Windows Phone 7 – Genuine Competition?
Last week Microsoft has finally unveiled Windows Phone 7, their most anticipated announcement in mobile since, well, Windows Mobile 6.5 a couple of years ago. 6.5, like all previous iterations, was pretty much an unmitigated disaster, one last final attempt to cram a PC operating system into a handset. It barely made a ripple in the consumer consciousness.
But will Windows Phone 7 put Microsoft firmly back into the mobile game?
Some would argue no, recently TechCrunch commented that “it’s an iOS, Android and Blackberry world now and there isn’t room for anyone else” but this seems to be a pretty narrow minded and extremely U.S. centric view. Nokia’s smart phones (much maligned in recent years) still out strip all of the above in terms of market share so I reckon we’re some way off an Apple, Google and RIM dominated market place, especially when you consider their are 5 billion active mobile users globally!
WP7 has a couple of tricks up its sleeve that could prove extremely useful. The obvious being the Windows recognition factor. Whilst the Windows brand may have taken something of a hammering at the hands of Apple their success does not depend on converting Apple or Android for that matter, fanboys. There are millions of people currently using ‘dumb phones’ who are looking to upgrade and this is where the familiarity of Microsoft and Windows will play a significant role in drawing people towards WP7.
Its other major strength is that Microsoft has imposed significant quality control on its hardware partners. Essentially they all have to conform to the same guidelines and the great thing about this is that it ensures the WP7 experience is almost identical on all handsets, weather it’s an HTC, Samsung, Dell etc. Without this quality control user experience can vary hugely from handset to handset, a problem Android is somewhat familiar with.
Developers like this too because it means they don’t have to worry about the varying performance of their apps depending on the handset. So if uptake is good developers won’t hesitate to take up WP7.
However, with iphone, Android and Blackberry taking up all the’ mind share’, Nokia releasing a raft of new handsets and doing 2.5 million downloads a day on Ovi store, Microsoft must get it right first time. There is very little room for error.
The mobile market is vast and smart phones are a continually growing part of that, there is plenty of room for WP7 and initial impressions are that it has every chance of succeeding. Competition is not only good but vital in this sector; it pulls innovation along at an ever increasing pace and drives greater smartphone reach into the consumer mobile segment. The greater the choice available, the quicker the sector grows and sooner we’re able to plan to genuinely mass reach mobile campaigns. Now all we need is the network providers to focus on improving their networks rather than on providing additional services nobody wants!