Microsoft hopes to triple iPhone's launch with Windows Phone 7 - Page 4

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum

Ha!

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Originally Posted by RichL

According to IDC, the top 5 smartphone manufacturers are:

Nokia - 21.5 mil
RIM - 10.6 mil
Apple - 8.8 mil
HTC - 2.6 mil
Motorola - 2.3 mil
Total - 54.7 mil

If Microsoft sold 6 mil phones and we assume a zero sum game (which it's not), then Microsoft would need to capture 11% of today's smartphone market.

However, the report also states that the smartphone market is growing at 56.7% YoY. At this rate, the total market size in Q1 2011 will be 85.7 mil. Thus, Microsoft would only need to capture 7% of the Q1 2011 smartphone market.

In reality, the percentage of the market that Microsoft will need to grab in order to reach its 30 million target is likely to be even lower. Smartphone sales are cyclical, with the majority sold during the holiday season. The 2011 holiday season will be make or break for Microsoft.

Originally Posted by jragosta

The difference, of course, is that your post was suggesting that the Dell Windows 7 phones were already a reality and therefore Microsoft's projections were real.

In the real world, the Dell Windows 7 mobiles are no more real than Courier.

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum

Nice chart! Do you have one that applies to the category we are discussing, smart phones?

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Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum

What's a subthread? Can I join, or better yet, ban it?

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Originally Posted by irnchriz

With only 7.7 million Android phones shipped in 2009 (roughly 10 different models) how on earth do Microsoft think they can ship 30 million?

Originally Posted by stevetim

If monkey boy jumps around the stage with his sweaty underarms I'll buy one.

Originally Posted by reverie

Why are people so obsessed with those "free" phones? Hello, there's still a $2000 contract attached to each "free" phone!

I find this a complete non-issue, especially in a worldwide perspective. 1, £1 etc. iPhones have been offered in Europe for 2 years now. And in much of the developing world, customers are paying full price upfront for their phones, that is $300 for the cheapest smartphone and $600++ for an iPhone.

Taking the US subsidized price as gospel is complete nonsense. This is a temporary local issue for Apple to solve in the US, where AT&T currently offers a $400 subsidy which is effectively blocking Apple from price drops. If they want to drop the iPhone price much lower than it is now, they have to persuade AT&T to drop their subsidy across all smartphones to say $200 and offer custumers cheaper monthly rates in return. Maybe introduce a $15 data plan with bandwidth cap, like on the iPad. Or something else. One will have to see how Apple plays it.

Originally Posted by sheff

I think there is a decimal placement error. He meant 3.0 million.

Originally Posted by kotatsu

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Win Phone has very limited multi-tasking just as the iPhone will later this year.

Neither actually has true multi-tasking. If you want that, you'll have to get a Windows Mobile device, or make due with Androids better but still not perfect multi-tasking.

I gather Palm OS has decent multi-tasking too.

Originally Posted by Tofino

never underestimate the power of the IT drones...

Originally Posted by macnyc

If I can "squirt" music at people, I'll buy two!

Originally Posted by DaveGee

I realize you were making a joke but this brings up a very good point... Once upon a time the IT field staff were INCESSANTLY questioned about what to buy for home when it came to anything 'tech' oriented... Everyone in the workforce was VERY uneducated when it came to technology and the internet was something that I and a small handful of colleges where I worked had free rein over and the web wasn't even a glimmer in TBL's eye yet... Usenet traffic made up 80%+ of the internet backbone traffic maps (anyone remember those?).

Anyway... this is all OLD NEWS! Today, lots/most people have grown-up with computers and some can't even imagine doing school work or research without a laptop and a wifi connection and wouldn't know how to use a library card catalog if you paid em.

So sure once upon a time... Microsoft only really had to 'sell' themselves to the IT world and the drones regurgitated it back whenever they were asked what to buy.

This simply isn't true anymore... Microsoft has fallen off the map as a technological force to be reckoned with, a mover, a shaker, a driving force of the information age. Apple, Google, Yahoo, Facebook these are the names associated with our world today.

Sure, Microsoft can and will still have influence in the IT world but even that isn't what it once was...

