Microsoft has done their homework with the interface and delivers - the few friends who have it like it well enough to give me hope that it will sell well. It is frankly in Apple's best interest to have Redmond bring a solid competitor back into the handset game. It was the Microsoft market share that Android eroded along with Nokia's (and the others') feature phone marketshare here in the US. With Windows back in the game, the battle becomes a divided front, especially with WP7 shifting the UI focus ever so slightly.Redmond has already reinforced their position with strategic licensing or lawsuits against handset makers that are using touch interfaces. This not only feeds their coffers but gives the handset makers pause in how they approach Android. They may find that Android will becomes increasingly expensive to support as consumers compare iOS and WP7 device performance against the perennially laggardly Android OS updates from the carriers and demand quicker turn-around and fewer locks and locked-in apps on their handsets.
Now if only Nokia could demonstrate some sort of epiphany in their smartphones, this could get very interesting indeed.
I switched from a iPhone 3G to a Samsung Focus 2 weeks ago. I dont miss my iPhone at all. The interface is so much better on the Windows Phone. My 3G with iOS 4.x was a dog, so the massive performance boost is probably tainting my viewpoint.
ROFLOL First, trying to compare an iPhone 3 that is now 2 1/2 years behind the latest iPhone to Samsung's latest is a joke. Then to claim that the Windoze / Samsung UI is better is equally as laughable! The Windoze mobile UI has obviously been designed by someone with attention deficit disorder who was trying to copy the layout of a fashion magazine instead of developing a smartphone interface...
Yes, cars sitting on dealer?s lots already include sales. For instance, Firestone tires on an unsold car were already paid for by the auto manufacturer to Firestone. This is how I?m assuming the purchase of an OS license works. The OS is a single part of the entire product. Why should it matter to Firestone in the short run if they already are paid for those tires or are you saying that Firestone doesn?t get paid for the tires until after it?s purchased by a consumer.
Maybe MS and their vendors have some deal where they only pay for Windows Phone licenses that are activated by carriers or whatever, but I haven?t seen any evidence of that and I don?t think that is how MS has been selling their licenses to vendors in the past. If you have evidence that backs up your position please post it.
PS: Don?t dealerships work by purchasing automobiles directly from the manufacturer at a wholesale price? Aren?t they more akin to how Best Buy would purchase x number of units to sell to customers?
Once again, totally wrong! The cars are considered in inventory, not "sold". It is not until a consumer buys the car that it is truly considered sold! When you hear car sales quoted it is only those that are driven off the dealers lots.
Further, there is no way of knowing what the terms are for the carriers by the handset makers as it relates to payment terms and inventory "ownership". In many cases, the middle man doesn't pay for the devices until they are sold off the shelf as the manufacturer carries the cost of inventory, or provides favorable terms that allow for payment after actual sales. Take a look at the Kin - the final tally wasn't about how many where put into the sales channel but how many were actually purchased by consumers. You really think the carriers are the ones that took a bath on that floating turd? You really need to get yourself an education on how business works before you start defending these brown floaters.
Once again, totally wrong! The cars are considered in inventory, not "sold". It is not until a consumer buys the car that it is truly considered sold! When you hear car sales quoted it is only those that are driven off the dealers lots.
Further, there is no way of knowing what the terms are for the carriers by the handset makers as it relates to payment terms and inventory "ownership". In many cases, the middle man doesn't pay for the devices until they are sold off the shelf as the manufacturer carries the cost of inventory, or provides favorable terms that allow for payment after actual sales. Take a look at the Kin - the final tally wasn't about how many where put into the sales channel but how many were actually purchased by consumers. You really think the carriers are the ones that took a bath on that floating turd? You really need to get yourself an education on how business works before you start defending these brown floaters.
So you are going on record as saying that the parts of a car and CE that are bought from other companies do not require payments of any kind to the originating vendor until it?s sold to the final consumer. Good luck with that business model.
Not only that, for the car manufacturer, the car is SOLD to the dealer the second it leaves the door of the factory. Even when it sits in the lot outside of the factory, it is already owned by the dealer.
Last time I was at the Nissan Smyrna plant in Tennesse, there was a big KA-CHING on the loudspeaker by the door where the cars leave the factory. This happened everytime a car was produced and left the building. A nice little reminder to the employees that more cash was rolling in.
