I would expect even stronger XBox tie in given the PSP phone...given that MS doesn't have any problems with physical keyboards the addition of a d-pad support and phone specs to the WP7 API seems more likely than for iOS.
The PSP phone will end up 1st to market as a smartphone gaming phone but that won't translate into an Android platform advantage. Given that WP7 has C# and XNA baked in then a D-pad spec for WP7 means that d-pad gaming phones from HTC, LG, etc will happen first.
What the API IMHO needs to have is automatic d-pad detection and if there isn't a physical one then it brings up a standard soft d-pad/button overlay. That way an indie designer can simply indicate he wants a d-pad and not need any additional coding beyond handling the events.
This would give the WP7 platform a clear advantage over iOS and Android.
I would expect even stronger XBox tie in given the PSP phone...given that MS doesn't have any problems with physical keyboards the addition of a d-pad support and phone specs to the WP7 API seems more likely than for iOS.
The PSP phone will end up 1st to market as a smartphone gaming phone but that won't translate into an Android platform advantage. Given that WP7 has C# and XNA baked in then a D-pad spec for WP7 means that d-pad gaming phones from HTC, LG, etc will happen first.
What the API IMHO needs to have is automatic d-pad detection and if there isn't a physical one then it brings up a standard soft d-pad/button overlay. That way an indie designer can simply indicate he wants a d-pad and not need any additional coding beyond handling the events.
This would give the WP7 platform a clear advantage over iOS and Android.
Launching a gaming handset is dangerous because its so easy to get boxed in as a gaming handset. Suddenly, normal consumers will look at it and think "oh I don't game so I don't need that handset" and they buy an iPhone instead.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but there is a risk that needs to be managed. The PSP phone for example will never be bought by anyone who isn't a hardcore PSP/PS3 gamer. Thats not a very big market on its own.
When people look at iPhone they see what they want to see. I see a great wireless iPod. Kids see a gaming device. Salespeople see a mobile CRM.
If you put a D pad on any phone then people will only see it as a gaming device.
Sorry I missed this earlier. Working definition: people who are trained as journalists, get paid for journalism, and who actually care about journalism.
People generally bash things they fear or don't understand. Fanbois have long memories and they remember what happened last time Apple tried to battle MSFT. When Microsoft took 98% of the desktop market and Apple teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
Not a ll negative comments about WP7 make sense, but that is no reason to reply with urban legends like this one. Apple was run pretty badly, but they never teetered on the brink as they never has less than 1 billion in the bank at any point in time.
Before you know you're repeating the "Microsoft saved Apple" urban legend too.
People generally bash things they fear or don't understand. Fanbois have long memories and they remember what happened last time Apple tried to battle MSFT. When Microsoft took 98% of the desktop market and Apple teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
Actually I think the last time MSFT and Apple battled it out Apple ended up owning the MP3 player market, the smartphone market and the tablet market.
All the while pissing off their developers, antennae-gate users, etc. That's incredible, when you think about it.
And still MS are 4-5 years behind the curve. Google, who are a rag-tag team of FLOSS hippies are out-executing them. At some point MS have to look in the mirror and say 'We need a new plan."
Congrats for drawing conclusions based upon a two month old survey. One which was taken before the phone was even released. Why don?t you do the same thing; find a survey which showed the interest for the iPhone 2 months before the first version was released?
Considering that the phone was expensive, and not subsidized, that was pretty good. Considering that most WP7 phones are subsidized or pretty close to free. The interest levels aren't at the same level no matter how you look at it.
Considering that the phone was expensive, and not subsidized, that was pretty good. Considering that most WP7 phones are subsidized or pretty close to free. The interest levels aren't at the same level no matter how you look at it.
Yeah- you are right. It is pretty hard to argue that the interest levels of any of the iPhones competitors have been anywhere near the level of he iPhone itself, either pre or post launch.
So you think Microsoft will get a decade of reasonable market share before they have to rewrite WP7 and start fresh?
That's actually pretty good.
What's a reasonable share? And considering that the license is, according to reports, about $8 per phone, how many licenses a year does MS need to have before the several hundred million a year they will be spending for R&D, support and marketing is paid for?
IF MS did spend the $500 million they said they were going to for the initial marketing push, and it cost then at least a couple of hundred million over the past two years developing this, will they ever get out of the hole unless they license at least 50 million a year?