MS is in a pretty bad place and are in DIRE need of an enormous makeover if they don't want to see themselves mover lower and lower on the list of companies that matter.

Originally Posted by DaveGee

I realize you were making a joke but this brings up a very good point... Once upon a time the IT field staff were INCESSANTLY questioned about what to buy for home when it came to anything 'tech' oriented... Everyone in the workforce was VERY uneducated when it came to technology and the internet was something that I and a small handful of colleges where I worked had free rein over and the web wasn't even a glimmer in TBL's eye yet... Usenet traffic made up 80%+ of the internet backbone traffic maps (anyone remember those?).

Anyway... this is all OLD NEWS! Today, lots/most people have grown-up with computers and some can't even imagine doing school work or research without a laptop and a wifi connection and wouldn't know how to use a library card catalog if you paid em.

So sure once upon a time... Microsoft only really had to 'sell' themselves to the IT world and the drones regurgitated it back whenever they were asked what to buy.

This simply isn't true anymore... Microsoft has fallen off the map as a technological force to be reckoned with, a mover, a shaker, a driving force of the information age. Apple, Google, Yahoo, Facebook these are the names associated with our world today.

Sure, Microsoft can and will still have influence in the IT world but even that isn't what it once was...

MS is in a pretty bad place and are in DIRE need of an enormous makeover if they don't want to see themselves mover lower and lower on the list of companies that matter.

Originally Posted by Smiles77

If they paid people $100 to take their phone, I don't think they'd make their target.

Originally Posted by Tofino

i hope you're right. i'm guessing however that microsoft will make sure that their implementation of ms office/exchange/etc. support on winmo7 is going to be better than what competitors will have access to. they will find a way to leverage their office/IT lock-in somehow. that's really all that's left now, isn't it?

it'll be interesting to see how they will try to catch their IT users while at the same time appeal to the consumer market. if the kin is any indication, it's going to be hilarious!

i'm just saying - don't count them out yet. maybe somebody is going to get a grip in redmond and actually do it right. not that i'm holding my breath...

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum

Interesting post. My wife and I were in the middle of the Silicon Valley personal microcomputer-personal computer revolution from 1978-1989. We sold our business, retired and moved to Arizona. We hardly touched a computer for 7 years (burnout). So we missed that whole Internet thingie, and the metasticization of IT.

So, based on your experience:

-- What phones (OSes) does IT support?
-- Why?
-- What features are important to IT?
-- Do they need to manipulate MS Office documents with these phones?
-- Do they write proprietary apps for these phones?

Where does something like the iPad fit into the IT/Enterprise equation?

TIA

Dick

Originally Posted by donlphi

It's always great to set goals I suppose.

Unfortunately, you can't compare the two launches.

Apple iPhone OS available on the Apple iPhone with one service provider in one country at initial launch.

Windows Mobile 7 available on how many phones with how many service providers in how many countries at launch?

If they don't sell 30 million phones in a year, I would call it an epic fail.

Originally Posted by DaveGee

While I could do my best to bluff my way thru a few of your questions I have to be honest... I was diagnosed with a stage IV cancer (not good -- as there is no 'stage V') but as luck/fate would have it I worked at one of the biggest cancer centers in the world and I'm being attended to as best they can. I'm pretty much moving my way thru the chemos and just cross my fingers that a miracle happens before I get to the 'last chemo available'....

As I like to say... I don't pray for miracles I'm relying on them!

Anyway where I worked it was very much a split world... The M.D. / Patient side of the center is (mostly) 100% MS while the PhD / Research side of the center was 100% (mostly) Mac with a sizable invasion of Linux clusters as I was given my bad news.

A few things I can say with an almost 100% certainty...

- SECURITY is a H_U_G_E concern (tho I'd giggle as I said to the IT guys... yet you run WHAT OS?) ... As you might have guessed I supported the PhD guys with the Macs. Anyway with patient data AND unpublished RAW research that may be used to obtain vital grant funds... The loss of data to failure OR the loss of data due to device loss is a really big deal. HIPAA has gobs of protocols that they follow but on top of that additional rules were put in for the centers benefit that protects research data, notes, charts, etc.

