Why Windows Phone is doomed to success
Recently, I often come across negative or, more precisely, decadent attitudes towards the future of the Windows Phone platform. “It never took off,” “a failed project,” “the stillborn child of Microsoft” —these and other similar epithets are awarded to this system by the authors in various articles and reviews (here, for example, here ).
As a WP7 smartphone user (Lumia 800) and a developer for this platform, on the one hand, and just as adequately (I hope) to a thinking person, on the other hand, it’s unclear what caused such panic and negativity towards Windows Phone. I have repeatedly expressed this attitude in various discussions generated by the above publications. In the course of these discussions, I had a certain number of arguments (mostly in defense of Windows Phone) that I wanted to gather in one place (of course, here :)) so that in further discussions not to waste my time repeating what was already said, but just send Opponentfar away on this post.
So, further under the cut you will find a certain amount (I still don’t know exactly how many) considerations "FOR" the Windows Phone platform. I tried to make the argument based on bare facts, and not on personal likes / dislikes. It turned out - to judge you.
I have not yet seen a single person who, being a user of the Windows Phone smartphone, said that this is a bad and low-quality product. I want to note right away: there is no talk about people who took the phone in the store or from friends, exclaimed “what ugly tiles” and put / gave it back. Not. We are talking about people who actually use a WP smartphone for at least a week, or better two.
You will, of course, say that this is my personal observation made on a very small sample. However, several different polls confirm the idea that users like Windows Phone. Here, for example, the result of one of these surveys . Or here's another one .
Microsoft with WindowsPhone managed to do something that she probably never did before. Namely: to offer a truly new approach to the user interface. Undoubtedly, the way users interact with mobile devices and applications has changed a lot with the arrival of the iPhone and, a little later, Android. But the graphical interface itself (and now I’ll probably get a minus in karma from Apple fans) is essentially just another implementation of the same desktop concept with icons that has been widely used since the early 80s of the last century.
Windows Phone is, in fact, the first mass product in which developers abandoned the concept of the desktop and tried to do something completely new.
')
In fact, I have long doubted whether to put this item in the first place. But, despite the trend of recent years, which claims that, they say, “product is nothing, marketing is everything”, I still tend to think that without a good product, you can only count on short-term success.
So, Microsoft. We can strongly dislike this office. Call her products buggy, unreliable, "devoid of style", etc., etc. All this does not negate the fact that it has been one of the most influential companies for about 20 years. And, most likely, it will remain so in the next at least 10 years. Let's just look at the numbers.
In general, we can continue this list for a long time. The facts speak for themselves: Microsoft controls the largest software platform in the industry with the largest number of users and a huge number of developers for this platform.
In addition to the huge size and shares in different markets, the company has another feature that needs to be mentioned. Namely: Microsoft almost never abandoned their projects, even if they, at first, were not very successful.
Recall the story.
What happened afterwards - we all know well. In fairness, it should be noted that IE I still can not use :), which, however, does not negate more than 50% of the share of this browser at the moment and even the fact that all of us favorite AJAX initially appeared precisely because of this the browser.
In general, already on these examples, it can be noted that Microsoft is like such a pitbull itself - if you cling to something, you will hardly be left behind :)
Therefore, all the talk is that “Windows Phone 8 is supposedly Microsoft’s last chance to gain a foothold in the mobile OS market”, “pan or disappeared”, “with a shield or on a shield”, etc. I personally take it with some irony. Guys, what's "pan or lost"? Well, suppose for a minute that Windows Phone 8 will not go as well as we would like. So what? The guys from Redmond will still continue to write code and release Windows Phone 9, 10, etc. until this platform captures the minds and hearts of users. They have everything they need for this (as previously discussed): a huge user base, a lot of money, a good product and an army of developers who are ready to write (or are already writing) for this platform.
Next, I would like to talk about some (I think) myths that accompany the Windows Phone platform.
Here, in general, there is almost nothing to discuss. This information is outdated for about a year. The Windows Phone Store already has about 110 thousand applications and is ahead of Android in terms of growth, although it is slightly inferior to the growth rate of the App Store.
And by and large, it's not the number of programs. Under Windows Phone, everything that a normal user needs is already written, and if something is not there, then most likely this is due to the limitations of the platform itself.
In addition, one should not forget that only for Windows Phone “out of the box” is a mobile version of MS Office available, which can be a rather serious argument, especially for business users.
Yes, sales are bad. It's true.
However, we must immediately make a reservation “bad” is it in comparison with what? With current sales of iPhone or Android devices? Yes, definitely. But if we look at sales of the same iPhons or Androids 2 years after launch, the difference will not be that big. So, for example, in the first quarter of 2009, Apple sold about 4.3 million iPhones according to this resource . It was about the 7th quarter from the start of the iPhone.
