yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Phone 7 General] Captpt:
I think you all are on the right track, marketing for WP was and is piss poor on MS's part, tiles was inventive but needs more customization which hopefully WP8 will correct and utilize better. Hardware wise I really don't believe Nokia's approach of coming out with cheap phones to compete with Android is smart though, if nothing else MS should keep Windows phones at a high standard (you don't see a cheap version of iPhones ever released) which if nothing else always let's the consumers know quality is always #1.

I've said it before, I am not a Android fanboy and did have a WP7 Focus so I'm not trolling here rather keeping an open mind and honestly hoping WP8 can deliver, I'm actually a Windows lover(PC wise) and would come back to WP if they correct the shortcomings I personally feel WP offered with WP7... If given a choice of Windows phone or a iPhone I'dd go Windows without hesitation but at the moment Android offers what I want and need, hopefully MS listens to consumers and makes the improvements needed to push it's way into the top 2...

What baffles me is with all the money and resources MS has in its grasp how could they spend so little on marketing and slow WP improvements? We're taking about a worldwide OS/software giant here..
[Windows Phone 7 General] nicksti:
This may sound offensive but here goes:

If you believe the average customer is an idiot/sheep then you will believe Windows Phone's poor marketing is responsible for its position.

Most of us in here admit that Windows Phone still has some catching up to do. That is the Mango 7.5 version. It was even worse in the launch version.

Do we really believe you can market a donkey as a racehorse and get millions of people to continually buy? Chalk me up as naive because my answer is no.

I mean to say "marketing" is the reason overlooks iOS/Android's marketshare, apps, and features advantage. There is a reason why I did not buy into the first launch of Windows Phones despite loving the OS and watching tons of videos and reading tons of reviews. It did not do what I needed it to then. Now I am looking for a cheap unlocked 900 in blue! :cool:
[Windows Phone 7 General] AndyFZ1S:
^^ Agreed, On first launch I was seriously disappointed in WP7, before nodo and Mango even existed, I remember the adverts "Really!" lol, I stuck with it for a while then went back to a HD2 Wm6.5, Reason? It didn't do what I was familiar with and seemed lika an incomplete OS, Which is exactly what it was, Now it is worthy of consideration as Mango and Tango have added most of the missing bells and whistles, Simple things like sending a video clip or a custom ringtone were not possible before, The Lumia 900s under the Tango update even keep wi-fi going under screen lock, A minor annoyance to some but also a big deal to others, The OS is getting there and it has taken time but most things do, Advertised or not if someone wants something they will buy it.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Ineedtoys:
Now who's quoting from ignorance. There are configurable backgrounds on many screens - just not the home and applications list. With very good reason.

Replacing the home background wouldn't really bring that much extra to WP7. There's already plenty of visual and eye-catching action going on as soon as you pick up the phone, with animated Live tiles and application backgrounds, including rotating pictures in the People and Me tiles, ever changing favourite images (including from Facebook) in the double-sized Pictures tile, rotating album art in the Music & Videos tile, any image you like as wallpaper in the Lock screen, dynamic backgrounds in the Bing and Marketplace screens, and if that's not enough, live content from 3rd party app tiles like RSS, Weather, Maps, Stocks, fitness tracker achievements, the list goes on.

Add all that up and there's far more going on visually to catch the eye in WP7 than boring old Android or iOS.

It should be obvious now why "backgrounds" weren't prioritised. WP7 doesn't need them Seriously. what practical use are backgrounds on a home screen (other than detract from the 'clean lines' ethic and waste battery on AmoLED screens)? Who cares if the background is purple and black instead of black like your "example"?

Not that WP7 is perfect, what is? What we do need are improvements that bring real functionality to a phone. Application folders, independent music / volume controls, screen rotate lock, status bar lock, to name a few. And the best constructive thing you can think of is backgrounds? Pah.
[Windows Phone 7 General] nicksti:
Here is the problem with taking that stance on backgrounds not being needed:

You will alienate the person who wants his cat as the background.

It is like the vanity mirror in the sun visor of cars. If you do not put one in for good reason, you may scare away the women who check that feature first when they sit inside the car.

Some decisions I understand. If Apple/MS decides they do not allow other keyboards because of what apps can do (keylog) I understand but custom ringtones and wallpapers? I do not get it. In the quest for live tiles and wake to camera I think people should not forget the lady gaga ringtones or the lolcat wallpapers.
[Windows Phone 7 General] dazza9075:
I do think the average customer is an idiot and a sheep, in fact let me correct that, i know that the AVERAGE customer is. The mere fact you are on this website tells us that you are not an average customer but given the number of mobile users out there i can say with out a shaddow of a doubt that yes you could sell a donkey as a race horse, i know a wee bit about this given that its my job ;)

not selling donkeys but marketing :D

Most users couldnt care less about the number of apps, most users couldnt list more than a couple off the top of their heads, apps are not a selling point. UNLESS you make it a selling point which is what the others have done. Its like quad core phones

really? you honestly telling me that a quad core phone is going to make the lives of an average user any better? hell no, but as a marketing tool its a gold mine

Actually Something that Windows may have in the future is a unfied OS.

