Windows Phone 7 Sales Continue To Struggle

rtfa-troll writes "Even with the pre-Christmas buying rush, Microsoft is already desperately offering a new buy one get one free offer similar to the ones they gave for the KIN. According to the article, 'Windows Phone 7 devices can't even manage two per cent of the fortnight's sales.' These aren't official Microsoft figures; they come from online shopping sites. But since Microsoft official sales figures seem subject to manipulation, this is perhaps one of the better guesses we will get at the success of Windows Phone 7 until well into next year. This also strongly backs up other reports of deeply disappointing phone sales. Even Microsoft supporters have been wondering for a while whether it's time for Ballmer to go. If the sales reports are true, then he may be pushed before he jumps."

Re:Less editorialization please

[bieber]

Without a shred of evidence? You didn't even have to RTFA, they quoted sales figures in the summary. The buy-one-get-one offer may or may not be indicative of poor sales, but I would say that actual records of being outsold many times over by your competitors definitely indicates poor sales...

Re:Slow sales..

[user]

Um, what? t-mobile has them right now (http://htc.t-mobile.com/hd7/hd7-windows-mobile-lp?WT.ac=0918HOM04) and Sprint (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370604,00.asp) and Verizon in early 2011 (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372743,00.asp)

Re:Less editorialization please

[rmcd]

Unless I'm missing something, it's a highly misleading summary. In the TFA, the quoted figures are from a UK price comparison site [mobilesplease.co.uk]. It's not sales, it's site visitors comparing phones.

There is a discussion of sales, but it's from an article dated Nov 9.

This is an embarrassing post, even by Slashdot standards.

Re:Less editorialization please

[Macthorpe]

Even better than that, the phones they're offering are the HTC Surround, LG Quantum or the Samsung Focus - not the more popular phones such as the Omnia or the HD7, which one can learn from other sources [eweek.com] are selling like the proverbial hot cakes.

A poor attempt, really.

Not too bad actually

[__aazsst3756]

Ars summed it up nicely, their launch numbers are not as bad as some are making it sound, certainly not horrible Windows phone 7 launch numbers explained. [arstechnica.com]

They have a lot to add to this new OS to catch the competition, but they know that, they simply had to ship. Overall it is a very well laid out OS with some great ideas. In the big picture the smartphone market is still very young. Microsoft has a lot of talented people, and backed into a corner Balmer might just let them perform. It is way too early to start pointing fingers and snickering.

Re:Less editorialization please

[zach_the_lizard]

There's also the sales of the first Android devices; the T-mobile G1 sold 1.5 million devices it sold before even being released [eweek.com]. The same article mentions the iPhone 3G selling 1 million devices in 3 days. Both of these phones are comparable to WP7; it's not like they are leagues apart. They are roughly comparable.

Re:Windows Phone 7 looks ugly (to me)

[sideslash]

It's understandable that you're not excited by that stock screenshot. But the whole point of the start screen is that is different for each person. It shows media customized to you -- social networking updates, contacts, photos. If you ever get a WP7 and watch it populate the start screen with stuff from your personal accounts, you will probably at least have a better appreciation for it, even if you still prefer Android or iOS. It's hard to explain, but it's the difference between seeing a row of cold, impersonal icons that 10 million other iOS users also see, versus (with really minimal setup) seeing a tile with your SO's photo and status, and other rich media that is very much individualized.

So will that approach resonate with the public? I have no idea. Time will tell.

Re:Learn from Honda

[NuShrike]

The wisdom from this is engines were Honda's passion, bread and butter. Everything MS does is about market dominance, no passion, they could care less about profits. As soon as they dominate, MS looses interest (IE, Windows Mobile, Microsoft Money, etc etc).

Re:Less editorialization please

[MichaelSmith]

The times I have posted a link on slashdot to my server I got different results. Windows was there but iPhones were surprisingly popular. Various linux distributions are right up there as well.

Re:Less editorialization please

[tomhudson]

Wait, how does a pro-open source tech site having majority Windows using readers prove open source is the biggest threat to Microsoft? You don't know the proportion of Windows users that are interested in Linux, you only know the proportion of tech site readers that use Windows. Are you really extrapolating tech site readership out to the general population?!

Read what I wrote. It wasn't ME making the claim. Microsoft's filings with the SEC make the claim that linux and open source are their biggest threat.

Better yet, Ballmer has been saying that linux is the #1 threat since 2001 [redhat.com]

June

Microsoft's Ballmer calls Linux the biggest threat to Microsoft.

And they also admitted it to the SEC in official filings in 2009 [mybroadband.co.za]

So, why are they so scared? Because it threatens their stack, which includes Office, their one true cash cow.

They've never turned an annual profit with servers.

They've been a complete loss in terms of revenue from HPC, and are abandoning the field.

Ditto for corporate projects like the stock exchange mess, that they totally failed at.

Windows doesn't bring in all that much money. Most people simply don't buy it retail. The real money is in the "software assurance" program, and in Office. Get rid of those, and Microsoft is a perennial money loser.

And linux has been used as a threat to dump the software assurance program, which most businesses don't need, since they can now get by with doing a cheap hardware refresh instead with the money they save. Desktops no longer cost $2k apiece.

So that leaves Office. The one solid, year-in, year-out, for 15 years #1 profit center. And people are asking "why upgrade any more? What I've got is good enough."

If you don't need to upgrade, and the vendor tries to force an upgrade on you, and you have a choice, it's time for the vendor to cut prices. Office will continue to be a cash cow for the next decade, but that's about it.

I don't come here to be enlightened. I come for a fight.

Well, at least you're up front about your pro-ms trolling ...

Re:Less editorialization please

[recoiledsnake]

Utter nonsense. G1 sold 1 million after 6 months. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10226034-94.html [cnet.com]

And how can you compare iPhone 3G to the first release of a new platform?

Also, TFA extrapolates sales from one deals site in the UK to the rest of the world.

Re:Microsoft releases actual cow turd as phone

[westyvw]

Because 1. You were not forced to upgrade Ubuntu, 2. You could test the upgrade or create a burnable DVD of your environment to revert to, or 3. Switch distros while saving all of your own data (and preferences if you wish). You have options, its your data, its your freedom to use the software in ways that arent always expected.

On a side note: Sorry to hear about the Ubuntu. As with any upgrade its best to be prepared with backups. I havent experienced pain from Ubuntu lately but I dont trust it to desktop environments other than laptops.