Microsoft exec admits Windows Phone was response to Apple's iPhone - Page 2

easy with that one cowboy...

while i agree that Ballmer isn't Steve (who is?), I have a huge amount of respect for him.
Since he became CEO, Microsoft stopped being evil.

Even when they lost (zune for example) they tried fair and square unlike shmidt and others like him.

It is true that windows 7 does the same as XP that does the same as 2000, but now it is stable and much more pleasant to use. xbox is also becoming really good and windows phone 7 is a great OS:

I don't know how windows 8 will be, but at least they are trying to fight instead of copying.

Microsoft is becoming good for apple just like apple is becoming good for them. that's healthy competition.

I think it's better the way it is with Microsoft being squeezed out of the market with their IE browser and DirectX graphics. Now the mobile majority is on webkit, OpenGL and a unix platform. This will force a major change in desktop technology for the better.

The fact that Android has its quality issues is good because it means that it will be viewed as a cheap alternative to a better quality product.

The Windows Phone UI is innovative but it still has a lot of the same multi-touch gestures as iOS so the uniqueness feels like change for the sake of being different not for being better.

Is your endorsement based on the way MS's product looks on screen, or instead/in addition to the way it performs and the unique features it offers? What I'm asking really is have you used it for any appreciable time to get a feel for it, or is your opinion coming mostly from articles you've seen? Some who have praised MS mobile OS sound more like the ABA. . . Anyone But Android. On the other hand you usually have specific logical reasons for your opinions.

You mean those fantasy land Photoshopped marketing images? Courier is nothing but a marketting pitch to make it look like Microsoft innovates. Anyone can photoshop images of something ... seems only Apple can actually make things.

This was photo-shopped?
http://www.pclaunches.com/entry_imag...ourier-mod.jpg

Of course that wasn't photoshopped! But pretty much all the rest of the leaked material was.

What struck me about this article was the part about SB's feelings over the first iteration of the software.

This really made me understand something about Apple.

SJ had a very good understanding of what consumers wanted and didn't want. Hence the success Apple has seen over the last 10 years.

My real question is this, is there anyone at Apple now who has that clear insight into the consumers brain that SJ had?

If Microsoft brought WP7 even a year earlier they might've had a chance. Still, they came so far thy shouldn't give up now. The smartphone market is still young and growing. Eventually they might grow to 10% but it will be a struggle. I used WP7 and found it really good, one day I might consider it, I will surely recommend it to others.

Well, if I owned $MSFT I would certainly vote for Ballmer's ouster. He almost f*cked up completely, whereas Myerson and Belfiore seem fairly competent. Steve Jobs might have liked them

The suggestion on this thread is Ballmer and other top management at MSFT would need to leave before it can turn itself around. I would tend to disagree: good leaders rarely make bad companies good and bad leaders rarely make good companies bad. In my view organisational cultures are the primary internal reason for success or failure at companies and the world of business is littered with leaders who were unable to change the culture of organisations as large as Microsoft.

There is also a feeling that Windows Phone might benefit us all by holding Apple's feet to the fire and I can't see that happening as I can't see the OS making sufficient inroads to trouble anyone at Apple. I applaud the sentiment but can't see it happening.

Apparently, you never watched a Harvard graduate with a Doctorate sweat it out on the game show "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?"

Preshool and easy is just assumption on your part.

And you know what hey say when you assume?!
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Microsoft should also be congratulated for not taking the Google route. Microsoft took the brave step of rebuilding from the ground up. It takes a long time to create a full featured OS like iOS. Apple put the time in to making this happen. Google cheated by 1) using without permission Java as the OS underpinnings, and 2) throwing an iOS style GUI on top. It is easier to copy the leader then carve your own path. The updating tiles really is a cool feature. Parts of the OS do seem cartoony to me though.

I wish Microsoft success with the phone, but at the expense of Android, not Apple (provided Apple keeps innovating). I think Microsoft partnering with Nokia was a smart move, as most Android based phones are very cheaply made including the high end ones by Samsung, HTC, and Motorola. You just have to place one in your hand next to an iPhone to understand that. Nokia makes decent hardware. I kept a four year old Nokia phone alive on T-Mobile hoping for an iPhone announcement. Eventually I gave up and unlocked iPhones.


If Android become too costly via lawsuits, I suspect more companies will try to push windows based phones. The Windows license costs some manufacturers the same as what they are now paying in patent licensing. Further, MS indemnifies hardware manufacturers in lawsuits. Google does not.

Not me- in retrospect, I'm glad our phones sucked and texting hadn't really taken off yet (I'm 28)- it forced me to eat dinner and make eye contact, as well as learned how to speak with someone with words, not with emoticons and horrid abbreviations.