It doesnt need to be the same, it just needs to appear to be the same, Phone, xbox, computer, tablet, laptop you name it, if it has a common feel about it, users will trip over themselves to use it, it'll be like a giant magnet because that is what they associate with, but it will only work if MS can pull their finger out and market it properly.

Nokia started some good funky adds, there was a period of time a couple of months ago that Nokia ads where everywhere and it did well, but then it vanished.

the issue is, MS isnt marketing the OS, or didnt i should say, it let the user base get an idea about what the OS should be and that stuck solid, so when the phone landed it was never going to be what they wanted. It doesnt take much traction for a bad marketing campaign to become its achilies heel.

In the marketing world everyone is treated as a sheep or an idiot, you just need to change the way you "handle" potential clients depending on what it is your trying to sell and within the market you aim for the area that will give you the highest return, in this case thats the sheep, the ones that will buy without thining too much.

that is the sad truth of the matter im afriad, making you feel like a value customer is just part of the act, that actually sounds terrible but i cant be any more honest with you, thats the way it is!
[Windows Phone 7 General] thebobp:
Basically, anyone who's tempted by first impressions.

Which is like, 100% of the everyman. He's not going to have weeks to rationalize it like you do; he wants to decide on a phone, and hopefully quickly! A beautiful background (not like mine; I know I have bad taste) can go a hell of a long way toward this.

This one should be interesting. What "very good reason" is there not to have launcher backgrounds?

Also, are you an ad-bot by any chance?
[Windows Phone 7 General] ohgood:
It would be interesting to know why the salesperson did that. Maybe ask him ?
[Windows Phone 7 General] Ineedtoys:
You clearly have no experience of WP7 and haven't listened to anything I said. Taking your cat as an example.

You can have your favourite cat as a fullscreen wallpaper on the Lock screen so it immediately greets you every time you turn on the phone. Take that stock Android.

You can load all your cutest cat pictures so they give a nice slideshow on the double-sized Pictures tile while the phone is idle.

You can configure the contact pics of all your feline owning friends to be of their cats so they constantly twinkle in the People tile.

You can swap lots of pics with your friends on Facebook so they dynamically show up in the Me tile.

You can load up your favourite cat videos, and cat-inspired music tracks with cat-themed album art, so they do a slideshow in the Music and Videos tile.

You can set the background in the Pictures application to be your favourite cat photo, or to shuffle through all your photo collection including from Skydrive.

If that's not satisfied your craving for furry things, you can long-press the Start key, say 'Cats', touch Go, then the Images tab, and have thousands of cat wallpapers and photos from Bing to choose from to save or share in any of the above.

All this out of the box with no 3rd party apps, rooting, or flashing required. For a cat lover, that would knock Android for a six, wouldn't it? And you're complaining about the lack of a poxy launcher background?
[Windows Phone 7 General] AndyFZ1S:
If only you were in charge of marketing for Windows Phone, You have just sold it so well in just a few paragraphs, In real world terms it doesn't take much to get a message across by saying so little, I hope Microsoft are listening in on this Thread :)
[Windows Phone 7 General] Ineedtoys:
Yes but your analogy fails because that sun visor has a practical function, for both sexes. It allows you to check your make up, hairdo, collar & tie, or have a last minute shave, so that you're looking your best before getting out of the car.

Since we've already established that WP7 already gives you more (and quicker) ways to see your cat (and other peoples' cats) than any other OS, what additional functionality, or time-saving feature, would a launcher background bring to that table? Absolutely nothing.
[Windows Phone 7 General] _Variable:
The real reason wp7 is not popular is because less devs make wp apps and that means lesser choices for apps. that and the fact that there are no free apps in the marketplace aside from social networks. Microsoft should force cable makers to only air wp commercials so that lots of devs and people would start using it. But since MS doesnt control tv commercials, the marketshare of wp users would still be small, but will slowly grow.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Ineedtoys:
Good grief. More absolute made-up fact nonsense. Where do these people crawl out from? There are loads of free, and very high quality, apps on WP7 apart from social networking. Either do some research or go pimp your Apple loving website elsewhere.
[Windows Phone 7 General] ohgood:
Think you've got it backwards... devs will flock after the platform has sales to justify investing time, money, and ideas in it.

