All I know is my non-geek girlfriend bought one and loves it.  She doesn't care about what updates are coming or how it compares to other phones out there.  She just cares that it does what she wants and does it well.  I love my phone as well and I have used every other type of phone out there (iPhone, Android, WM, even old flip phones).  It is the best one I have used yet.

Why would any mobile developer touch this platform free of charge when Microsoft has consistently shown that they will do anything for market share.

I am on the partners mailing list and I have seen no cash offers for development.

So F that.

"hey, I'm going to be the sucker that develops for your unpopular platform for free, just because I am that gullible"

- no thanks to that.

As for why you haven't heard much about it lately, for better or worse they are on an annual refresh schedule and the developer promotion for this year's iteration hasn't really started yet (it will start at MIX).

I'm not surprised it's not doing well. Marketing is not enough to sell a product, you actually have to sell something compelling. And really I think the entire OS is a giant ball of fail, there is no "nice" way to put it. I'm sure you've heard the arguments already so I won't bother repeating them.

That's not to say Microsoft can't fix the platform's deficiencies, but so far they are proven themselves to be somewhat incompetent. Good luck fixing "that" problem.

"Dear First Name,

There has never been a better time to develop for Windows Phone 7. With the added customer base of Sprint & Verizon CDMA networks coming soon, developers have a great opportunity to build apps with broader reach in a growing market. "Coming to CDMA is another milestone," said IDC's director of applications software development, Al Hilwa. He added that Microsoft is "about to reach 9,000 apps in the store, which puts them in good stead." We invite you to join the 28,000+* developers building on the Windows Phone 7 platform and create apps for millions of WP7 users around the world. The Windows Phone 7 Developer Program is here to provide everything you need to develop and market a WP7 app. The program offers no-cost development tools, code samples, step-by-step guidance, and marketing benefits to help drive your sales"

This is what I need to see before I buy a Windows 7 phone and start developing for it.

"We realize you may have seen other development teams receive a large sum of cash from Microsoft platform evangalism to port to our platform, and we know that you saw us dump 1+ billion into Nokia to sell off QT and abandon MeeGo. Now your company will also cash in on our spending spree.

Here is X all cash offer for a full team to develop Y W7P application, including cash deposit, and cash payments as milestones are reached. We realize that you have to do payroll, and that you can't otherwise risk it on this unpopular platform so we will compensate all partners accordingly and fairly to accept the risk of doing business with us on this platform."

That's what I would like to see, and I am not seeing that.

Why give up so early? Can we at least have a chance for success? Let's revisit this thread in 18 months. Fair?
C

A lot of people are still waiting for the NoDo update though. Copy&Paste is kinda big. And it usually takes second gen OS to convince people to buy it. You know, like some people don't buy Win98, they buy Win98 SE (that was me). I was late adopter to WinXP to (I was hating XP kiddy GUI).

Just give it time. At least all the major companies already have apps on WP7, which is important.

http://fikklefame.com/ashthon-cut-season-10s-first-bottom-three/

I loved this quote from Kid Rock on Piers Morgan:

"Kid Rock on Piers Morgan criticizing American Idol. He said the show creates instant fame for these kids and then dumps them, and it basically sucks to be famous and broke, "

All these app stores have one thing in common, they make developers famous and broke as American Idol does for reality rock stars.

Revenue stats for iPhone:

http://simplyryan.com/2011/02/16/iphone-revenue-statistics/

Microsoft thinks they can get around this by paying their friends at contracting companies 100k+ per app then having everybody else lose money by developing for it.

The whole reason XBox got big is that it was another $60+ game DVD that was signed and couldn't be copied and put on NNTP or thePirateBay.com

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/mobile-games/mobilegamesnews/761471/nintendo_america_president_doesnt_like_lowpriced_mobile_games.html

"Nintendo America's President, Reggie Fils-Aime, has said that cheap mobile games are a major threat to the games industry, describing them as being some of the 'biggest risks' to the market."

This is the biggest issue for mobile developers and Microsoft has shown clearly that it doesn't care about the ecosystem. Even less so than Apple or Google.

