A reply to “Why Windows Phone 8 Will Fail”

August 26, 2012 John Obeto

Earlier today, my attention was brought to this article on tbreak.com titled Why Windows Phone 8 Will Fail.

I immediately read it, thinking I would find a nugget I had missed in my thinking that Windows Phone 8 would succeed..

I did not find any nugget.

However, since I could not tell the reasons why in 140 characters or less on Twitter, I decided to post my rejoinder here.

The author’s three points are:

Where is the current growth coming from?
Abandoning your hero product
Relating to Metro will not happen instantly

The points are valid; however, his conclusions are incorrect.

Why, you may ask?

Let me explain on each point.

Where is the current growth coming from?
Yes, it is true that Windows Phone has picked up the remains of RIM’s BlackBerry implosion.

However, that is not all that it takes to succeed.

One of the ways required to succeed in this business – unless you are Apple with the iconic iPhone – is breadth of distribution. A large number of OEMS producing devices for the OS is another plus.

However, Windows Phone, in version 7.0 guise, was plagued with a dearth of both points above at release.

However, that changes with the launch of Windows 8.

In the Windows 8 era, Verizon Wireless, the number one smartphone distributor in the United States, is fully committed to Windows Phone 8 distribution as the number two platform on its network, focusing on Nokia devices.

This is huge, as Verizon Wireless is the mobile telco that made Android.

Moreover, taking Verizon’s lead, just about all other US telcos – apart from Sprint, which evidently hasn’t a clue! – will also release Windows Phone 8 devices.

If you mix in the increasing number of OEMs bringing Windows 8 devices to market, then two of the pillars on which rested the success of Android are now committed to Windows Phones.

Finally, the profits to be wrung out of Windows Phones are greater than either the OEMs or mobile telcos could ever extract from Android. Also, add the fact that most of these OEMs are already paying a monetary tribute to Microsoft for their abetting of Google’s willful and unlawful infringement of Microsoft’s IP (intellectual properties) with Android. For which it then behooves them to deliver Windows Phones in order to mitigate that pain.

Abandoning your hero product
The misconception here is that Microsoft somehow threw Nokia under the bus as regards Nokia and the (current?) Lumia line of Windows Smartphones.

Not so.

While it seems so long ago, and I mentioned it several times on Twitter*, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was very definite in replying that Nokia was building Windows Phones – not Windows Phone 7x – devices all the times he was asked about the platform during the presser that announced the shift to Windows Phones by Nokia.

In fact, the myopic members of the press and blogosphere seem to have forgotten how quick they were to dismiss the Nokiasoft agreement because of this same fact.

Moreover, these folks were thus surprised that Nokia released the Lumia products when it did, since they were not expecting any Nokia products until Windows Phone 8.

Now that Nokia is moving on with Windows Phone 8, the new complaints are that Microsoft abandoned Nokia.

A little lesson is in order:

Nokia is currently Microsoft’s flagship Windows Phone OEM. Nokia’s Windows Phones have, in a short time, vaulted to the top of the heap where Windows Phones are concerned.

If anyone sincerely thinks that Nokia was unaware of Microsoft’s roadmap for Windows Phone is quite deluded. It is impossible that Nokia would have gone ‘all in’ with Microsoft if all pertinent information was not divulged.

Furthermore, apart from current owners of Nokia Lumia devices, who own perfectly good phones that will be upgraded gratis for them, the only ones worried about them are members of the media who have no vested interest in the future of the Lumias.

Relating to Metro will not happen instantly
This is just a throw-in.

There isn’t any empirical evidence of the unfriendliness of the Windows Phone UI.

In fact, there have been several published reports of the Windows Phone “Metro” UI being easier to use and master than any of the other smartphone operating systems out there.

That means that apart from the author’s anecdotal opinions, that point has no basis in fact, the wink-wink comedy value notwithstanding.

Finally
One of the things we must steadfastly ignore is a dependence on the noise in the blogosphere when we analyze situations.

Microsoft is a company that wants to make money, and most importantly, remain in the forefront of users’ minds when it comes to computing.

Abandoning mobiles isn’t the way to do so.

If Microsoft is going to lose this battle, it won’t be for the reasons mentioned in that tbreak.com article.

Bet on that!