The communication skills of our youth are ridiculous. I don't know if I've made eye contact with anyone 12-18. Lol (for those who speak in emoticon)

And WP7 has some nice aspects to it. It is very fluid and responsive though the first version was slow as flowing mud when it came to opening apps. Text selection is almost as good as iOS and miles better than Android (Gingerbread. I have not used ICS enough to know if Google finally made CCP workable and useable). The WP7 hub concept of services and the UI associated with it is unique and highly functional. It is good for getting in and getting out with info. The new browser is pretty good. Again, not quiet Mobile Safari good but it beets the pants of the stock Android browser (Honeycomb. Again, I have not used ICS enough to determine if Google fixed the jerky jumpy poor finger response of the browser that is prevalent on HC and prior).

I don't like app selection on WP7 and that is its single biggest drawback. The list just does not do it fore me.

Both.


I've not really read any articles on Windows Phone 7, but I have used it for a few hours on multiple devices. I wrote a paper on non-Apple mobile OS' and it was one of them. I've not used one as my own actual device, but if iOS didn't exist and this did, I certainly would, even with my general aversion to Microsoft products.

In my use, I just came across impressed. Some of the finer things aren't as intuitive as iOS, but all in all, they've thought it out well.


To be fair, I'm sort of like that. I have no problem giving Google credit for the great things they've done in their myriad fields (dude, SELF DRIVING CARS, are you kidding me?! Why aren't they everywhere right NOW?!), but Android as a whole just isn't one of those things.

So I think their Metro UI design decision is much more sinister.

If they came out with a mobile OS similar to iOS/Android, they wouldn't be able to exert their monopoly desktop power to force people to use the new MS mobile OS.

HOWEVER, if they came up with an all new design -- METRO, and then aligned their monopoly desktop with the METRO UI, now they can then use the monopoly desktop power to coerce enterprises to buy both Metro desktop OS and Metro mobile OS.

It's all about leveraging their existing power. I just hope that HTML5 standards and usage are strong enough to stop the power play and not force enterprises into a specific desktop OS five years from now. Heck, I'm kind of hoping there isn't a 'desktop' OS in 5 years.

You nailed it. There is a wonderful irony there isn't there? The only successful things Microsoft ever had was when they totally copied / ripped off Apple, now Google has repeated that but Microsoft decided not to this time. I suspect their latest effort will zune (used as a verb .. to zune: to fail miserably).

And Samsung is by far the most successful Android-based vendor, and probably only second in handset profits behind Apple.

Mimicry and theft are powerful forces throughout the biological world. Perhaps the same foundations of survival and success also permeate the business world.

I hated the Courier concept as soon as I saw it. They never said how they were going to solve the battery question, b/c w/those 2 screens sucking power, it would have been gone quickly. I've heard competing talk about various aspects, like J Allard saying no email on Courier, just use your phone or your desktop and then other people in various threads insisting it did have email. Exchange, Outlook and Office are the big things MS would have wanted to make sure were supported to be able to push Courier toward the enterprise customers and people can't even agree if that was there or not.

Yes there are dual screen devices on the market like the Nintendo DS, but the DS has less RAM and a much slower processor, not to mention much smaller screens. The DS Lite has fantastic battery life, the 3DS could have definite improvements in that area, altho it has a better processor, 3D capabilities and bigger screens too, so that's a trade off.



Actually he IS Steve, that's his first name too


They traded evil for stupid. I don't think that's much of an improvement

In that interview with Balmer he was referring to the iPhone when it was priced at $600. He was right (gasp!) in that sense. $600 was too high a price for high volume sales. That's what he laughed about. He quickly stopped laughing when AT&T subsidized the iPhone and Apple lowered the price to $200.

Biology doesn't work that way though does it? Mimicry in biology is usually of the kind where a weak, pathetic creature pretends to be a successful, powerful one by the use of similar looks. Oh wait a minute ...

That's a parenting problem more than a technology problem. My daughter communicates quite well. Of course, she is not allowed to have her phone within reach at dinner and spends a great deal of time interacting with adults - face to face.


I think it has been well-established that Ballmer is an idiot. No one should pay any attention to his views on technology matters.

That happens when companies reach the top. They tend to switch from disruption to keeping the status quo, once they become the status quo.

Steve Jobs once said he'd rather defeat the Mac and iPod rather than let someone else do it. In other words, don't let someone else come up with what's next.

He was laughing just as hard about the absence of a keyboard, saying that business customers would never use it.

A UI designed for the cast of Jersey Shore.
It will consist of icons for booze, sex, money, tans, and parties.