- While I'm out of the loop I have heard that the center is doing mobile development work... they played with it a little with the palm but now the new devices are out they can do TONS of stuff they never though about doing before... our center had 8k-10k give or take employees (iirc) and lots of technology investments... I imagine this is still the case... needless to say programmers are a big part of the IT services since we have very specific needs that canned systems usually didn't meet and 'roll your own' was very often the final solution.

As to MS Word and such... I couldn't even begin to give an answer... but knowing how people worked on the research side, the only thing more useful than a 17" LCD was TWO 17" LCD's or 20" or 24" (as the years went on). I couldn't see 'those guys' working on anything in any meaningful way with their cell phone... Can't speak about iPads but the size is a plus but the fake keyboard might be a real dower to most 'old timers' that I worked with. The incoming younger lab heads... yea sure.. they're probably doing lots more with their iPhones (or whatever).

Like I said before ... as the years roll on you have more and more very tech savvy 'general public' (aka non IT workers). In fact tech savvy might very soon (already?) be an archaic term since the kids today can't NOT grow up knowing tech without really working hard at it.

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum

MS needs time to get its mobile OS act together, and installed on significant (number and quality) devices to retain the IT market (that, according to what I read, is eroding quickly).

The way things are moving, I suspect that this needs to be done by the end of 2011. MS needs to build the OS, get mfgrs to build devices that support the OS, and then sell those 30 million devices.

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum

If they fail, likely they will exit the mobile phone/tablet market.... a pretty big risk!

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum

What I suggested, was that there might be a better approach.

MS could support development for the Mobile OS X platform, by enhancing its tools (as others, have posted).

By doing, this:

-- MS can develop apps, and desktop/cloud app tie-ins, for a single platform.
-- IT MS developers can focus on a single platform
-- MS would not lose business to their enemy, google, but rather, to their frenemy Apple.
-- MS would have an immediate app presence on 3 hot devices iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad

Sure, it would lose the mobile OS revenue, for now!

But it would have mobile app revenue, the desktop/cloud tie-in revenue, and the developer/tools revenue.

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum

Thanks for the answers! You have a great PMA... my best thoughts go out to you! I am 70 years old, and am really looking forward to reading your posts for the next 30 years, or so Dick.

Originally Posted by DaveGee

Thanks!

Any 30 years... that would make me 74 ... your lips to _anyone who'll listens__ ears - my dad buried his dad before he turned 60 and I buried my dad on the week of his 57th bday so SOMEONE has to break the streak! Anyway, I got my bad news on my 39th birthday and yea it may have knocked some wind from me... I'm too young, too tough and WAY too pissed off to be leaving anytime soon.

When the iPhone came out in 2007, Ballmer pronounced it a passing fad. Then, in 2008, he promised that Windows Mobile would have 40% market share by 2012. To be fair, he did recognize the failure in October 2009: [We] screwed up with Windows Mobile. The platform was effectively dead. Earlier this year in Barcelona, Ballmer introduced his new smartphone OS, Windows Phone 7 Series, available in time for the Holidays. Two months after the Barcelona event, two Kin phones emerge to a lukewarm receptionand neither of them run on the old generation software, nor the next one, orphaned at birth.

Undeterred, Ballmer now predicts there will be 30 million Windows Phone 7 smartphones sold in 2011. Ballmer has proudly proclaimed there will be no iPod or iPhone in his household, so thats a few Windows 7 Phones sold right there. As for the rest of the 30 million has he heard of Android? At last weeks Google I-O, the company announced there were over 100,000 Android phones activated every day, more than 35 million Android phones this year. Given the enthusiasm of handset makers for Googles OS, theyll probably sell twice as many next year. Ballmers Reality Distortion Field is overheating.

Originally Posted by LouisTheXIV

Laughing out loud.

Originally Posted by OhReallyNow

without drinking too much haterade here, i'm guessing they'll fall short.

does anyone know of any "cool" devices that are supposed to debut with Windows phone 7? iPhone + cool android phones + RIM will do enough to keep a ton of purchases away from MSFT.

or am i being unreasonable?

Originally Posted by donlphi

It's always great to set goals I suppose.

Unfortunately, you can't compare the two launches.