Why Windows Phone will fail?
Posted by Jussi Autere:
The verdict is still open, whether Windows Phone will become a success story or not. But the reasons why it will fail, if it fails, are already visible. Unfortunately, the reasons are the very familiar ones for all the large, mature organizations pursuing innovation.
A week ago, I was in seminar organized by the Finnish Software Entrepreneurs Association to present Microsoft-Nokia ecosystem. In the presentation of the concept of the ecosystem, there was striking but at the same time expected phenomenon. The figure presenting different players in the ecosystem obviously had all the important players like carriers and application developers presented. It obviously presented the view of the important parts of the ecosystem by its sponsors.
There was still one player vital for the ecosystem that was not presented in the figure. This, obviously not so important player, was—the customer.
The fact that the understanding of customer needs is not in the driver’s seat for the builders of Windows Phone and Microsoft-Nokia ecosystem is already producing consequences.
One example is the data protection policy of the operating system. The different applications have direct access only to data that is produced the application itself. If the application wants to access data belonging to other applications, it has to ask the user explicit permission, always. This will mean that the user becomes a rubber stamp giving Oks, if someone does not develop an illegal bypass for that.
Another example is the certification principles of software developers. As its common practice has been, Microsoft is building different certification processes for its partners to increase their sunken investment, and mental barriers of exit for developers. The applications will be checked and accepted by Microsoft or Nokia before they can be published.
What is currently lacking in the mobile world is a way for smaller companies to present their services and products. The teenaged nephew of a small business owner should be able to produce it and publish it immediately. The planned certification and acceptance processes do not address this need.
If Microsoft and Nokia want to improve the success probability of Windows Phone, they should put their focus on the area that is always the key source of innovations and growth: understanding customer needs better.
While the Lumia phones Xmas sales figures are still to come, Google Trends data predicts not so rosy future for Nokia. Lumia phones are not generating enough buzz online. You can question, whether iPhone 4S is the right benchmark for Lumia. Probably not. Read the whole story from WSJ, reported by Rolfe Winkler.
http://blogs.wsj.com/overheard/2011/11/21/for-nokia-smartphone-window-still-slamming-shut/
Just got a Windows Phone from my employer to see how to develop games for it.
Well, after using Android and iPhone for a while, it’s obvious that Windows Phone is already a complete fail and it’s not worth to develop anything for it.
Ugly, unfriendly interface. Gee, I could design better interface myself, though I’m just a programmer, not even designer.
Bugs and glitches (e.g. I couldn’t connect to marketplace getting weird error messages until I erased all data on the phone and restarted it)
I downloaded a free game from marketplace and had to google for “How to open a game i just downloaded” to actually find it. It was buried somewhere in their Xbox-live games section, below ads. Even though this game had nothing to do with xbox.
Verdict: crap, absolute crap not worth even 1 dollar.
And if you are a developer, stay away from it and do NOT even buy 1 device to see what it it, because you will just see as I did that it’s crap.
I’m sorry Igor, but I’ve recently bought a Windows Phone for the purposes of app development, and have not seen any of the bugs and glitches you speak of.
Swiping from screen to screen is buttery smooth and and there are definitely no ads in XBox live.
Your language suggests that perhaps you are being insincere, with a statement such as:
…crap, absolute crap not worth even 1 dollar.
and
…stay away from it and do NOT even buy 1 device to see what it it, because you will just see as I did that it’s crap.
Igor, rather than telling people they shouldn’t do something, perhaps you should tell them to try it for themselves and make up their own mind?
I find that windows phone is more than just an app launcher like the iphone, and it actually gives value in itself in the way that it is both person-centric and task-centric at the same time, and connects information about my friends and their activities together in ways that can’t be done if I had to use a separate app for facebook, gmail, MSN, outlook, twitter and linked-in.
Once I had a chance to use it I realised that it was a better way of doing things and that it was possibly a game-changer in the mobile space.
Time will tell.