This is a real question that not everyone is talking about.
It strikes me as highly unlikely that MS would abandon WP7 anytime in the next couple years. That means it should have time to mature and the time to catch up to Android and iOS feature wise isn't going to be all that long. Probably 6 months or so.
One key device enhancement I see in 2011 is a hardware spec for WP7 gaming phones with DPad to compete with the PSP phone. The PSP phone is probably the only Android phone I would consider buying at this point.
I'm still hoping that Apple provides a common d-pad spec for iOS and native API access but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
So iOS and Android are going to be standing still, waiting for WP7 to catch up?
Wow, you can smell the fear in this forum. Just to see how much time folks are spending on dismissing WP7. iPhone proponents must really feel like MS has a potential rival. I guess since Andriod continues to eat into iPhone market share Apple enthusiasts need to do something to make themselves feel good. Bashing MS has always seemd to help huh...
Lol
It's more like wondering if WP7 will survive, as much of the industry is wondering. Or, whether will MS pour billions into a product that's losing money year after year, as they did with the Entertainment division, and their internet initiatives.
What's a reasonable share? And considering that the license is, according to reports, about $8 per phone, how many licenses a year does MS need to have before the several hundred million a year they will be spending for R&D, support and marketing is paid for?
IF MS did spend the $500 million they said they were going to for the initial marketing push, and it cost then at least a couple of hundred million over the past two years developing this, will they ever get out of the hole unless they license at least 50 million a year?
This is a real question that not everyone is talking about.
Will it really be that high? That seems like what it might have taken to get it off the ground, but I think moving forward it could be much cheaper.
By my maths, 50M licenses at $8 each is for $400M in R&D. But if that R&D last them several years, and not per year, then I think 50M licenses is feasible. The smartphone market is growing and MS about 1/10th of the smartphone market even before WP7.
Dell also said that Android is more costlier than Windows so I wonder if WP7 adoption will increase this year. I think it will, but only time will tell.
How many smartphones are slated to be sold this year? What is 10% of that market?
Android should be at gingerbread and iOS still 4.x with iOS 5 within a month or two.
But in terms of being behind MS will have greatly closed the gap since there's quite a bit of low hanging fruit like cut and paste and notification/multitasking.
Going from 1.x to 2.0 usually represents a bigger jump from 2.x to 3.0 or 4.x to 5.0 in terms of getting to a livable feature set.
No, in six months, iOS 5 will be out, for all three of Apple's lines that use it.
Considering that the phone was expensive, and not subsidized, that was pretty good. Considering that most WP7 phones are subsidized or pretty close to free. The interest levels aren't at the same level no matter how you look at it.
Even more impressive when you consider that the "smartphone market" as we think of it today didn't even exist, as it had yet to be created by Apple.
Now, it's a given that anyone that doesn't have a smartphone will presently be getting one. Then, smartphones were the provenance of geeks and certain business people. For an unreleased device using a completely unknown model of mobile computing to garner even that level of interest is truly remarkable-- and probably a testament to the abysmal state of the art which motivated Apple to enter the market in the first place.
Yeah- you are right. It is pretty hard to argue that the interest levels of any of the iPhones competitors have been anywhere near the level of he iPhone itself, either pre or post launch.
This is all very interesting. Like some others, I've been comparing the WP7 launch to that of Palm. Palm was certainly the most hyped phone and OS since the iPhone itself. And by hyped, I don't mean by the manufacturer, but as with Apple; the writers, reviewers, and the geek public.
Now, I've seen close to the same for WP7. While the press hasn't been as unequivocal as with the other two, it's been close enough.
But we can compare initial sales as well as possible to get more of an idea. Apple told everyone, from the first weekend, what the sales were, in numbers.
But palm didn't. Instead, they and Sprint held press conferences and made statements on how the Pre was sold out everywhere -EVERYWHERE. Their emphasis. Don't worry, they said, we're making more, everyone will get one.
But, as we found out later, they only sold about 50,000 the first week, and that was considered to be a disaster. They only sold a few hundred thousand for the first quarter, but those sales were to Sprint not to customers. We know what happened to Palm.