Once again, clueless. It is usually the manufacturer, or their finance arm, that finances the dealer inventory! Therefore they in fact own it. Just like you don't "own" your house, the bank does, until you pay it off. Get a grip folks. Try to actually learn about how business works before you start commenting on it. The consumer is the actual customer, not the dealer, or the carrier. And that is who ultimately has to buy your product and use it. If they don't, your product goes UNSOLD! Or is dumped on the market at a severely discounted price. Wonder what happened to all those Kins?
The Windoze mobile UI has obviously been designed by someone with attention deficit disorder who was trying to copy the layout of a fashion magazine instead of developing a smartphone interface...
Wow... that's passionate. You'd better stay away from their new website else I'm going to be worried about your health!
I think it's better than the old one, but that's just me.
Your disconnect is the assumption that the OEMs have completed the transaction. These are more than likely conditional sales. You take the inventory but do not pay until a retail sale is made.
??? They activated and called my Samsung Focus in the store for me.
Did you upgrade to 4.2? My mother in law still has a 3G and it works okay now that it's on 4.2. Not great, but not any worse than most Android phones from before summer/fall 2010.
Yes even got a replacement 3G that had it pre-installed. The updates did make it a tad better, but nothing like 3.x. I could have rolled back but needed multiple Exchange accounts.
It took me 30-60 seconds to bring up texting after I pressed the icon. Maps.....forget about it.
My WP7 has Bing Voice search that is super nice. I guess all WP7's have it?
Further, there is no way of knowing what the terms are for the carriers by the handset makers as it relates to payment terms and inventory "ownership". In many cases, the middle man doesn't pay for the devices until they are sold off the shelf as the manufacturer carries the cost of inventory, or provides favorable terms that allow for payment after actual sales.
I don't understand why you keep talking about the deal between the manufacturer and carrier when Microsoft is neither.
It sounds like the data you want isn't the number of "shipped" devices or the number of "sold" devices but the number of unique WP7 activations.
oh Sam, Sam. you're supposed to already know this:
MS sells WP7 licenses, not phones. it sells them to the OEM's, not consumers. THEN the OEM's manufacture the handsets and put them into the various retail channels inventory (do any OEM's sell a WP7 phone direct to consumers? i dunno). finally a real person, aka consumer, actually might buy one from one of those retailers, be it a telco or Best Buy etc.
we don't know how many of these initial 2 million MS licenses have actually been installed on production handsets that have shipped into the retail channels, versus how many are "banked" by OEM's that don't want to piss off MS. and we don't know how many of those that have shipped some consumer actually purchased and now uses.
but it's certainly a number smaller than 2 million.
solipsism, your response is utter nonsense - your statement is totally false. "Sales" is ultimately to endusers, and "shipped" is filling the sales channel, these are two entirely different things. According to what you stated, cars sitting on dealer lots are actually already "sales", but in fact they are unsold inventory. Ultimately, in this scenario, it is only when the ultimate enduser buys the product with that it can be considered sold. MSFT is not being open or forthright in their dissemination of data and is clearly obscuring the real sales numbers to protect their hopeless image.
Yep I agree with you.
There is a chain involved, manufacture makes it and ships it to a distributor who then sells it to a consumer, I know this is a simplistic view, but it helps to show the underlying principles.
The complication is when hardware and software are from different manufacturers, and the later is intrinsic to the overall product. M$ takes their "cut" earlier on the the life cycle (surely it doesn't have to be this way, especially when they are so lame in the game). The manufacturer/distributor (be it carrier or retailer) takes the lumps. Such a stupid business model to follow, but alas they do.
So to M$ they have carved their pound of flesh out and are happy, so if the phone does not sell, they don't care. But EXCEPT it does in this case, because the mobile game is so tight at the moment.
Back in the past M$ made a wad of money from their Windows licences, because they and the manufacturers knew people would buy Window PCs. It was that simple.
Why do you think M$ calls everything Windows ? Because that is how they get their message out, so its a common denominator to potential customers. Make mobile like PC, is the M$ way.
But I think the average consumer is much smarter this time around, much more choice, the prices are about the same, and there are several companies involved, no more monopoly.
Yes M$ will make money, they always will, but it will be nothing like what they experienced with PCs, which less and less people are purchasing.
So in the ned M$ will still be around, just less of a bull in the china shop, less relevant though.
