The Windows Phone Problem in Three Words: Way Too Late.

MG Siegler:

Two to three years in the hole, the only way Windows Phone can win the market now is to make a product that is leaps and bounds better than what’s out there. They need something that’s an iPhone-in-2007 type product. The product they have, while good, isn’t that.

It’s not enough to be better. (And we can argue as to whether iOS or Android or Windows Phone is better.) You need to present a product so good that people have to buy it. Windows Phone isn’t close to being that. I’m sorry, but it’s just not.

That’s the flip side of the problem for Microsoft. They don’t have strong carrier support because the carriers prefer Android, which gives them more control. And they don’t have consumer demand because they were too late. (And, as I’ve said before, I think the “Windows” brand hurts them here. Windows Phone 7 doesn’t sound like a new platform. It sounds like an old one. They should have called it Metro 1.0)

★ Tuesday, 27 December 2011