But Palm was a small company with one phone. MS is a very large company, and there are 11 or 12 models from several manufacturers out there at different price levels. Palm had few, poorly received Ads, while MS has spent more than Palm's sales were for the entire year.
Now we look at WP7. The same thing. Sold out in Europe where it was being sold. But no numbers from there. No numbers from here either, just platitudes. Finally, MS says that they sold 1.6 million phones, but to carriers and distributers. How many in customer hands? Much less, but no numbers.
Estimates for the first week are weaker than Palm's at 40,000. How can this be? It seems impossible. But the same people who have estimated Palm's and Apple's, and who were pretty close on both, are likely right again. Honestly, I expected to see between 300,000 and 500,000 for the first week. I was shocked with what did come out.
Considering how happy MS is to announce numbers when things are going fine, the fact that like with the Zune, they refuse to give these numbers, means they must not be happy with sales.
I really don't know what other conclusion can be made other than that.
Will it really be that high? That seems like what it might have taken to get it off the ground, but I think moving forward it could be much cheaper.
By my maths, 50M licenses at $8 each is for $400M in R&D. But if that R&D last them several years, and not per year, then I think 50M licenses is feasible. The smartphone market is growing and MS about 1/10th of the smartphone market even before WP7.
Dell also said that Android is more costlier than Windows so I wonder if WP7 adoption will increase this year. I think it will, but only time will tell.
How many smartphones are slated to be sold this year? What is 10% of that market?
Estimates for the R&D budgets for MS and Apple for their mobile OS's are between 150 and 250 million a year, for each company, of course. It sounds like a lot, but it's not. R&D costs are much higher these days. It isn't just the software, They have to test against hardware, do certifications, maintain labs, etc. Apple's direct R&D costs are higher because of their direct phone R&D costs added in.
But then support must be added into that. Support to the manufacturers, and support to the end users. Then they must work on the stores and such. Add marketing. How much could this cost each year? An awful lot.
Even more impressive when you consider that the "smartphone market" as we think of it today didn't even exist, as it had yet to be created by Apple.
Now, it's a given that anyone that doesn't have a smartphone will presently be getting one. Then, smartphones were the provenance of geeks and certain business people. For an unreleased device using a completely unknown model of mobile computing to garner even that level of interest is truly remarkable-- and probably a testament to the abysmal state of the art which motivated Apple to enter the market in the first place.
When I bought my first smartphone, a Samsung i300, a half a million sales a year was considered to be a lot. When later, I bought my Treo 700p, a million was considered to be a lot.
Now, a million is a fairly successful first weekend.
What's a reasonable share? And considering that the license is, according to reports, about $8 per phone, how many licenses a year does MS need to have before the several hundred million a year they will be spending for R&D, support and marketing is paid for?
IF MS did spend the $500 million they said they were going to for the initial marketing push, and it cost then at least a couple of hundred million over the past two years developing this, will they ever get out of the hole unless they license at least 50 million a year?
This is a real question that not everyone is talking about.
Given that scenario how many licenses does Google have to sell at $0 to break even?
How much will MS make from their app store?
How much will MS make from their own apps (games and productivity)? For WP7 Tablet Edition, assuming it ever gets made, they have the one killer app that folks would pay $99+. MS Office.
I spent $15 on quick office, $30 on iWork (pages, numbers, keynote), and maybe another $30-40 on other productivity apps (goodreader, penultimate, etc). I'd trade them all in for a $99 Office Mobile Pro that included OneNote.
Given that scenario how many licenses does Google have to sell at $0 to break even?
How much will MS make from their app store?
How much will MS make from their own apps (games and productivity)? For WP7 Tablet Edition, assuming it ever gets made, they have the one killer app that folks would pay $99+. MS Office.
I spent $15 on quick office, $30 on iWork (pages, numbers, keynote), and maybe another $30-40 on other productivity apps (goodreader, penultimate, etc). I'd trade them all in for a $99 Office Mobile that included OneNote.
Google gives the OS away, but charges for the apps that come with it.
But they rely on the Ad model. 97% of all the revenue at Google is from Ads. That's where they make their money from with Android, except for those apps. MS isn't using the same model. It's more a matter of some Ads here and there, but not pervasively.
