It Costs $450 In Marketing To Make Someone Buy a $49 Nokia Lumia 363
benfrog writes "According to market-share estimations compared to marketing dollars, it costs nearly ten times as much to sell the Windows Phone-based Nokia Lumia as it does to buy one. Other analysts agree with the low sales numbers."
Subsidized price (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of that Nokia is trying to capture US market, so they can spend more on it while they generate revenue from rest of the world.
Re:Subsidized price (Score:2, Insightful)
in europe we make it a sport not to buy any product that advertises too much, like nokia did in europe :D
it doesn't work on us anymore.
I Wish (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows Phone needs a hook (Score:4, Insightful)
The iPhone worked because people could use it as an iPod, and it had the whole exclusive iTunes infrastructure behind it.
Blackberry's killed it with their keyboard.
Android didn't get popular until the Droid came out with their keyboard, giving it that differentiation from the iPhone, and that it was available outside of Cingular/AT&T.
Windows phone doesn't really offer any exclusive hook that'll sell itself. It has a nice UI, but the other systems are pretty good and ultimately very usable.
I suspect they'll have to tie in deeper with the upcoming Windows 8 infrastructure to get Windows Phone to sell. Or maybe XBox games. But right now it doesn't have that absolutely exclusive must-have killer app or selling point.
It's really shame, because Windows phone is a perfectly fine system that just needs a critical mass to get going.
Unfortunately, Nokia has no Steve Jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter how you feel about the late Mr. Steve Jobs, that guy was a real asset to Apple, Inc.
The marketing department of Apple, Inc. did not need to "sell" their wares as much as their peers in other companies (like Nokia or RIM, for example), as Mr. Jobs himself had done most of the selling.
There is a double whammy for Nokia, though
By abandoning all their previous phone OSes, and blindly adopted the Microsoft Windows as their one-and-only OS, many Nokia users - even those who had used Nokia for many years - had started looking at offerings from competing brands - from Apple, to Samsung, to (at a lesser degree), RIM.
Re:Subsidized price (Score:2, Insightful)
If the list is a joke as you say then you shouldn't have any problem rebutting it. All I see is instead of a rebuttal, you make a lame excuse for why one of the points in particular is actually true. Makes me wonder how many more of the "jokes" are true as well. The deafening sound of crickets make me think quite a lot of them. I considered buying a Lumia 900 since they are practically giving them away now but after reading this, no freaking way and I'll be sure to steer my friends far away too.
Re:Too Soon (Score:4, Insightful)
"the mobile phone platform will become alot more appealing to many people who want the familiarity of their PC on their phone. "
(remove shoe, bang on table)
Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!
That's one of the biggest problems with Microsoft.
Average people's idea of Windows: something annoying they have to use at work or on their PC, DO NOT WANT.
I had a Windows Mobile 5.x, and they obviously attempted to make it "look like" and sort of feel-like Windows XP. It was horrid. I got it for free from somebody who bought an early iPhone (2 or 3G?).
Jobs understood the problem from the beginning. He did NOT shove the Mac interface on the iPhone. Why? Because he had the balls to say that something whose interface he personally contributed to or at least vetted would not be good on a handheld phone.
Now Microsoft STILL fails to correctly learn the lesson, and after a major fail putting a craptastic XP on their phone, they are putting a phone interface and craptasticing Windows on the PC.
I know what people will feel: DO NOT WANT.
Microsoft should do something more radical, like not call their mobile phone operating system "Windows", and stop believing that there is any reason to have the same interface. Start by making something good, really good--and by the new name declare that the sublimation of everything to supporting the Great Windows Empire is now over. For this to happen, Ballmer needs to be fired first. Why is he still there?
Re:Subsidized price (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Subsidized price (Score:3, Insightful)
5. Only support up to 16GB storage (Dell Venue Pro comes in up to 32GB, you can put a 32GB uSD card in most of the HTC ones if you open them up, the Samsung Focus can reach 40 with an added 32GB card).
8. Your contact details are automatically uploaded to cloud service whether you like it or not. (You don't have to use this. The phone loses functionality if you don't, but it is optional.)
22. Only photos allowed as email attachments, documents not allowed. (Flat out false)
24. Cannot stream audio from video playback to Bluetooth devices as A2DP profile is not implemented. (A2DP is definitely supported, but using it with video is not because many A2DP receivers [most notably, as found in cars, contrary to the claim of #23] add significant lag that makes the video and audio end up out of sync
27. Cannot silence ringtone or alarm by flipping the phone. (False, HTC titan does this)
Opinion - 28. Very limited customization option.
33. Lockscreen need to be activated to show missed call/sms notification. (False this is right on the lockscreen)
35. Tiny fonts in messages is very hard to read for those over 45 (Ppinion, not objective)
36. Cannot create and save playlists on the phone. (Flat out false)
39. Cannot close music player, can only pause. Music player on lockscreen will stay until you reboot. Be careful not to touch it in a meeting. (This *is* stupid, but there's a free app explicitly to clear the currently-playing list.)