Once again, clueless. It is usually the manufacturer, or their finance arm, that finances the dealer inventory! Therefore they in fact own it. Just like you don't "own" your house, the bank does, until you pay it off. Get a grip folks. Try to actually learn about how business works before you start commenting on it. The consumer is the actual customer, not the dealer, or the carrier. And that is who ultimately has to buy your product and use it. If they don't, your product goes UNSOLD! Or is dumped on the market at a severely discounted price. Wonder what happened to all those Kins?
Wow! Ignorant and arrogant - all in a neat little parcel. Adorable.
As has been pointed out, ad nauseum, for M$ the OEMs ARE the customer. I have worked in a number of businesses as part of a sales team including a large multinational. Any item shipped and invoiced was considered a sale in all of them until it was returned. Even then it was seen as a "sale" but was entered in the books as a "return". This was true everywhere I worked. Admittedly I have never worked in the USA but I don't see M$ being any different from any other international sales force as far as accounting is concerned. I suggest you calm down, do some research and keep a civil tongue in your head.
Once again, clueless. It is usually the manufacturer, or their finance arm, that finances the dealer inventory! Therefore they in fact own it. Just like you don't "own" your house, the bank does, until you pay it off. Get a grip folks. Try to actually learn about how business works before you start commenting on it. The consumer is the actual customer, not the dealer, or the carrier. And that is who ultimately has to buy your product and use it. If they don't, your product goes UNSOLD! Or is dumped on the market at a severely discounted price. Wonder what happened to all those Kins?
The kin may be unsold to consumers but you have no way of knowing if Microsoft was paid for the licenses or not. It would depend if there selling on a sale or return basis or not. Given that phones generally get packaged specific for a carrier I would guess that Microsoft has been paid for any phones at least delivered to carriers with no option for return.
I switched from a iPhone 3G to a Samsung Focus 2 weeks ago. I dont miss my iPhone at all. The interface is so much better on the Windows Phone. My 3G with iOS 4.x was a dog, so the massive performance boost is probably tainting my viewpoint.
You don't get it. Even if 'they got paid'... this time... if there are unsold phones in carrier's warehouse, there won't be any more orders... next time. Capisce? That's why units sold matters and units shipped doesn't mean shit.
Comments
Has anyone seen statistics on how many web hits are being generated by Win 7 Phones. That would seem a more relevant benchmark
One ad provider shows WP7 with 0.44% of the iPhone + WP7 + Android market share and 0.01% of total browsing market share as of the start of January.
Now if only Nokia could demonstrate some sort of epiphany in their smartphones, this could get very interesting indeed.
Microsoft got paid all the same.
I switched from a iPhone 3G to a Samsung Focus 2 weeks ago. I dont miss my iPhone at all. The interface is so much better on the Windows Phone. My 3G with iOS 4.x was a dog, so the massive performance boost is probably tainting my viewpoint.
ROFLOL First, trying to compare an iPhone 3 that is now 2 1/2 years behind the latest iPhone to Samsung's latest is a joke. Then to claim that the Windoze / Samsung UI is better is equally as laughable! The Windoze mobile UI has obviously been designed by someone with attention deficit disorder who was trying to copy the layout of a fashion magazine instead of developing a smartphone interface...
Yes, cars sitting on dealer?s lots already include sales. For instance, Firestone tires on an unsold car were already paid for by the auto manufacturer to Firestone. This is how I?m assuming the purchase of an OS license works. The OS is a single part of the entire product. Why should it matter to Firestone in the short run if they already are paid for those tires or are you saying that Firestone doesn?t get paid for the tires until after it?s purchased by a consumer.
Maybe MS and their vendors have some deal where they only pay for Windows Phone licenses that are activated by carriers or whatever, but I haven?t seen any evidence of that and I don?t think that is how MS has been selling their licenses to vendors in the past. If you have evidence that backs up your position please post it.
PS: Don?t dealerships work by purchasing automobiles directly from the manufacturer at a wholesale price? Aren?t they more akin to how Best Buy would purchase x number of units to sell to customers?
Once again, totally wrong! The cars are considered in inventory, not "sold". It is not until a consumer buys the car that it is truly considered sold! When you hear car sales quoted it is only those that are driven off the dealers lots.