That's a major difference between W7P and XBox. Microsoft isn't making a cheap SDK so more developers can make money, Microsoft is making a "Yet Another" phone platform, except even more generic than any other and less profitable.

 Joe Shmoe Douche Pizza shop owner will pay an indie developer $1000 for an iPhone/Android app. They'll pay NOTHING for a W7P app. At the current rate, they'll NEVER pay any consulting firm to build anything for Windows mobile. And that's a fact.

What built the Android and iPhone app ecosystem was not revenue from sales, but revenue from small shops building branded apps for stores and B2B contracts.

So Microsoft wants all these already small dev teams to pay out of pocket because there is no business there.

It's a good phone, the tools are more than up to scratch and visibility is bound to improve over time, especially once Nokia starts cranking out devices... add that Microsoft has the kind of cash it takes to be stubborn.

I don't think it's time to write an eulogy, yet.

I'm personally not going to touch it until there is a version of sql compact that runs on it. But hey, to each their own.

-Josh

Charles wrote: 10,000 apps is pretty good given how long the phone's been available...

It's far from over, folks. Remember when XBox shipped?

The problem with phones, MS once again took the hands off approach... Sure you've developed a nice looking OS, i've had the pleasure of using my mates Samsung Omnia 7 and it is a gorgeous OS. ANd sure you told the manufacturers you're only allowed to make phones that look like this with these specs, but you're not really producing the phones or the experiences.  The problem i see is that you're aiming for a mass market phone with different manufacturers but not allowing the manufacturers to shine. 

MWC should of been the place to sing, and MS messed up.  There were about 5 different Android phones announced and released soonish after, that I want.  Nothing came from MS or it's partners.  No new phones.  My contracts almost up and I already know which Android i'm going for because I don't want 5 month old hardware.  If MS wanted to go down the one phone a year route then you should be doing it alone.  When i look at Samsung i expect a new phone every few months. 

Xbox is fantastic and most people rave about Zune hardware.  Microsoft produces brilliant hardware, and you should be doing that for phones, or you should take the guards off the manufacturers and let them bring out as much hardware as the Android system does.

I was going through my list of friends on Xbox Live the other day, out of 42 (many of which are just random people off forums who've added me etc), 6 have achievements from games on Windows Phone.  Heck 75% of my flat now have Windows Phone 7, the other 25% is Windows Mobile 6.5.

I think the platform is doing well, just ignore the FUD from the tech blobbers (not a typo).

There is also the question of market saturation. The ads tell me I need a smart phone, but I honestly don't know what I'd do with it. Check emails? Play a few games? I don't need a phone for that; I have a PC at work and a laptop at home. I'm usually driving if I'm not in those places, so a smart phone (and it's accompanying $70+/month plan) is just not practical.

I saw this article the other day that suggest strong and steady WP7 sales.

http://www.bgr.com/2011/03/15/windows-phone-sales-top-877000-in-february-report-suggests/

I agree that giving it 18 months to make a more accurate determination is wise.  It gives the phone a chance to be updated a couple of times, be available on all carriers, and gives peoples current contracts a chance to expire (or be qualified for an upgrade).

CBC Radio had iOS apps for quite some time so they advertised it allot. In turn that was free advertizing for iOS devices. Now that they also have it available for Android and Blackberry they just say "CBC news app for you smartphone" and sometimes they mention which OSes it's for.
I see they have a CBC Hockey Night In Canada app for WP7 but not the main CBC News app yet.
The Hockey app page doesn't even have a link anywhere on it. It's just a screenshot???

It's stuff like this that MS needs to start pushing. When a TV/Radio station a bank or a store has ONLY an iOS app they should help them get a WP7 version too. It's free advertizing to a slightly different demograhic.

also, paying 99 bucks a year to  be able to give your apps away for free is total b$ and just short sighted greed from microsoft that is also hindering the platform.. had that restriction not been there we'd have many times the 10000 apps we have now

the fact that nodo is so increadibly late is also worrying.. no info about whats wrong, nothing, just scilence.