Commercials may help, but when someone thinks "time for a new __________ " they don't finish the sentance with "microsoft phone seven point five phone" but instead finish with "iphone" or "droid" or "android".
[Windows Phone 7 General] Andy:
No need to get *****y with each other. Remember to have courtesy to other, even new members. Even new members who love apple ;)

Aside from that the real reason WP7 isn't popular is because I don't use it.
[Windows Phone 7 General] fatclue:
Jeez dude, don't throw out your shoulder patting yourself on the back. JK, I'm fluent in sarcasm too.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Shadow Samurai:
I feel your pain. My dad has a Hd7 and he loves it. I personally like it too because of the smoothness etc. But with the lack of a substantial app market at the moment, and customization(closed source) I'm sticking with my Android.
[Windows Phone 7 General] sitizenx:
Mythbusting

Nice analysis only a couple of problems. What if someone wants a "smooth easy to use experience" but they also want a 4.3" screen, LTE, oh and they want the phone free on contract instead of paying $199? Any iphones do that?

Most Andriod users don't even know what a ROM is.

I think we can say this myth is busted.
[Windows Phone 7 General] AndyFZ1S:
Think you just hit the nail on the head, The reason WP7 isn't popular is because it's an old persons phone :eek: probably why I love it so much :p

If I bought my Son a Windows Phone he would probably slap me.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Ineedtoys:
I would have been nicer had he not come out with crap like "the fact that there are no free apps in the marketplace aside from social networks.".
[Windows Phone 7 General] sitizenx:
Have you seen Windows Phone? There is hardly any real estate on the homepage for backgrounds and most well written apps have their own custom background.

Where are you going to put a meaningful background on this...
[Windows Phone 7 General] Andy:
No harm was done, and it wasn't purely aimed at you. I agree, users who post "information" that is not backed by fact or cannot be supported should be called out, but in a less demeaning way.
[Windows Phone 7 General] anseio:
Thus the makings of a bad salesman. Never tell the customer that what they want is inferior. SHOW them how the phone they want WON'T meet there needs. Or show them how the supposed superior Android phone will actually meet the customers needs and skill level.

Coming from a customer service/support background, I can't stand sales people who don't know their rears from a hole in the ground.
[Windows Phone 7 General] nicksti:
Wow. You are being absolutely fanatical about WP and not seeing the forest for the trees. And to be clear, I was not talking about my needs.

But let me get this straight (I deal with consumers 6 days a week), you are telling me that if I tell you I want my cat to be my wallpaper on my phone you think it is an adequate response to tell someone of all the various ways they can get their cat to display on their phone, but not as the wallpaper?

Seriously?

You are telling someone what they want, not addressing what they want. But something tells me based on the attitude of tech people that is okay.

(addressing another post)

The average consumer is not an idiot. Ignorant (not knowledgeable) but not an idiot. We all have different areas of expertise and someone my know alot about home improvements and tools but nothing about cpus and gpus.

Tech people are elitists. Elitists will never get it. (my bad generalization of the day)
[Windows Phone 7 General] Ineedtoys:
Not forgetting

The DVP would have been the perfect device for me if the battery had lasted more than 6 hours. But the 7Pro is still in daily use as my mobile office.

Shame the QWERTY keyboard has now been relegated to something solely for teenage texters by the fashion police, who, like their VPL-hating, size-zero cat-walk counterparts, think at all that matters is thin, thin, thin. That's the long term affect you get when so-called designers, 'salesmen' and their gullible buyers become too brainwashed to think that sometimes variety, and a bit of flesh on bone, can be good.
[Windows Phone 7 General] nicksti:
You are taking Aphasaic too literally. I can see he/she was trying to be concise. BBs are phones that are very strong business phones / messaging phones. BBM is the best in that space. The keyboards are well designed and the phones are comfortable. The DVP is big. And obscure.

I cannot see why this whole topic is so difficult about WP popularity. In order to grab share or get people to switch you need to provide something that is an improvement, whether real or perceived.

Does Windows Phone give the average consumer enough of an incentive to switch? The answer is no. The average person is happy with his current iPhone/SGS2.
[Windows Phone 7 General] sitizenx:
Is that why Blackberry is going out of business?