Further, there is no way of knowing what the terms are for the carriers by the handset makers as it relates to payment terms and inventory "ownership". In many cases, the middle man doesn't pay for the devices until they are sold off the shelf as the manufacturer carries the cost of inventory, or provides favorable terms that allow for payment after actual sales. Take a look at the Kin - the final tally wasn't about how many where put into the sales channel but how many were actually purchased by consumers. You really think the carriers are the ones that took a bath on that floating turd? You really need to get yourself an education on how business works before you start defending these brown floaters.
Once again, totally wrong! The cars are considered in inventory, not "sold". It is not until a consumer buys the car that it is truly considered sold! When you hear car sales quoted it is only those that are driven off the dealers lots.
Further, there is no way of knowing what the terms are for the carriers by the handset makers as it relates to payment terms and inventory "ownership". In many cases, the middle man doesn't pay for the devices until they are sold off the shelf as the manufacturer carries the cost of inventory, or provides favorable terms that allow for payment after actual sales. Take a look at the Kin - the final tally wasn't about how many where put into the sales channel but how many were actually purchased by consumers. You really think the carriers are the ones that took a bath on that floating turd? You really need to get yourself an education on how business works before you start defending these brown floaters.
So you are going on record as saying that the parts of a car and CE that are bought from other companies do not require payments of any kind to the originating vendor until it?s sold to the final consumer. Good luck with that business model.
Not only that, for the car manufacturer, the car is SOLD to the dealer the second it leaves the door of the factory. Even when it sits in the lot outside of the factory, it is already owned by the dealer.
Last time I was at the Nissan Smyrna plant in Tennesse, there was a big KA-CHING on the loudspeaker by the door where the cars leave the factory. This happened everytime a car was produced and left the building. A nice little reminder to the employees that more cash was rolling in.
Once again, clueless. It is usually the manufacturer, or their finance arm, that finances the dealer inventory! Therefore they in fact own it. Just like you don't "own" your house, the bank does, until you pay it off. Get a grip folks. Try to actually learn about how business works before you start commenting on it. The consumer is the actual customer, not the dealer, or the carrier. And that is who ultimately has to buy your product and use it. If they don't, your product goes UNSOLD! Or is dumped on the market at a severely discounted price. Wonder what happened to all those Kins?
The Windoze mobile UI has obviously been designed by someone with attention deficit disorder who was trying to copy the layout of a fashion magazine instead of developing a smartphone interface...
Wow... that's passionate. You'd better stay away from their new website else I'm going to be worried about your health!
I think it's better than the old one, but that's just me.
Your disconnect is the assumption that the OEMs have completed the transaction. These are more than likely conditional sales. You take the inventory but do not pay until a retail sale is made.
??? They activated and called my Samsung Focus in the store for me.
Did you upgrade to 4.2? My mother in law still has a 3G and it works okay now that it's on 4.2. Not great, but not any worse than most Android phones from before summer/fall 2010.
Yes even got a replacement 3G that had it pre-installed. The updates did make it a tad better, but nothing like 3.x. I could have rolled back but needed multiple Exchange accounts.
It took me 30-60 seconds to bring up texting after I pressed the icon. Maps.....forget about it.
My WP7 has Bing Voice search that is super nice. I guess all WP7's have it?
Ahahaha! No, it's not.
Further, there is no way of knowing what the terms are for the carriers by the handset makers as it relates to payment terms and inventory "ownership". In many cases, the middle man doesn't pay for the devices until they are sold off the shelf as the manufacturer carries the cost of inventory, or provides favorable terms that allow for payment after actual sales.
I don't understand why you keep talking about the deal between the manufacturer and carrier when Microsoft is neither.
It sounds like the data you want isn't the number of "shipped" devices or the number of "sold" devices but the number of unique WP7 activations.
MS sells WP7 licenses, not phones. it sells them to the OEM's, not consumers. THEN the OEM's manufacture the handsets and put them into the various retail channels inventory (do any OEM's sell a WP7 phone direct to consumers? i dunno). finally a real person, aka consumer, actually might buy one from one of those retailers, be it a telco or Best Buy etc.
we don't know how many of these initial 2 million MS licenses have actually been installed on production handsets that have shipped into the retail channels, versus how many are "banked" by OEM's that don't want to piss off MS. and we don't know how many of those that have shipped some consumer actually purchased and now uses.
but it's certainly a number smaller than 2 million.
solipsism, your response is utter nonsense - your statement is totally false. "Sales" is ultimately to endusers, and "shipped" is filling the sales channel, these are two entirely different things. According to what you stated, cars sitting on dealer lots are actually already "sales", but in fact they are unsold inventory. Ultimately, in this scenario, it is only when the ultimate enduser buys the product with that it can be considered sold. MSFT is not being open or forthright in their dissemination of data and is clearly obscuring the real sales numbers to protect their hopeless image.