Comments
The PSP phone will end up 1st to market as a smartphone gaming phone but that won't translate into an Android platform advantage. Given that WP7 has C# and XNA baked in then a D-pad spec for WP7 means that d-pad gaming phones from HTC, LG, etc will happen first.
What the API IMHO needs to have is automatic d-pad detection and if there isn't a physical one then it brings up a standard soft d-pad/button overlay. That way an indie designer can simply indicate he wants a d-pad and not need any additional coding beyond handling the events.
This would give the WP7 platform a clear advantage over iOS and Android.
I would expect even stronger XBox tie in given the PSP phone...given that MS doesn't have any problems with physical keyboards the addition of a d-pad support and phone specs to the WP7 API seems more likely than for iOS.
The PSP phone will end up 1st to market as a smartphone gaming phone but that won't translate into an Android platform advantage. Given that WP7 has C# and XNA baked in then a D-pad spec for WP7 means that d-pad gaming phones from HTC, LG, etc will happen first.
What the API IMHO needs to have is automatic d-pad detection and if there isn't a physical one then it brings up a standard soft d-pad/button overlay. That way an indie designer can simply indicate he wants a d-pad and not need any additional coding beyond handling the events.
This would give the WP7 platform a clear advantage over iOS and Android.
Launching a gaming handset is dangerous because its so easy to get boxed in as a gaming handset. Suddenly, normal consumers will look at it and think "oh I don't game so I don't need that handset" and they buy an iPhone instead.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but there is a risk that needs to be managed. The PSP phone for example will never be bought by anyone who isn't a hardcore PSP/PS3 gamer. Thats not a very big market on its own.
When people look at iPhone they see what they want to see. I see a great wireless iPod. Kids see a gaming device. Salespeople see a mobile CRM.
If you put a D pad on any phone then people will only see it as a gaming device.
If you put a D pad on any phone then people will only see it as a gaming device.
True, but not every WP7 phone will have a d-pad. Some will have physical keyboards for those that text a lot, some will just be slates.
I'm curious as to what this means for you.
Sorry I missed this earlier. Working definition: people who are trained as journalists, get paid for journalism, and who actually care about journalism.
People generally bash things they fear or don't understand. Fanbois have long memories and they remember what happened last time Apple tried to battle MSFT. When Microsoft took 98% of the desktop market and Apple teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
Not a ll negative comments about WP7 make sense, but that is no reason to reply with urban legends like this one. Apple was run pretty badly, but they never teetered on the brink as they never has less than 1 billion in the bank at any point in time.
Before you know you're repeating the "Microsoft saved Apple" urban legend too.
People generally bash things they fear or don't understand. Fanbois have long memories and they remember what happened last time Apple tried to battle MSFT. When Microsoft took 98% of the desktop market and Apple teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
Actually I think the last time MSFT and Apple battled it out Apple ended up owning the MP3 player market, the smartphone market and the tablet market.
And still MS are 4-5 years behind the curve. Google, who are a rag-tag team of FLOSS hippies are out-executing them. At some point MS have to look in the mirror and say 'We need a new plan."
Babylon has fallen; has fallen, that great city.
Congrats for drawing conclusions based upon a two month old survey. One which was taken before the phone was even released. Why don?t you do the same thing; find a survey which showed the interest for the iPhone 2 months before the first version was released?
http://news.cnet.com/Poll-9-percent-...l?tag=lia;rcol
Considering that the phone was expensive, and not subsidized, that was pretty good. Considering that most WP7 phones are subsidized or pretty close to free. The interest levels aren't at the same level no matter how you look at it.
http://news.cnet.com/Poll-9-percent-...l?tag=lia;rcol
Considering that the phone was expensive, and not subsidized, that was pretty good. Considering that most WP7 phones are subsidized or pretty close to free. The interest levels aren't at the same level no matter how you look at it.
Yeah- you are right. It is pretty hard to argue that the interest levels of any of the iPhones competitors have been anywhere near the level of he iPhone itself, either pre or post launch.
So you think Microsoft will get a decade of reasonable market share before they have to rewrite WP7 and start fresh?
That's actually pretty good.
What's a reasonable share? And considering that the license is, according to reports, about $8 per phone, how many licenses a year does MS need to have before the several hundred million a year they will be spending for R&D, support and marketing is paid for?
