Has W7P already died?

@cbae: "Geez, do you want somebody to cut the meat on your plate too? Buck up and design a compelling app, or go home."

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.

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

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.

@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.

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

Charles had used the argument that they didn't do so well on Xbox 1 either, and that XBox 360 took off.

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?

@cbae: "Putting an iPhone or Android phone out on the market isn't a guaranteed revenue generator."

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.

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

Often times companies will ask for consulting services along with the creation of the app.

Even there that time has passed. Most companies already have their apps created, so to port them to W7P is probably not going to happen. W7P is same gen and has no significant market share.

W7P's market share is on par with IE6. And yes IE6 is still very popular in China, where people can't upgrade due to piracy. Just as Nokia's market share is larger outside the US.

So Nokia has ~30% marketshare in the world. But the world's SME businesses aren't going to pay $50,000+ for an app for a small pizza chain. American companies will. That's why Nokia's 30% in the world versus 7% in the US really doesn't matter.

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.

@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.

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).

If Microsoft were going to pay Mr. Setag to do something, I would prefer if instead of paying him to make WP7 apps, they would pay him to not make forum posts.

@AndyC: Hello again Bob.

I don't have a WP7 device but if the reason for this hack is true I can see why the average Joe-six pack would say the WP7 devices aren't as good as the competition: http://www.xda-developers.com/windows-mobile/enable-instant-resuming-on-wp7-with-registry-hack/

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

5 minutes ago, DeathBy​VisualStudio wrote

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.