Windows Phone 7 Heads to Manufacturing

<Windows Phone 7 Heads to Manufacturing>


Three years too late. Much like everything Microsoft sells.

Move on, people: there is nothing more to get at Microsoft. It's a dying dinosaur, copying the heck of the true innovators in the business.

"If I am a developer why would I want my application to lose its brand recognition?"

Most people tend not to actually use apps besides what already comes with the phone. Power-users aren't going to get confused about application differentiation. I think most users, treat phones as phones... If a dialog box pops up and says, "an update is available for your phone", they'll probably install it, but I doubt most really go fishing for too many extra features.

I think that's basically what MS is trying to do -- "lets give them everything a typical person wants, right out of the box."

That's how HTC has been successful -- their Win Mo, and Android phones include a lot of nice features/integration that basically makes the thing fully usable without needing expansion.

In my case, I'm a huge power-user, and I've only downloaded Skyfire (for mobile Flash), and my mobile sling player. I don't need anything else. The HTC UI already includes all the integration I need to communicate effectively.

Reading the tea leaves suggest some of the things I suspected all along. OEMs don't like MS:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/02/samsung-we-are-prioritizing-our-android-platform/

The knife buried deep in the Play for Sure OEMs back has not been forgotten.

It's obvious how this thing ends. Microsoft will end up building their own hardware or buy RIM or both. The OEMs know this. They are not going trust MS. Of course they shouldn't trust google either, but that's another post.

Before I get labeled as a microsoft basher, I think building your own hardware is the right way to go anyway. Xbox anyone? At 15 dollars per license, MS would have to sell 20 times the units that Apple does to make the same profit.

The only problem here is MS losing another year or 2 in the battle before adopting the right go to market strategy.

Good product though, not question.

"and a deep integration with online services that largely obsoletes the in-out-in-out application experience popularized by the iPhone."

I do have a question about this strategy.

If I am a developer why would I want my application to lose its brand recognition? I could be missing something, but wouldn't I want user to think of my application by name. The hub approach seems to make individual apps lose their persona.