Why not take another billion from the shareholders(as if they truly care), and pool together 50-100 mobile consulting firms, then tell CBC, and business owners this:

"If you use W7P, we'll take your branded app in a queue and have our pooled mobile consultant firms build it for you at our own cost"

That's all people really care about. Most business owners that have an iPhone app wouldn't pass up that offer, plus they would be helping the US economic recovery by re-allocating funds from MSFT shareholders to small businesses in the US only.

All they did so far was pump a billion in US MSFT shareholder money into Europe in the Nokia deal. That's almost a breach of trust and or good faith. If I was holding MSFT, I would sell it off for that reason alone.

In my previous post I referenced CBC, so they would not be elligible. BBC America however would under my proposed plan.

51 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

 

All they did so far was pump a billion in US MSFT shareholder money into Europe in the Nokia deal. That's almost a breach of trust and or good faith. If I was holding MSFT, I would sell it off for that reason alone.

How is doing something that should boast adoption of a Microsoft OS a breach of trust? It's driving adoption (should it work)

The Nokia deal is nice, but they wont produce anything with a Windows 7 Phone OS for a while. Things need to happen now. iOS and Android will only gain more users, and wil lock them in because of their purchased apps. I know I can't live without Google Voice now. Windows Phone 7 does not offer a good Google Voice app due to the lack of multitasking.

I agree with this (2 year contracts). I have to spend the entire 400 bucks or so, I don't rememeber, just to get my WP7 HTC Surround.

Also WP7 is in its early stage where not many people know about it, not many people use it as word of mouth, not many people like to get the first release (always saying wait for SP1), and iPhone users already have bought many apps on their devices, and etc.

And to the other person who quoted me. Ehhhh..... if I use iPhone or Android, I also only use free games. I play free MMO, Champions and NeoSaurs. I play free FB games, BushWhacker, FarmVille (finally quit few months back). I use free VS Express, free MSE, free WL Essentials, free Paint .Net, free whatever. It has nothing to do with MS. I just want free stuff. (I did bought 2 games on WP7 nevertheless). And are those free stuff canabolized their own market? I seriously don't care as a customer. In fact, I love it because I want more free apps and games.

Certainly WP7 is weeker, it is still not NoDo update yet. It still lacks many things people wants. But, the core design, the fundations, the core UI, the more cloud storage and links, the core "vendor cannot customize / screw it up", the core "no multi-virusing" which already happend on other platforms app store BTW, the core consistant experience, and etc.

I am confident WP7 has a solid fundation for something better. And it will get better one-step at a time.

"This is comming from an actual WP7 owner who has used it over 3 months now", thank you for reading.

1 hour ago, ZippyV wrote

/Me throws a beer bottle at Setag_Yrneh's head.

Yellow card. This type of commentary is not welcome on C9. You know this, Zippy.

C

2 days ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

That's what I would like to see, and I am not seeing that.

I could be wrong, but perhaps Microsoft has some standards and doesn't offer cash to just any developer willy nilly.

2 days ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

So Microsoft wants all these already small dev teams to pay out of pocket because there is no business there.

Geez, do you want somebody to cut the meat on your plate too? Buck up and design a compelling app, or go home. There are more than enough WP7 users to make good money if you have the chops to design a good, quality app. With only 10K+ apps in the WP7 marketplace, there's less competition right now too.

2 days ago, spivonious wrote

I think WP7 will do okay, but will never beat Apple or Google. The main problem is that most users are in a two-year contract for their smart phones and can't afford to buy a new one every six months like some tech blogs would have you believe. If a consumer buys an iPhone in early 2010, they're not going to switch to WP7, no matter how good it is, until their contract is up in early 2012.

What kind of warped logic is this? There are plenty of people that bought iPhones in 2009 that are tired of the boring grid of icons interface and might want to change to WP7. People are up for phone contract renewals every day. Each one of them is fair game for any platform.

10 hours ago, aL_ wrote

also, paying 99 bucks a year to  be able to give your apps away for free is total b$ and just short sighted greed from microsoft that is also hindering the platform.. had that restriction not been there we'd have many times the 10000 apps we have now

Apple charges the same amount for the iOS Developer Program. I understand that Microsoft returns the $99 once you have two apps in the Marketplace anyway.

Why would a mobile development firm take a chance on W7P?

