Windows Phone 7

In 2010, I attended the TechEd Europe in Berlin and Windows Phone was one of the keynotes at the time and the fact that it was launched in Europe in October 2010. Fourteen months later, where are we?

• 1.5% of global market [ref-01] (Gartner source).
• 14 months to get up to 50,000 applications available on Windows Phone 7 Marketplace (To reach that number, apple took 12 months and android 18 months) [Ref-02].

An interesting blog entry by Charlie Kindel, “Windows Phone is Superior; Why Hasn’t it Taken Off?” [Ref-03].

As a owner of Samsung Omnia 7 and user of Windows Phone 7 and now 7.5 (aka Mango) I can say that:

• I really loved the way “Windows Phone” was done as a “start from a green field and forget about windows mobile !!”.
• I am very happy with my Windows phone, specially with the various Hubs (People, Games, Messaging …) were your information is aggregated and linked for you, making those ‘information spaces’ more useful;
• The upgrade, from 7.0 to 7.5 went smoothly and was successful;
• I use Zune to sync my mobile with my computer (notes, pictures, movies, podcats…) and never had any serious issue.
• It took sometime to get the applications available, but they are coming.

I hope that the partnership between Microsoft and Nokia, and Microsoft and Skype will bring and put Windows Phone in to a better place and position regarding global market place and more end users will be able to have a good and different experience with their phones.

So, this will be my last one for this year. Happy new year 2012 !!

References

• [Ref-01] Gartner Press Release, 15th Nov 2011, “Gartner Says Sales of Mobile Devices Grew 5.6 Percent in Third Quarter of 2011; Smartphone Sales Increased 42 Percent”.
• [Ref-02] All About Windows Phone, by Rafe Blandford, 27th Dec 2011, “Windows Phone Marketplace passes 50,000 apps”.
• [Ref-03] Charlie Kindel’s blog entry, 26th Dec 2011, “Windows Phone is Superior; Why Hasn’t it Taken Off?”.