Speaking at Microsoft's annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in LA CEO Steve Ballmer admitted that Windows Phone 7 has struggled to make an impression on smartphone consumers.
Though reticent to discuss actual figures, Ballmer claimed that Microsoft has sold millions of phones since the launch of the operating system.
Despite those sales Ballmer added in moving from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's mobile presence had "gone from very small to very small, but it's been a heck of a year. And you're going to see a lot of progress in that market competitively as we move forward."
Ballmer went on to promise that the recently announced Nokia Windows Phone 7 deal would yield exciting results, stressing that "[Nokia] had a choice this year: to bet on Android or to bet on Windows Phone - they believe.”
"We know we've got a lot to do, but like the cloud, like NT many years back, we're all in when it comes to mobile devices," he concluded. "And whether it's phones, or slates, or PCs, or console devices, we're certainly pushing extremely far, and extremely fast."
Ballmer's admissions regarding Windows Phone 7's slow take up were offset by the announcement that Windows 7 had achieved licence sales of 400 million in the past 12 months.
Source: Electric Pig
Comments
9This story is getting sadder and sadder. Everybody saw it coming exept them it seems.
It's a shame if true because WP7 is a brilliant mobile OS. The interface is better than the iphone imo. Knowing MS though they will stick with it and I imagine their market share will pick up once the fruits of the Nokia deal start to appear.
Win Phone 7 will come good i'm sure of it. MS are clearly making a huge push for this market and they have a good product with lots of big brands behind it (XBox live, ms office, internet explorer etc).
There is clearly a gap in the market for the £150 - £200 'good' phone, ie the phone people will buy if they can't afford an iphone but still want something nice. Android imo will wither and die, it's a complete mess of a platform and the lack of a unified os and essentially no brand presence to speak of will slowly force it out of the market leaving apple & ms as the big smart phone players.
I really like the WP7 interface too - it deserves more popularity. But Microsoft just hasn't done enough to update it. Apple constantly updated iOS as soon as the first iPhone came out, adding new apps and features so you always felt that it was getting better and better. It just doesn't feel like Microsoft is so committed to WP7.
Although I am one of those people who own a MAC and iPad and iPhone, I seriously hope that WP7 gains momentum.... I came seriously close to switching from an iPhone but my issue was not with the WP7 operating system, but rather with the build quality of the phones themselves that were quite terrible from some of the hardware providers... it is also difficult to break the iTunes services that all MAC owners have with their iDevices, as Ice King says, Apple are constantly evolving and adding features.
No competition to Apple is not a good thing at all.
Did you ever here of Android?
It doesn't matter if Windows Phone 7 is not a success. Microsoft's strategy is aggressive patent litigation, taking advantage of a broken system that awards obvious ideas over actual invention.
Microsoft make more money from Android shakedowns than in their own product. They would rather invest in their legal department than in building great products.
They deserve to fail, utterly disgusting.
FYI: If the idea is obvious it wouldn't get a patent.
That's the theory, that's what should happen. That doesn't happen, because the USPTO exclusively employ idiots.
Patents are for non-obvious inventions, but instead, are awarded for obvious ideas. They are wielded as weapons by companies who have no interest in building products. Take a look at the Lodsys lawsuits, or the patent for swinging on a swing...
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2178-boy-takes-swing-at-us-patents.html
The USPTO exclusively employ imbeciles.