IF MS did spend the $500 million they said they were going to for the initial marketing push, and it cost then at least a couple of hundred million over the past two years developing this, will they ever get out of the hole unless they license at least 50 million a year?
This is a real question that not everyone is talking about.
It strikes me as highly unlikely that MS would abandon WP7 anytime in the next couple years. That means it should have time to mature and the time to catch up to Android and iOS feature wise isn't going to be all that long. Probably 6 months or so.
One key device enhancement I see in 2011 is a hardware spec for WP7 gaming phones with DPad to compete with the PSP phone. The PSP phone is probably the only Android phone I would consider buying at this point.
I'm still hoping that Apple provides a common d-pad spec for iOS and native API access but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
So iOS and Android are going to be standing still, waiting for WP7 to catch up?
Wow, you can smell the fear in this forum. Just to see how much time folks are spending on dismissing WP7. iPhone proponents must really feel like MS has a potential rival. I guess since Andriod continues to eat into iPhone market share Apple enthusiasts need to do something to make themselves feel good. Bashing MS has always seemd to help huh...
Lol
It's more like wondering if WP7 will survive, as much of the industry is wondering. Or, whether will MS pour billions into a product that's losing money year after year, as they did with the Entertainment division, and their internet initiatives.
What's a reasonable share? And considering that the license is, according to reports, about $8 per phone, how many licenses a year does MS need to have before the several hundred million a year they will be spending for R&D, support and marketing is paid for?
IF MS did spend the $500 million they said they were going to for the initial marketing push, and it cost then at least a couple of hundred million over the past two years developing this, will they ever get out of the hole unless they license at least 50 million a year?
This is a real question that not everyone is talking about.
Will it really be that high? That seems like what it might have taken to get it off the ground, but I think moving forward it could be much cheaper.
By my maths, 50M licenses at $8 each is for $400M in R&D. But if that R&D last them several years, and not per year, then I think 50M licenses is feasible. The smartphone market is growing and MS about 1/10th of the smartphone market even before WP7.
Dell also said that Android is more costlier than Windows so I wonder if WP7 adoption will increase this year. I think it will, but only time will tell.
How many smartphones are slated to be sold this year? What is 10% of that market?
Android should be at gingerbread and iOS still 4.x with iOS 5 within a month or two.
But in terms of being behind MS will have greatly closed the gap since there's quite a bit of low hanging fruit like cut and paste and notification/multitasking.
Going from 1.x to 2.0 usually represents a bigger jump from 2.x to 3.0 or 4.x to 5.0 in terms of getting to a livable feature set.
No, in six months, iOS 5 will be out, for all three of Apple's lines that use it.
http://news.cnet.com/Poll-9-percent-...l?tag=lia;rcol
Considering that the phone was expensive, and not subsidized, that was pretty good. Considering that most WP7 phones are subsidized or pretty close to free. The interest levels aren't at the same level no matter how you look at it.
Even more impressive when you consider that the "smartphone market" as we think of it today didn't even exist, as it had yet to be created by Apple.
Now, it's a given that anyone that doesn't have a smartphone will presently be getting one. Then, smartphones were the provenance of geeks and certain business people. For an unreleased device using a completely unknown model of mobile computing to garner even that level of interest is truly remarkable-- and probably a testament to the abysmal state of the art which motivated Apple to enter the market in the first place.
Yeah- you are right. It is pretty hard to argue that the interest levels of any of the iPhones competitors have been anywhere near the level of he iPhone itself, either pre or post launch.
This is all very interesting. Like some others, I've been comparing the WP7 launch to that of Palm. Palm was certainly the most hyped phone and OS since the iPhone itself. And by hyped, I don't mean by the manufacturer, but as with Apple; the writers, reviewers, and the geek public.
Now, I've seen close to the same for WP7. While the press hasn't been as unequivocal as with the other two, it's been close enough.
But we can compare initial sales as well as possible to get more of an idea. Apple told everyone, from the first weekend, what the sales were, in numbers.
But palm didn't. Instead, they and Sprint held press conferences and made statements on how the Pre was sold out everywhere -EVERYWHERE. Their emphasis. Don't worry, they said, we're making more, everyone will get one.
But, as we found out later, they only sold about 50,000 the first week, and that was considered to be a disaster. They only sold a few hundred thousand for the first quarter, but those sales were to Sprint not to customers. We know what happened to Palm.