At the same time, IDC informs us that in the second quarter of 2012 (and this is also somewhere in the 7th quarter since the launch of Windows Phone) "only" 5.4 million Windows Phone devices were sold.
Catch? Windows Phone is selling even better than the iPhone in the same period of its “life” and at the same time everyone shouts about the complete failure of the platform. Paradox.
Among other things, it is necessary to take into account the obvious fact that the iPhone and (to a lesser extent) Android came to a practically new and not busy market. Well, if you are already completely face it (and here I expect the advantages in karma from epplomans :)): to the market created by Apple. While Windows Phone in this regard was completely unlucky (we read, it was slowed down by Microsoft): at the time of launching this platform, most of the potential users were already divided between the two main players.
In general, it is difficult to imagine a product that, under such conditions, would not have been successful. Those. here the question is rather not in the “yes” or “no” plane, but “when”.
Well, convinced? Still reading this post and not downloading the Windows Phone SDK? :)
Well, okay. We will get more :)
Upd
In response to some comments.
Neither I nor my relatives are employees of Microsoft or any of its divisions.
I did not receive money for this article from anyone else (although if I am offered them, I will not refuse, I am not proud :)).
What I do - you can see in my profile. The only thing that binds me to Windows and Windows Phone is the development of applications and components for these platforms. What, I think, a good half of the readers of this article can say about themselves.
As a WP7 smartphone user (Lumia 800) and a developer for this platform, on the one hand, and just as adequately (I hope) to a thinking person, on the other hand, it’s unclear what caused such panic and negativity towards Windows Phone. I have repeatedly expressed this attitude in various discussions generated by the above publications. In the course of these discussions, I had a certain number of arguments (mostly in defense of Windows Phone) that I wanted to gather in one place (of course, here :)) so that in further discussions not to waste my time repeating what was already said, but just send Opponent
So, further under the cut you will find a certain amount (I still don’t know exactly how many) considerations "FOR" the Windows Phone platform. I tried to make the argument based on bare facts, and not on personal likes / dislikes. It turned out - to judge you.
Reason # 1: Great product.
I have not yet seen a single person who, being a user of the Windows Phone smartphone, said that this is a bad and low-quality product. I want to note right away: there is no talk about people who took the phone in the store or from friends, exclaimed “what ugly tiles” and put / gave it back. Not. We are talking about people who actually use a WP smartphone for at least a week, or better two.
You will, of course, say that this is my personal observation made on a very small sample. However, several different polls confirm the idea that users like Windows Phone. Here, for example, the result of one of these surveys . Or here's another one .
Microsoft with WindowsPhone managed to do something that she probably never did before. Namely: to offer a truly new approach to the user interface. Undoubtedly, the way users interact with mobile devices and applications has changed a lot with the arrival of the iPhone and, a little later, Android. But the graphical interface itself (and now I’ll probably get a minus in karma from Apple fans) is essentially just another implementation of the same desktop concept with icons that has been widely used since the early 80s of the last century.
Windows Phone is, in fact, the first mass product in which developers abandoned the concept of the desktop and tried to do something completely new.
')
Reason # 2: Microsoft.
In fact, I have long doubted whether to put this item in the first place. But, despite the trend of recent years, which claims that, they say, “product is nothing, marketing is everything”, I still tend to think that without a good product, you can only count on short-term success.
So, Microsoft. We can strongly dislike this office. Call her products buggy, unreliable, "devoid of style", etc., etc. All this does not negate the fact that it has been one of the most influential companies for about 20 years. And, most likely, it will remain so in the next at least 10 years. Let's just look at the numbers.
- 92% is the share of Windows on the desktop market. I, frankly, was myself surprised when I began to look for this data. After all, judging by the number of people with macbushes around, I expected that the share of OSX is already somewhere around 20-30%. But no, according to this statistics , only about 7%.
- 600 million copies - that was how much it was sold (I’ll stress again: SOLD !!!, and not just installed) copies of Windows 7 from the day of its release. And this, note, is about the very Windows 7, which only recently surpassed the prevalence ... another Windows - old XP.
- 47% is the share of the Xbox in the market game consoles. And in the near future the situation, if it changes, is only in favor of Microsoft.
- MS Office market share in the office packages market is about 90%. As of 2010, they sold “offices” for 19bn a year (they did not find more new data, sorry). We are all vividly discussing Facebook, how it came to an IPO and what will happen next. So, it turns out that Microsoft can buy about half of Facebook for annual revenues of ONLY ONE of its product!
In general, we can continue this list for a long time. The facts speak for themselves: Microsoft controls the largest software platform in the industry with the largest number of users and a huge number of developers for this platform.