Well your assumption is that for the past 2 or 3 years everyone had an iphone or Andriod phone. That is clearly not the case. I had a Windows Mobile device and then dropped smartphones all together once they started demanding we have data plans. I switched to a feature phone. I switched from a feature phone to Windows Phone because the Lumia 900 was free and came with Nokia Drive. 50% of people in the US still don't have a smartphone. If MSFT gets a third of them to switch to Windows Phone Windows Phone will be considered a success. Switching people from other smartphones is only one part of the game. Oh and yeah the Lumia 900 definitely offered a better experience than any number of Andriod or iphones offered at the same price.
[Windows Phone 7 General] fatclue:
I agree with the majority of your post except no one here knows exactly what the "average" consumer is. Who is MS targeting? Really, can anybody here answer that with a firm conviction? Unless you've been in boardroom meetings and know the MS White Papers verbatim, we're all just "analysts" (from another thread). Based on what I see in WP7 it would appear to me that MS is first trying to lure enterprise customers away from RIM while at the same time putting out enough of a product to gauge Suzy Homemaker's reaction. The exclusive Office integration is not for texting teens, that has business written all over it. What amazes me is that you cannot send a PDF document as an email attachment. You can use Handyscan to make a PDF image and attach it but that's not a very salable solution. For that reason alone, I have use an old Windows Mobile iPaq as well as my DVP.
[Windows Phone 7 General] Ineedtoys:
No, not fanatical. Just telling it as it is, with worked practical examples, and becoming frustrated by people who find it impossible to think outside of the box, and insist that a "wallpaper" can only be something that sits on your desktop covered in icons, just like it was on their Windows 95 PC.

No. I am listening to what they want to achieve (e.g. see their cat every time they use their phone), then offering the best solution I know of that will do that job in the best way possible.

You can't expect customers to know every feature of every phone and OS when they walk in the shop. Hell, even in this smartphone developers' site and thread, we have people spouting off with no idea what WP7 can do.

Aside from the fashion statement of the case, at the end of the day a smartphone is a pocket pc (small p), and like any computer buying decision, you would look at the statement of requirements and user story before even thinking about what hardware, OS and application suite is best for the job. Once you've matched up the feature lists, often that outcome will be significantly be different to their initial expectations.

You also need to differentiate between those who come in for a 5-minute, cash and carry sale, and those who want confirmation that the phone they have at the top of the list will really do what they need. Even if they don't admit it outright due to pride, many people are looking for that reassurance before committing to buy. If only for a get-out and someone to blame should they later realise the device it's not for them. They may have read a few reviews and anecdotes, but for something as personal as a phone, tied into a long contract, that's no match for trying it out in reality.

So back to the cat wallpaper lover. Ask why they want the wallpapers. If seeing the cat is all they want, show them how its done on a 'standard' phone. Draw attention to the fact that much of Kitty's face is hidden behind launcher icons. Then suggest there is another way they might like to see which would show them much more. Cue cat-magic WP7 phone.

Of course, if they decide that's not for them and they really do want a phone with a static, mostly obscured wallpaper, that's their decision, and we can proceed with the sale. But at least they will have had the alternatives shown to them to make that an informed decision.

If I were to adopt your approach, and blithely take "I want that phone because it can show wallpapers" as gospel every time, or just say iPhone because it was easy and saves me knowing other products inside out, I'd be a crap salesman, and most importantly, doing the customer a huge disservice.[/QUOTE]
[Windows Phone 7 General] sitizenx:
The Average Smartphone User

This guy does...
[Windows Phone 7 General] fatclue:
Yep, he's got it all figured out, the thread should have ended with his. Man, we got some nerve debating him for 42 pages.
[Windows Phone 7 General] ohgood:
I did it ! I finally "got" sarcasm over the internets ! Woohoo !
[Windows Phone 7 General] nicksti:
Um, you are trying to promote Windows Phone, not listening to what they want to achieve. In Android and iOS, a user can (like a PC user would) set his/her wallpaper as Spots the cat. That is a simple feature that is present on BB/iOS/Android. Do I need to do it? No. I also do not need multiple homescreens. I love WP's boring simplicity. But I am not the average customer. If people do it, and all your competitors have it you should have it too.

So that means they do not make good business phones?

I am not suggesting people cannot be happy with Windows Phone, or it will not serve the average consumer's needs once they understood what it could do (if sales reps were better trained to sell the phones). My only point is Windows Phone does not give a compelling reason to a user to switch from iOS or Android right now.

To chalk up Windows Phone's failures to marketing is to overlook the shortcomings the OS has. And then we all have learnt nothing.

Question: Has Windows Phone caught up with Android and iOS in features and apps?
[Windows Phone 7 General] sitizenx:
Blackberry hostages

Blackberry's success in the past was due to security. The security was not primarily because of the handset. The backbone of the security was the back end servers and network. A lot of corporate customers would have jumped ship from Blackberry handsets a long time ago but their IT departments will not let them use anything that does not provide the security of the Blackberry system.

If you think the people that are stilling hanging on to Blackberry are all there by choice or because they like the OS or handsets you are deluding yourself. EVERY organization that has allowed their workforce to use something other than a Blackberry has seen a drop in the number of Blackberry users.

---------- Post added at 06:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:20 PM ----------

Sounds like they need better marketing.

And as I've said 50% of people in the US don't even own smartphones. There is tons of fertile ground for someone with a decent marketing campaign to grow their market share.

To deny marketing is the problem is to overlook the fact Apple sold tens of millions of handsets with those exact same "shortcomings."