News - WP7 tipped to debut on 21 October

[usxhe190]

Whilst I find it useful like everybody else - as has been pointed out Apple managed just fine without it for years (amusingly WM actually did this before and throughout) so it's obviously not a 'killer' feature to 99% of punters. Far more critical (and MS know this) is Apps - and this is where WP7 will struggle the most to justify itself (but then again, everything has to start somewhere). MS do have very good tools to build Apps with, as well as some instant sell with Windows/Silverlight/XNA devs because of the obvious crossover. Also, I guess the XBox integration is going to big for some and it'll be interesting to see how it fares as a gaming platform given their obvious desires in that area.

Personally, I'm pretty interested to play around with this - the GUI has some interesting ideas (substantially different from Apple incidentally) and ultimately that's what shifts smartphones. The iPhone never fitted well with me (far too restrictive) and so that really only leaves Android (which my current phone is running) as an alternative.

Everything has it's weakness - iOS is restrictive and the GUI is looking dumb, Android can't compete in games (this is changing with froyo and market share) and WP7 has only just arrived (and therefore lacks completeness compared to more mature platforms). Apple and Google won't be sitting back and thinking "aha! no copy and paste!" though - MS is certainly a company capable of coming from nowhere, being underestimated and punching the competition in the nuts (ask Sony).

S'all good tho - more the merrier, better the innovation and the more fun for us lot.

True, but I think there are two markets here, the business and the consumer market. In the consumer market, apps (games) is king.

In the business market, I think cut and paste is important and integration is important. It's not a dealbreaker obviously but given RIM can do this on day 1 and are much more established, they can't rock their boat with this OS at the moment which is needed in the business space as there isn't much competition to RIM since they are doing the business market pretty well.

As for the consumer market, yes, they need apps and games!

[miniyazz]

Ask Apple why it took so many months for them to implement it on the iOS?

All features have a 'cost' some of them are deemed critical, some like teathering regrattably matter a lot more to me, than to 95% of users....

I'm not even going to start on Apple's marketing/implementation of features, but I'm sure we can all agree that they deliberately handicap their products so that more people will buy the next version with some of those handicaps removed. Which works for them, and it's a free country, so..

[dangel]

In the business market, I think cut and paste is important and integration is important. It's not a dealbreaker obviously but given RIM can do this on day 1 and are much more established, they can't rock their boat with this OS at the moment which is needed in the business space as there isn't much competition to RIM since they are doing the business market pretty well.

That's true but RIM aren't gaining any more and Apple are (AFAIK) absolutely nowhere in it either. WM was (is?) and WP7 might be purely because the office integration looks very good (i'm keen to play with this part). Then again - feet on floor - my company uses Lotus Notes (help) and Blackberries (but then [to say the least] our IT lot are glacier like at changing *anything*). 'CnP' is something I use, but fairly infrequently on a phone and what we don't know is when WP7 will get it - perhaps a incremental update (aka Service Pack) within a relatively short period? Who knows.

I suggest MS are aiming at the consumer market first with an eye on business longer term. That probably makes sense because it takes years to shift business onto any new platform (even a new version of Windows) and also a lot of integration to make it worthwhile (which we are seeing the start of with Office on WP7). Gaming is very much on the agenda and my point earlier is that the xbox leverage might well give them a boost unavailable to the likes of Apple or Google.

[usxhe190]

dangel, was planning to respond to your post but then I read your company uses Lotus Notes and I just feel sorry for you!

[dangel]

dangel, was planning to respond to your post but then I read your company uses Lotus Notes and I just feel sorry for you!

You should!

[crossy]

I suggest MS are aiming at the consumer market first with an eye on business longer term. That probably makes sense because it takes years to shift business onto any new platform (even a new version of Windows) and also a lot of integration to make it worthwhile (which we are seeing the start of with Office on WP7). Gaming is very much on the agenda and my point earlier is that the xbox leverage might well give them a boost unavailable to the likes of Apple or Google.

Couldn't agree more - this seems like a sensible approach, push to the nerdarati first and then watch the trickle down. How else can you explain the number of iPhones that are being issued for business, when it's pretty evident that the iPhone isn't a business phone.

Of course, a "consumer" phone has lower quality standards than a business phone - so using the consumers to "prove" the device before launching it onto the megacorps is a sound strategy. Personally, I think Android will be pushing for that business segment once 2.2 is more established.

I don't think I'll be giving up my personal (Sony X10) or office-issued phone (Nokia 2330) any time soon for a WP7 device. Then again, a WP7 device is a bad fit for me anyway - Android would be more capable.