Yep I agree with you.
There is a chain involved, manufacture makes it and ships it to a distributor who then sells it to a consumer, I know this is a simplistic view, but it helps to show the underlying principles.
The complication is when hardware and software are from different manufacturers, and the later is intrinsic to the overall product. M$ takes their "cut" earlier on the the life cycle (surely it doesn't have to be this way, especially when they are so lame in the game). The manufacturer/distributor (be it carrier or retailer) takes the lumps. Such a stupid business model to follow, but alas they do.
So to M$ they have carved their pound of flesh out and are happy, so if the phone does not sell, they don't care. But EXCEPT it does in this case, because the mobile game is so tight at the moment.
Back in the past M$ made a wad of money from their Windows licences, because they and the manufacturers knew people would buy Window PCs. It was that simple.
Why do you think M$ calls everything Windows ? Because that is how they get their message out, so its a common denominator to potential customers. Make mobile like PC, is the M$ way.
But I think the average consumer is much smarter this time around, much more choice, the prices are about the same, and there are several companies involved, no more monopoly.
Yes M$ will make money, they always will, but it will be nothing like what they experienced with PCs, which less and less people are purchasing.
So in the ned M$ will still be around, just less of a bull in the china shop, less relevant though.
Just my thoughts here.
Once again, clueless. It is usually the manufacturer, or their finance arm, that finances the dealer inventory! Therefore they in fact own it. Just like you don't "own" your house, the bank does, until you pay it off. Get a grip folks. Try to actually learn about how business works before you start commenting on it. The consumer is the actual customer, not the dealer, or the carrier. And that is who ultimately has to buy your product and use it. If they don't, your product goes UNSOLD! Or is dumped on the market at a severely discounted price. Wonder what happened to all those Kins?
Wow! Ignorant and arrogant - all in a neat little parcel. Adorable.
As has been pointed out, ad nauseum, for M$ the OEMs ARE the customer. I have worked in a number of businesses as part of a sales team including a large multinational. Any item shipped and invoiced was considered a sale in all of them until it was returned. Even then it was seen as a "sale" but was entered in the books as a "return". This was true everywhere I worked. Admittedly I have never worked in the USA but I don't see M$ being any different from any other international sales force as far as accounting is concerned. I suggest you calm down, do some research and keep a civil tongue in your head.
Once again, clueless. It is usually the manufacturer, or their finance arm, that finances the dealer inventory! Therefore they in fact own it. Just like you don't "own" your house, the bank does, until you pay it off. Get a grip folks. Try to actually learn about how business works before you start commenting on it. The consumer is the actual customer, not the dealer, or the carrier. And that is who ultimately has to buy your product and use it. If they don't, your product goes UNSOLD! Or is dumped on the market at a severely discounted price. Wonder what happened to all those Kins?
The kin may be unsold to consumers but you have no way of knowing if Microsoft was paid for the licenses or not. It would depend if there selling on a sale or return basis or not. Given that phones generally get packaged specific for a carrier I would guess that Microsoft has been paid for any phones at least delivered to carriers with no option for return.
Here's just one of many reasons why the Windows phone will fail.
...
Wow, MSFT spent US$ 500 million on marketing the fall launch of WM7, and 2 million licenses have been sold. That's US$250 spent to sell one license?!
Wonder how much revenue the license sale created for MSFT...
2 million "shipped". They don't even have to balls to say how many are actually in the hands of customers. It would be too hideous and embarrassing.
Ah well, what's another billion dollars down the toilet for Microsoft.
Microsoft got paid all the same.
I switched from a iPhone 3G to a Samsung Focus 2 weeks ago. I dont miss my iPhone at all. The interface is so much better on the Windows Phone. My 3G with iOS 4.x was a dog, so the massive performance boost is probably tainting my viewpoint.
You don't get it. Even if 'they got paid'... this time... if there are unsold phones in carrier's warehouse, there won't be any more orders... next time. Capisce? That's why units sold matters and units shipped doesn't mean shit.
Here's just one of many reasons why the Windows phone will fail.
Honestly of all places where you think Windows Phone 7 could take of... it didn't happen, isn't happening, in Asia.