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There is an saying that being number two to launch a great product is the best place to be beacause you can take everything the first one had and make it even better. The problem is though that if you become number three, your not even in the game anymore. So by that queue; say hello to Windows Phone. The new mother of all smartphone-operatingsystems together with Apple Phone OS and Android.

So what can Windows Phone bring to the table which will make it return to the spotlight as an alternative that consumers actually can think about choosing? First of all there will be a new UI for the system, more built for touch-screens this time. The new UI was based on the ‘Zune experience’ which I guess is a market decission more of an actual usabillity-decission. Secondly backup-functionallity where one can store information from the phone into the cloud (Vole’s cloud has been mentioned but I have no clear reference for this information). And third the system should get integrated support against the ‘Microsoft Appstore’ or what they this far has called just ‘Market Place’.

Microsoft have been an actor at the market for mobile phones for quite some years now and to be completly honest, their system have been by the worst choice for a consumer ever since the smartphones made their debute. An user interface made for a keyboard but handled by a touchscreen has lingered in their products which has made a smartphone running Windows Mobile utterly annoying. So how to couter a really bad product so that customers return? Flop the Vista card!

So, what do Vista has to do with Windows Phone? The truth is that they use the same marketing action here as they did to make people forget how bad Vista was. They change the name-domain and try to launch it all as a brand new product. Windows Vista evolved into Windows 7 and Windows Mobile 6 evolve into Windows Phone.

What makes me confused regarding the launch videos I’ve seen is that even though they say over and over again that this is designed for touchscreens – still there is small buttons here and there to which one must go into sharpshooting-mode to actually hit. This must be fixed Microsoft, please don’t build yet another skin to just strap over Windows Mobile. Rebuild the foundation and make the inovative parts be the actual core!

Yes this might lead to yet another Windows Vista (Mobile) which everyone will hate but at the same time you have the chance of correcting errors your customers have had to live with for years and years. If you really would like to skip the Vista-failure on the Mobile edition I have a small secret for you. If you create a product and let actual testers use the phone and then correct misstakes these testers might find – you will get a good product. Many tech-product-launches today seem to never read this part of product development and release beta-versions just to get the product on the market.

Is it not time to start introducing some prime products soon? I don’t want yet another beta.

References:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1495860/windows-phone-mobile-os-demonstrated

If you like me have read the articles and blogs about the E3-convention you have most likely heard of the Xbox Project Natal which will “change the way games are played”. In short there have been a piece of hardware developed which can look at the player and let the movement to be used as a controller in games. If you have seen those tv-shows where people run around in front of a green-screen looking at a monitor bolted on the side – this is more or less it.

The reactions from people seem to be pure amazement on how the intuity and uniqueness flashed around Microsoft in this solution. There have been thoughts on that this will kill of the Wii and that all gamers will start standing in front of their screens throwing stuff at other people on the screen which are throwing stuff at you. People who like to do these things are the “Nintendo-generation” which bought the Wii and will also buy the Wii 2. I don’t think that these people own an Xbox and probably wont do so either.

I must say that this is an idea which have been tested before with very poor results. All the movies shown this far have been with a poor response for the avatars on screen where delays of a second or two have been seen. At the same time there is nothing in these movies on the resolution for the “people scanner” which reads what the player actually do. For this to work they have to create something which in fact can compete with the Wii in response and simplicity. I don’t think this is it to be honest. Time may show me to be wrong in this but my gut-feeling is that this is another one of Microsofts attempts to do something good out of something great. Together with Bing the Natal will slowly fade away like a MMO with elfs and in a couple of years, be discontinued.

These are not the next big things in my book.

Xenovoyance do stuff

Ramblings on technology, entrepreneurship and design

Tag Archive for Microsoft

Technology

Windows Phone

by Martin Karlsson • October 7, 2009 • 0 Comments

Technology

Why Xbox Project Natal is NOT a game-changer

by Martin Karlsson • September 7, 2009 • 2 Comments