In addition to the huge size and shares in different markets, the company has another feature that needs to be mentioned. Namely: Microsoft almost never abandoned their projects, even if they, at first, were not very successful.
Recall the story.
- MS Multiplan was not a very good spreadsheet, which could not compete with the dominant Lotus 1-2-3. Several years of development, several versions and MS Excel is becoming the de facto standard.
- Windows 1.0, 2.0 nobody took seriously. Windows 3.x quietly crushed all competitors. WIndows 95 is also a de facto standard.
- The same, mentioned earlier, the Xbox was at first an absolutely disastrous project.
- The guys from Netscape and with them the whole Internet laughed at the first versions of Internet Explorer.
- Windows NT was initially just impossible to use.
What happened afterwards - we all know well. In fairness, it should be noted that IE I still can not use :), which, however, does not negate more than 50% of the share of this browser at the moment and even the fact that all of us favorite AJAX initially appeared precisely because of this the browser.
In general, already on these examples, it can be noted that Microsoft is like such a pitbull itself - if you cling to something, you will hardly be left behind :)
Therefore, all the talk is that “Windows Phone 8 is supposedly Microsoft’s last chance to gain a foothold in the mobile OS market”, “pan or disappeared”, “with a shield or on a shield”, etc. I personally take it with some irony. Guys, what's "pan or lost"? Well, suppose for a minute that Windows Phone 8 will not go as well as we would like. So what? The guys from Redmond will still continue to write code and release Windows Phone 9, 10, etc. until this platform captures the minds and hearts of users. They have everything they need for this (as previously discussed): a huge user base, a lot of money, a good product and an army of developers who are ready to write (or are already writing) for this platform.
Next, I would like to talk about some (I think) myths that accompany the Windows Phone platform.
Myth number 1: Few programs.
Here, in general, there is almost nothing to discuss. This information is outdated for about a year. The Windows Phone Store already has about 110 thousand applications and is ahead of Android in terms of growth, although it is slightly inferior to the growth rate of the App Store.
And by and large, it's not the number of programs. Under Windows Phone, everything that a normal user needs is already written, and if something is not there, then most likely this is due to the limitations of the platform itself.
In addition, one should not forget that only for Windows Phone “out of the box” is a mobile version of MS Office available, which can be a rather serious argument, especially for business users.
Myth number 2: Bad sales.
Yes, sales are bad. It's true.
However, we must immediately make a reservation “bad” is it in comparison with what? With current sales of iPhone or Android devices? Yes, definitely. But if we look at sales of the same iPhons or Androids 2 years after launch, the difference will not be that big. So, for example, in the first quarter of 2009, Apple sold about 4.3 million iPhones according to this resource . It was about the 7th quarter from the start of the iPhone.
At the same time, IDC informs us that in the second quarter of 2012 (and this is also somewhere in the 7th quarter since the launch of Windows Phone) "only" 5.4 million Windows Phone devices were sold.
Catch? Windows Phone is selling even better than the iPhone in the same period of its “life” and at the same time everyone shouts about the complete failure of the platform. Paradox.
Among other things, it is necessary to take into account the obvious fact that the iPhone and (to a lesser extent) Android came to a practically new and not busy market. Well, if you are already completely face it (and here I expect the advantages in karma from epplomans :)): to the market created by Apple. While Windows Phone in this regard was completely unlucky (we read, it was slowed down by Microsoft): at the time of launching this platform, most of the potential users were already divided between the two main players.
We summarize.
- Windows Phone is a very worthy platform, which in its functionality is in no way inferior to other players in this market and, moreover, offers a new, in many aspects, more convenient approach to the user interface of mobile devices. As is usually the case, this new approach is both a strength and weakness of the platform. On the one hand, in many cases, the new interface is more convenient to use, especially on mobile tablet devices, on the other hand, it is unusual for most users brought up on classic desktop-icon interfaces, which means it takes more time to adapt.
- The shortcomings and “failures” of the platform on closer examination turn out to be not so terrible and “failure”.
- Microsoft. Then you can not even write. The company has a desire to develop the Windows Phone ecosystem, there is a plan for its development, and most importantly, there is a
hell of alot of resources to promote it.
In general, it is difficult to imagine a product that, under such conditions, would not have been successful. Those. here the question is rather not in the “yes” or “no” plane, but “when”.
Well, convinced? Still reading this post and not downloading the Windows Phone SDK? :)
Well, okay. We will get more :)
Upd
In response to some comments.
Neither I nor my relatives are employees of Microsoft or any of its divisions.
I did not receive money for this article from anyone else (although if I am offered them, I will not refuse, I am not proud :)).
What I do - you can see in my profile. The only thing that binds me to Windows and Windows Phone is the development of applications and components for these platforms. What, I think, a good half of the readers of this article can say about themselves.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/151477/
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