All they have to do is keep developing branded iPhone and Android apps for local businesses and collect thousands and thousands of dollars in revenue.

Microsoft is really asking it's partners to take a huge financial risk and so far they are not ready to assume any financial responsibility in that risk.

This is currently the only special offer they have for partners:

"Special Offer:
Get a $99 rebate for your Marketplace fee when you successfully publish two Windows Phone 7 apps that are profiled in the Windows Phone 7 Developer Program (Microsoft Platform Ready for WP7) and in the Marketplace by April 15th, 2011.**"

That's not a huge consolation considering that the Android Market registration fee is only $25 to begin with.

http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=113468

"You must register to be able to distribute your products through Android Market. There is a one time $25 registration fee. We charge this fee to encourage higher quality products on the market (e.g. less spammy products)."

Microsoft's proposition on mobile is this:

"Here partners, here is this huge risk and if you take it, you'll get nothing, but we will refund your market registration fee after ardous digital paperwork"

That type of thing used to fly in Windows 95 days when they could do anything and get away with it, but not today.

Did I buy a ticket for Mix or PDC? No way. I am however well registered for Google I/O 2011. Which by the way sold out in 59 minutes.

http://twitter.com/vicgundotra/status/34680121109516288

For those who don't know Vic Gundotra used to work for Microsoft. He left because he saw more potential in Google. He is now a Vice President at Google Inc.

If they want developers to take on this risk they need to open their wallets to developer partners, not Nokia. Nokia is a mobile company that's practically extinct in the United States, which is the largest consumer of smart phones in the world.

17 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

*snipped whining*

Thousands of developers are putting their apps in the WP7 Marketplace with no guarantee of recovering a dime for their efforts. Maybe they just want to be early to market, or maybe they're confident in their ability to make a compelling application. Either way, they're not crying about not getting a handout.

Woohoo, I'm a great software company manager! Yippee!

24 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

@cbae: I love you Bill. Everything on red 30

Woohoo, I'm a great software company manager! Yippee!

No, that would be just developing iPhone or Android applications without considering other platforms like WP7.

Going with a revenue maker is not playing roulette. Usually you want to let other people go and break their face on a new platform technology first and use their data to do it well, or in this case not do it at all.

Pretty much every small and medium business in America that was going to shell out money for a custom mobile app already has. They're not going to shell out more money for a similar app on the same gen platform.

Every small biz in America after the W7P marketing is in full swing (if it isn't already):

######### MEETING START

Q: What about a W7P app for those 7% of Americans using Nokia? I think it could really help our Pizza/Clothing/Sneaker/Music company grow?

A: WTF are you talking about. We already paid for an iPhone/Android app. The budget is gone. Nobody cares.

Q: Anything other business to discuss?

A: (silence)

######## MEETING ADJOURNED

As soon as it gets to W8P and the next iterations of Android and iPhone those businesses are going to go back to mobile firms for an upgrade, where they will be quoted an insane price to migrate to MSVC++/.NET from Objective C or Dalvik Java and it will be rejected 100% out of budgetary concerns.

This isn't the same situation as the game console market at all.

We're talking about mobile firms charging $100+ an hour for development, account services, and design time. It's not insignificant.

They're not billing this money to VC firms and Blizzard. They're billing to smaller companies that have to be profitable right now.

11 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

@cbae: I dunno. "?" symbols don't look good in spreadsheet projections on business plans.

Going with a revenue maker is not playing roulette. Usually you want to let other people go and break their face on a new platform technology first and use their data to do it well, or in this case not do it at all.

Putting an iPhone or Android phone out on the market isn't a guaranteed revenue generator. Sure, there are more users, but there are also hundreds of thousands of competing applications. There's no guarantee that you're going to get your 1/350000th or 1/200000th share of the X millions of eyeballs. Everybody uses the same search feature in iTunes or the Android Market app, and whatever mechanism that caused the most popular apps to become popular is the same mechanism that will apply to all 100 million sets of eyeballs.

11 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

Pretty much every small and medium business in America that was going to shell out money for a custom mobile app already has. They're not going to shell out more money for a similar app on the same gen platform.

