sales but profits.

First a quick bit of background:

• Nokia was actually GROWING prior to their announcement Symbian was dead and WP was the future. Both sales and profits. Just not as fast as the rest of the industry.
  
• They seemed to have only two (public facing) problems at the time. Brand perception of Symbian and the inability to not move at a snails-pace with software.
  
• Since announcing their switch to WP their sales and profits have TANKED.

See the article and graph here and if you have plenty of time to check out HUGE articles have a read here.

Anyway. Their Symbian business is dying so fast and their WP business is increasing (in comparison) so slowly they really don't have long.

My point is:

Charging £150 for a Lumia 710 and "nothing" for a Lumia 900 might increase sales. But the profits must be tiny for both.

I think the more relevant graph is this one

http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-lowers...eveals-how-windows-phone-is-boosting-numbers/

They may be selling 710s at £150 and 900s at "nothing" (and where do you get this nothing price from?) but they are making almost twice the profit on WP handsets as they are on Symbian handsets. They may have been selling more units but they were haemorrhaging market share, which is the problem in the long run... One in every 6 phones sold but over a quarter of the profit. That is before the release of the 900 in the US and a release of the WP handsets in around 9 countries...

http://gizmodo.com/5903117/att-stores-are-almost-completely-out-of-lumia-900-stock is also an interesting read.

We talked to salespeople at 36 AT&T stores in major malls around the country, and where we learned that generally, they had sold out within the first couple of days after the phone's launch. The phone is "doing pretty fabulous" one Illinois rep said. They're "selling like crazy," an Ohio employee boasted. A Philadelphia location was the sole spot that said it hadn't sold out at all.

However part of that is the small number of handsets in those stores to begin with. The biggest problem Nokia have at the moment is the sales staff in shops... It appears they are persuading people to other platforms when they come through the door...

Have a read of this r.e. symbian...

http://www.economy-news.co.uk/other...buy-as-focus-increasingly-turns-to-lumia-3443

"The only bright spot in connection with the announcement was that Nokia in Q1 sold more than 2m Lumia-smartphones compared to our estimate at 1.8m.

"As already mentioned, we believe that Nokia’s problems are primarily related to Symbian’s weakened competitiveness.

"Symbian is a thing of Nokia’s past. It would have been much worse to us if the sale of Lumia smartphones had lost momentum. Nokia announced that it will raise its investments in Lumia in order to develop more smartphones and launch them in several markets."

http://www.streetinsider.com/Analys...t+Gets?...Not+Yet+At+Rock+Bottom/7337744.html

"However, the smaller revenues from Symbian get, the lower the risk of further downside surprise. Moreover, anyone owning Nokia is probably doing so with a view to capitalising on the company’s Windows Phone turnaround. Faster-than-expected declines in Symbian may just bring forward the bad news and allow any potential Windows (Nasdaq: MSFT) Phone-based recovery to have an undiluted impact on company earnings."

It appears more that Symbian is pretty rubbish than WP is doing badly (in fact it's supposed to be exceeding expectations as seen above). Unfortunately there are way to many Symbian living/WP hating people around that like to hang on to the past.

 

[Fallen god]

They may be selling 710s at £150 and 900s at "nothing" (and where do you get this nothing price from?)

I think there selling the 900s for on contract in America for a limited time which is amazing compared to most higher end phones which you pay $300 ontop of a contract, moveover the fact that its now the cheapest/one of the cheapest LTE phones you can get. I think this is one of the reasons its doing really well.

 

[Amp34]

I think there selling the 900s for on contract in America for a limited time which is amazing compared to most higher end phones which you pay $300 ontop of a contract, moveover the fact that its now the cheapest/one of the cheapest LTE phones you can get. I think this is one of the reasons its doing really well.

I presume that too, which I assume means he has no idea how US contracts work... While it is cheaper than the Nexus et al. it's not much cheaper.

That long article in the other post started out like one of those "secrets of the ages" sales pitches and then got worse. That guy is mental...

 

[sarge78]

Not sure if you was joking with that or not

Not joking, most people only really need iPhone 4/lumia 800 type hardware with the current touchscreen format. WP7 is a good match in price and simplicity.

Although I don't know how MS are going to tie WP7, WP8 and RT together.

