People ask me all the time why, if I think Windows Phone is such an excellent product, sales appear so lackluster. My belief is Microsoft’s approach with WP7 has a impedance mismatch with the carriers & device manufacturers while Google’s approach reduces friction with carriers & device manufacturers at the expense of end users. The question is: will end-user dissatisfaction with Android’s inconsistencies and fragmentation be strong enough to allow the better product to succeed.
via ceklog.kindel.com
I was very interested to read this blog post. The WindowsPhone "Metro" UI is certainly an interesting piece of work. My personal opinion is that after using it in a couple of incarnations I regard it as evolutionary not revolutionary.
However, the main point of this post and most insider debate within mobile is whether WP still has a chance not how effective the UI is.
And every time I read a post like this I think not. I don't mean to knock a great article from a thoughtful writer. What does surprise me is that this commentary was not an internal debate which got digested and incorporated into Microsoft's mobile planning about five years ago. And if not, that two years ago the writing on the wall would have forced it.
Instead we still see from both inside Microsoft and from their actions a willful ignorance of the market systems they operate in. Operator channels, retail reps, national chains, distributors, end consumers, technology blogs and writers, chipset manufacturers, hardware manufacturers, security threats, SarbOx- and HIPPA-style regulations all feed into the market system that a mobile player must align to succeed.
If you don't have a systematic understanding and approach to this complex and hyper world you will be dead. Which translates to about 3% market share.