Every small biz in America after the W7P marketing is in full swing (if it isn't already):

######### MEETING START

Q: What about a W7P app for those 7% of Americans using Nokia? I think it could really help our Pizza/Clothing/Sneaker/Music company grow?

A: WTF are you talking about. We already paid for an iPhone/Android app. The budget is gone. Nobody cares.

Q: Anything other business to discuss?

A: (silence)

######## MEETING ADJOURNED

 

You've already decided that you aren't going to develop for WP7, so why are you here crying about Microsoft not subsidizing you?

Most partners don't care if the app makes money. Usually you will bill to make the app and usually it's free for people to download and use as it's usually a tool to drive leads to the business that paid to have it made.

It is in fact a guaranteed revenue generator for a lot of software service firms.

It's the same difference with Chinese customers for your Windows app not mattering. They're not going to pay you for it period.

"Hey, we're with the times! We have a mobile app!"

Hey that crappy branded mobile app will ultimately pull in 50-100k versus your $0.99 per download minus 30% to the mobile carrier.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&met=population&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=united+states+population

There are 307 million people in the United States.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/16/technology/nokia/index.htm

"Nokia phones make up just 7.8% of the U.S. handset market, according to comScore, far behind leaders Samsung, LG and Motorola"

Nokia has a ~7% market share in the US.

If every man, woman and child owned a smart phone in America, and ALL OF THEM on W7P bought your $0.99 W7P app, that would only be 21 million dollars, minus 30% in carrier fees.

That would leave you with 15 million in GROSS revenue on your "wildly popular" Angry Birds style app. We're talking about toddlers, no babies with W7P now.

The real money is in those "Hey, we're with the times! We have a mobile app!" SMBs not Angry Birds and that's why Windows Mobile will die out like the Zune.

Unless they start dishing out payments to SMB mobile app providers like right now.

6 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

@cbae: "In that case, you target whatever platform that your client wants."
*snipped irrelevant drivel*

Make a point, please.

6 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

The real money is in those "Hey, we're with the times! We have a mobile app!" SMBs not Angry Birds and that's why Windows Mobile will die out like the Zune.

Nobody is telling you NOT to develop those apps. Just don't expect Microsoft to subsidize them, because Microsoft makes exactly $0 off those apps, and don't drive more people to buy WP7 phones.

That's like saying Facebook fan pages make exactly $0 and don't drive more people to Facebook.

The iPad, iPhone and Android application ecosystems, over time, have become social, business friendly environments.

You couldn't be more wrong. But then again you don't work in that industry. I can tell.

Facebook is constantly calling people in the industry and funding application partners all the time.

W7P is a huge fail, both as a solution for mobile, as a 1B deal with Nokia and as a business platform. So far anyway. They still have time to correct this but they have shown they have no will to do so for now.

11 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

@cbae: "Nobody is telling you NOT to develop those apps. Just don't expect Microsoft to subsidize them, because Microsoft makes exactly $0 off those apps, and don't drive more people to buy WP7 phones."

That's like saying Facebook fan pages make exactly $0 and don't drive more people to Facebook.

It doesn't cost anything to visit a fan page on Facebook. I'm not going to buy mobile phone just so I can use an app that lets me check what sandwich is on special at my favorite deli.

11 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote 

The iPad, iPhone and Android application ecosystems, over time, have become social, business friendly environments.

The Android ecosystem is a mess, and what makes you think Microsoft can't build a successful "business friendly" ecosystem with WP7 over time as well?

11 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote  

You couldn't be more wrong. But then again you don't work in that industry. I can tell.

Facebook is constantly calling people in the industry and funding application partners all the time.

First, you don't know what I do. Second, what kind of application partners are you talking about, and how does your company stack up to those companies?

Look, I'm sorry Microsoft didn't offer you any financial incentive for whatever application you wanted to build. Instead of crying about it, come up with another Angry Birds like this guy did: http://wmpoweruser.com/chicksnvixens-update-release-date-and-more/

11 minutes ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote 

W7P is a huge fail, both as a solution for mobile, as a 1B deal with Nokia and as a business platform. So far anyway. They still have time to correct this but they have shown they have no will to do so for now.