Thank your sir. I figured you had some hands-on time with it. Your opinion means more with actual use, compared to some who seem to just parrot something they read once. Not anyone here of course.

You're right! I forgot about that.

That isn't true at all. The Metro interface in Windows Phone is really quite original. It would have been easy for MS to make an iOS clone, - it's what Google did after all - but they didn't. Instead they innovated.

That same innovation is going to change Windows in the most radical way in it's entire history in Windows 8. To make such a massive change to an operating system used by virtually every computer on the planet takes courage. It's certainly far more innovative than anything Apple have done with Mac OS since the switch to OS X.

you're dead on- unfortunately, you're also in the minority by a lot.
It's like a car seat- we shouldn't need a law, but people are too stupid not to do it without one.

I agree. WP7 is actually very nice, and is a legitimate iOS competitor, which blazed its own path rather than slavishly copying Apple. I think MS does indeed stand a decent chance, especially if they get some enterprise features working well (and the Office suite on it, maybe).

While this is true, it was a consequence of the European court's illegal-monopoly judgments against MS rather than any actions taken by Ballmer that caused this to happen.

This boulder comprised of Apple and Blackberry rolled on our arm, he said.

Too bad it wasn't his head!

I'm a desktop guy... good ol' tower n' monitor. No touch screen for me.

First thing I will do is bypass Metro and bring up the desktop on Windows 8.

The Metro interface may be great, and Microsoft may want to radically change Windows... but the software developers have to radically change their programs in order for this great shift to happen.

Otherwise... people will stick to the Windows 7 "classic" interface to run their existing programs.

I'm pretty sure that macismac was being sarcastic.

That was not the prototype Courier. That was a hacker mod of two 9" Dell Mini netbooks:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/09/m...9-calls-it-ha/

First of all, I hate to admit it, but I appreciate the frank honesty that Joe Belfiore has to publicly admit this. I am not sure how SB feels about him saying it, but I'm glad that someone at MS had the guts to admit it.

I'm betting that the upper management was in denial of the iPhone's success, while those working in the mobile OS division understood early on that the iPhone was a game changer. Rim is going thru the same thing. The employees and lower management are begging for their upper management to "get with the program" as witnessed in an open letter written by a RIM employee a few months back, but it takes a long time for someone as big as MS and RIMM to finally take the "if you can't beat em, join em" approach, in regards to going with a touch U.I. It probably took 2 years for the "final" meeting in upper management to move forward and go with Windows Phone 7. But even then, you see the reluctance for complete change, as Microsoft chose to keep the "WINDOWS" name in phone os title. Just for branding purposes. I bet this is one of the things that Ballmer had changed to keep WINDOWS in the phone os name. On the other hand, Apple is quick to shed it's skin, changing it's name to Apple, Inc. instead of Apple Computers, because of the iPod's popularity. Changing the mobile os to iOS instead of iPhone OS, because of the iPod touch and the iPad. It's pretty impressive to see Apple being very nimble and act like a start-up in this respect.

Microsoft reminds me of GM. Slow to make change until it's almost too late. I hear that GM is doing very well now and had a nice increase in sales last year, maybe MS will have the same luck. I'm not crazy about the METRO UI, but I confess, I've never actually seen it in person, because I don't know a single person that has a WIN7 phone. It looks interesting in the videos I see online, but I think the UI is a little too heavy on the social media theme and the tiles are a bit too youthful, which doesn't really fit the WINDOWS branding. Seems a little lost too me. MS has strong enterprise roots, and this metro theme just doesn't seem to fit in well with that. It kind of seems like if our law makers in D.C. all started to wear clothes from Abercrombie and Fitch.

Anyhow, there might be some truth to what other's have said about Apple's competitors being a bit more open now that Steve Jobs has passed. SJ was a genius that surrounded himself with even more genii. SJ also appeared to be a bit eccentric, paranoid and tended to hold a grudge, for a long time. Even worse, he had no qualms letting it be known. I hope that Tim Cook has a more diplomatic approach to things. He's definitely a smart fellow and he is surrounded by genii, but hopefully he can smooth things out with those that Steve Jobs couldn't or refused to do.

Time will tell. Maybe Steve Jobs is just another thing that, sadly, Apple needed to shed. (damn that was tough to write.)

iPod, iPhone and iPad = Game Over Microsoft

Microsoft could have innovated with TV, but again ... they will follow Apple and lose.

If I were shareholders and board members, I would say it's time to think about replacing a few top executives. This all comes down to leadership and vision; two thing MS has been lacking for a long time.

M$ should see the light and copy OS X too. Oh sorry they already did that.

So the following episode is forgotten ?

http://www.busygamer.com/blog1/wp-co...8ZukG_1333.jpg