42. Online and phone contacts are mixed together with no ability to filter. (False)
46. Cannot recognize phone numbers in sms or email to save or use as calling number. (Quite simply flat-out false.)
50. Apps are listed alphabetically with no way to group by category. (False, apps are grouped by category in hubs)
61. No screenshots or app to do it. (There is an app. I don't think it's in the Marketplace yet, but it's been around homebrew sites for ages and is being submitted.)
69. Cannot open zip or rar files received as email attachment. (Total lie where ZIP is concerned; I do this all the time.)
72. No native Google maps and Bing maps is useless for most countries outside U.S. (Depends how you define "most" but it worked for me in Thailand, for example.)
80. Cannot send/receive MMS without enabling 3G data connection. MMS does not use 3G data (Lie; MMS does use exactly the same service as "normal" data including 3G. The carrier just bills it differently.)
81. Phone cannot be charged when off. (Misleading; phone turns on when plugged in.)
83. Oversized fonts for headings waste screen space and result in low information density (Pure opinion)
85. Phone can be rebooted without entering security code (this can easily be done to any phone.)
93. Call history does not show the time of call for calls older than current day. (False)
94. Cannot set custom sounds for different types of notifications. (False)
100. Cannot change alarm ring tone (False)
103. Zune does not allow user to add or update podcasts directly from the phone (False)
105. Alarm does not revert to speaker if headphones are plugged in. (False)
109. Wifi- hotspot and internet tethering not integral features in the OS but need to be provided by manufacturer on a case by case basis (False)
112. Embedded images in emails do not download (False)
117. Cannot be charged up when battery is completely dead. (False)
119. No HDMI output (False)
121. No over the air (OTA) firmware upgrade. All upgrades must be via PC installed Zune. (The OS is capable of it. MS hasn't used this because they want to be able to recover the phone in the case of a problem mid-update.)
As for the OS being a failure, that depends on how you want to measure it I guess. It hasn't gained great marketshare in the past 2 years true, but these
Re:Subsidized price (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Subsidized price (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unfortunately, Nokia has no Steve Jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
Who says dumbphones need a multi-purpose OS?! It is actually in the best interest of a dumbphone to be dumb and not have such things as preemtive multitasking, apis, etc as they all takes cpu cycles - battery power. 2016 is a long time away and I am pretty sure Nokia has the experience and dev staff to clobber together a dumbphone and its software in 2 years.
Re:Subsidized price (Score:5, Insightful)
What's *really* weird is that the iPhone has some of those same limitations and yet it is wildly successful ...
The difference is that the iPhone got there first, so whatever problems remain, people learned to live with them. The whole trouble with the Windows Phone is that it's late to the party, so to actually be accepted it would need to be superior to the iPhone, not just on par, as just being on par won't make people switch. Why waste time learning a new phone OS when it has no advantage over the old one and still a lot of the same problems?
Re:Subsidized price (Score:5, Insightful)
"Apple" is a positive brand. You attach it to something and the something gains percieved value.
"Windows" and "Microsoft" are not positive brands. You attach "Windows" to something, and people immediately think of their home PC. That is not a good thing given how awful the average home PC is.
There's also first mover advantage for the iPhone, things that people do care about like very high resolution displays & games, and Microsoft's well earned reputation for killing their media products on a whim (which they just did to all WP7 devices). But even if it was just as good as the iPhone they'd be facing an uphill battle simply due to the Windows name. Windows is a brand you tolerate, not one that inspires loyalty.
Re:Subsidized price (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if only stuff being added to Windows Phone 8 was in any way useful to people buying a Lumia today...
Saying "it's fixed in 8" is totally meaningless when current phones can't be upgraded. Why would anybody in their right mind want to buy a Lumia right now knowing that? Microsoft threw the current lineup of phones under the bus on that one.
Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me guess, when Ballmer did the monkey dance, you were the one person in the world who was sexually aroused?
I have seen some delusional posts in my time but this one takes the biscuit. You don't deny any of the shortcomings, just come up with endless excuses or even downright admitting it is a huge failure and that is what you think of as a rebuttal.
With fans like you, what need has Windows 7 of enemies. You are supposed to damn things with faint praise, not by dragging them through the mud and stepping on their wind pipe.
Thanks for this amazing post, if I had even the slightest incline to perhaps one day try a MS phone, you have thoroughly killed it off. Oh I get, you are secretly an Apple fanboy and seek to discredit MS in disguise? Good job!
Re:Subsidized price (Score:4, Insightful)
For the record, I sell these things for a living, and have had a WP7 (now 7.5) phone in my pocket for nearly 24 months. It's not perfect, but I like it, a lot, and I really expected not to when I received my first device.
8. Your contact details are automatically uploaded to cloud service whether you like it or not.
Wrong, this can be disabled. I don't have a single contact stored in the cloud on my LG Optimus Quantum. It's actually never had a data features used, 3G or WiFi.
Wait, you sell them, but you've never used most of the features? You've never used the web browser, a social networking app, a map? Have you made a call with it yet?