Thanks for the prediction, Nostradamus. Can you recommend any stocks as well?

9 hours ago, Setag_Yrneh wrote

some poor moron gets a tattoo and all is forgotten.

Hello again Chris, still can't let that Petzold tattoo thing go can you? Counting down the days till you get yourself banned (again).

Resuming an app takes 10 to 10 seconds? Even if it took 5 seconds that would be way too laggy for most.

Resuming an app takes 10 to 10 seconds? Even if it took 5 seconds that would be way too laggy for most.

Depends on the app. None of the apps I use regularly have resume times above a few seconds, but I think some games do.

Which does bring me to the only really negative comment I have about my WP7 device -- I still haven't recieved any updates. I have a Samsung Omnia 7 which might have been affected by the first bodged update, so I'm thankful that they pulled it and re-issued before I had a chance to try it.  My phone carrier is listed as pushing the update in the UK for my model of phone, but because this is outside of Microsoft's control, I can't find any detail of when I could expect to see it.

Microsoft should have been more stringent with the carriers to ensure that customers were not kept in the dark about progress.  If don't know when/if I'm getting updates, so it can be frustrating to hear about updates being released and trumpeted by Microsoft without knowing if I'll ever get it.

Herbie

11 hours ago, AndyC wrote

*snip*

Hello again Chris, still can't let that Petzold tattoo thing go can you? Counting down the days till you get yourself banned (again).

Dammit, I wanted to be the first to suspect it was Beer28.

17 hours ago, cbae wrote

*snip*

Apple charges the same amount for the iOS Developer Program. I understand that Microsoft returns the $99 once you have two apps in the Marketplace anyway.

true, but the iphone didnt have the giant catchup challange that wp7 has.. microsoft should do all that they can to get people to develop for wp7, small indie devs especially

3 hours ago, contextfree` wrote

Depends on the app. None of the apps I use regularly have resume times above a few seconds, but I think some games do.

That makes sense since games typically have a lot of resources. I thought based on the description that it was more of a general lagginess.

For as much as I want to give WP7 a "first-gen" break it's difficult to do so knowing that it has such an up hill battle for adoption. If the iPhone handn't changed the game like it did and then Android followed up with such a strong following I believe Microsoft would have a hit on its hands. We can all marvel at it's technical coolness and potential but people also marvelled at OS/2. Being technically great doesn't sell phones.

I saw an AT&T commercial this weekend that showcased one of the WP7 phones and actually had some teeth: unlike their initial foray with those little critters that were so, well, um... Hopefully Microsoft's partners can really make an impact on mindshare. I don't think the market is going to wait for a hail mary from Nokia 8 months from now nor WP8 even later. IMO Microsoft needs to target very specific demographics (i.e. commercials for gamers showcasing the XBOX stuff, commercials for business showing the SharePoint intergration & Office stuff). You have to give reasons why "I gotta have that!" Then you have to make sure the experience is simple and smooth like butter. The "get back to your life quicker" notion is good but not a game changer. Microsoft needs to showcase why WP7 kicks *.

http://wmpoweruser.com/ovum-predicts-nokiamicrosoft-will-redraw-smartphone-market-overtake-ios-by-2016/

I think WP7 is a great platform, getting better, and gaining some ground.

Joe Befiore was right when he said it will take some time to gain actual traction, but ease of development and ease of use are generally there.

The marketplace is very near 12,000 apps now.   And better and better apps are joining everyday.

I must say it, however, I wish AT&T would get off their penguin butts and give me my update.  I don't want to go over to XDA and hack the phone.

We'll see what happens by 2016 -- I think good things will happen by 2015 when IDC seems to like a 1, 2 punch of Android and Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft is willing to put the effort toward an all-out assault and history has shown not to go against Microsoft in a marathon such as this.

As for product placement, I've seen a few too many movies with iPhones and Mac's in them.  Apple must spend a ton on those placements.  I'd like to see Windows PC's, tablets and Windows Phone 7.

Enjoy Windows Phone 7!

-e

http://wmpoweruser.com/idc-expects-windows-phone-to-be-no-2-smartphone-os-by-2015/