 

[Owenb]

While Windows Phone will keep going as Microsoft can keep pumping money into it it seems like Nokia is doomed. I really REALLY wish this doesn't happen but all the really in-depth views points to it. The problem might not be sales but profits.

First a quick bit of background:

• Nokia was actually GROWING prior to their announcement Symbian was dead and WP was the future. Both sales and profits. Just not as fast as the rest of the industry.
  
• They seemed to have only two (public facing) problems at the time. Brand perception of Symbian and the inability to not move at a snails-pace with software.
  
• Since announcing their switch to WP their sales and profits have TANKED.

See the article and graph here and if you have plenty of time to check out HUGE articles have a read here.

Anyway. Their Symbian business is dying so fast and their WP business is increasing (in comparison) so slowly they really don't have long.

My point is:

Charging £150 for a Lumia 710 and "nothing" for a Lumia 900 might increase sales. But the profits must be tiny for both.

2010
Sales: €42bn
Profit: €2bn(2007 was ~€8bn)

2011
Sales: €38bn
Loss: €1bn

Nokia have been in decline for year's but the betting the house on WP7 was the final straw. Even Samsung have kept the door slightly ajar for WP7 and Nokia should have done the same with Android but that is what you get when you hire one of Microsoft's largest shareholders as your CEO!

It's very hard to see how WP will ever get traction... Maybe they needed to drop the Windows brand as it's fairly toxic.

 

[Fillado]

I think the more relevant graph is this one

http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-lowers...eveals-how-windows-phone-is-boosting-numbers/

They may be selling 710s at £150 and 900s at "nothing" (and where do you get this nothing price from?) but they are making almost twice the profit on WP handsets as they are on Symbian handsets. They may have been selling more units but they were haemorrhaging market share, which is the problem in the long run... One in every 6 phones sold but over a quarter of the profit. That is before the release of the 900 in the US and a release of the WP handsets in around 9 countries...

Not relevent. That's revenue NOT profit. That entire article has nothing to do with profit. Plus it is comparing current (post Nokia-tanking) figures. I wonder how good it would look comparing WP now to Nokia at the end of 2010. I mean "nothing" as the phone is effectively free with a contract until Monday. And for Americans that is what they would view as a free phone. It was (I'm guessing) already aggressively (meaning low profit margins) priced at $99.

Sure their market share was declining (not haemorrhaging - now it's haemorrhaging) but tell me which is better:

Declining market share with increased sales, revenue and profits.

Haemorrhaging market share with decreased sales, decreased revenue and a LOSS.

It appears more that Symbian is pretty rubbish than WP is doing badly (in fact it's supposed to be exceeding expectations as seen above). Unfortunately there are way to many Symbian living/WP hating people around that like to hang on to the past.

Symbian wasn't doing rubbish. Again it had a PR problem, was being developed at a snails-pace and wasn't (at least in its current form) able to take Nokia into the future. But it certainly was able to give Nokia YEARS to sort itself out. Elop MADE Symbian (and so Nokia) sales tank when he released his "burning platform" memo.

Try not to misunderstand what I'm saying. I agree that at the time of the "burning platform" memo Nokia needed a massive kick up the butt! I'm not even saying which direction was the best. But by publicly saying Symbian was dead it instantaneously caused an utter implosion of their mobile phone business. And Lumia (at the moment) isn't able to put a stop to it.

I also agree that now Symbian is the past. So why are we getting a new phone this year with Symbian on it?

I presume that too, which I assume means he has no idea how US contracts work... While it is cheaper than the Nexus et al. it's not much cheaper.

I do understand. But again I was merely saying that the profit Nokia were getting from each Lumia 900 sale at $99 (with contract) would be "okay". At free it must be near nothing. Which is why it's such an amazing price compared to other phones.

That long article in the other post started out like one of those "secrets of the ages" sales pitches and then got worse. That guy is mental...

He is quite... enthusiastic I don't agree that Symbian/Meego can (now) save Nokia. But I do agree (at least with all his reasoning) that Nokia is tanking. That's Nokia as a whole.

 

[cu3ed]

Wow, all this prediction over Nokia and WP and they have only got their first generation models out for not even a year.

 

[torchxit]

Do you believe Microsoft employee or do you believe someone said they had a source close to Microsoft who told them about upgrade process if Microsoft didn't not release official statement then i consider the verge article a crappy troll article nothing more