But Palm was a small company with one phone. MS is a very large company, and there are 11 or 12 models from several manufacturers out there at different price levels. Palm had few, poorly received Ads, while MS has spent more than Palm's sales were for the entire year.
Now we look at WP7. The same thing. Sold out in Europe where it was being sold. But no numbers from there. No numbers from here either, just platitudes. Finally, MS says that they sold 1.6 million phones, but to carriers and distributers. How many in customer hands? Much less, but no numbers.
Estimates for the first week are weaker than Palm's at 40,000. How can this be? It seems impossible. But the same people who have estimated Palm's and Apple's, and who were pretty close on both, are likely right again. Honestly, I expected to see between 300,000 and 500,000 for the first week. I was shocked with what did come out.
Considering how happy MS is to announce numbers when things are going fine, the fact that like with the Zune, they refuse to give these numbers, means they must not be happy with sales.
I really don't know what other conclusion can be made other than that.
Will it really be that high? That seems like what it might have taken to get it off the ground, but I think moving forward it could be much cheaper.
By my maths, 50M licenses at $8 each is for $400M in R&D. But if that R&D last them several years, and not per year, then I think 50M licenses is feasible. The smartphone market is growing and MS about 1/10th of the smartphone market even before WP7.
Dell also said that Android is more costlier than Windows so I wonder if WP7 adoption will increase this year. I think it will, but only time will tell.
How many smartphones are slated to be sold this year? What is 10% of that market?
Estimates for the R&D budgets for MS and Apple for their mobile OS's are between 150 and 250 million a year, for each company, of course. It sounds like a lot, but it's not. R&D costs are much higher these days. It isn't just the software, They have to test against hardware, do certifications, maintain labs, etc. Apple's direct R&D costs are higher because of their direct phone R&D costs added in.
But then support must be added into that. Support to the manufacturers, and support to the end users. Then they must work on the stores and such. Add marketing. How much could this cost each year? An awful lot.
Even more impressive when you consider that the "smartphone market" as we think of it today didn't even exist, as it had yet to be created by Apple.
Now, it's a given that anyone that doesn't have a smartphone will presently be getting one. Then, smartphones were the provenance of geeks and certain business people. For an unreleased device using a completely unknown model of mobile computing to garner even that level of interest is truly remarkable-- and probably a testament to the abysmal state of the art which motivated Apple to enter the market in the first place.
When I bought my first smartphone, a Samsung i300, a half a million sales a year was considered to be a lot. When later, I bought my Treo 700p, a million was considered to be a lot.
Now, a million is a fairly successful first weekend.
What's a reasonable share? And considering that the license is, according to reports, about $8 per phone, how many licenses a year does MS need to have before the several hundred million a year they will be spending for R&D, support and marketing is paid for?
IF MS did spend the $500 million they said they were going to for the initial marketing push, and it cost then at least a couple of hundred million over the past two years developing this, will they ever get out of the hole unless they license at least 50 million a year?
This is a real question that not everyone is talking about.
Given that scenario how many licenses does Google have to sell at $0 to break even?
How much will MS make from their app store?
How much will MS make from their own apps (games and productivity)? For WP7 Tablet Edition, assuming it ever gets made, they have the one killer app that folks would pay $99+. MS Office.
I spent $15 on quick office, $30 on iWork (pages, numbers, keynote), and maybe another $30-40 on other productivity apps (goodreader, penultimate, etc). I'd trade them all in for a $99 Office Mobile Pro that included OneNote.
Given that scenario how many licenses does Google have to sell at $0 to break even?
How much will MS make from their app store?
How much will MS make from their own apps (games and productivity)? For WP7 Tablet Edition, assuming it ever gets made, they have the one killer app that folks would pay $99+. MS Office.
I spent $15 on quick office, $30 on iWork (pages, numbers, keynote), and maybe another $30-40 on other productivity apps (goodreader, penultimate, etc). I'd trade them all in for a $99 Office Mobile that included OneNote.
Google gives the OS away, but charges for the apps that come with it.
But they rely on the Ad model. 97% of all the revenue at Google is from Ads. That's where they make their money from with Android, except for those apps. MS isn't using the same model. It's more a matter of some Ads here and there, but not pervasively.