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Windows Phone 7: The OS/2 of this generation?

I'm wondering why the big push for a windows7 phone now, whe win8 is right around the corner. My friend bought a win7 phone last year and loved it. Especially the integrated email inbox. It did for email what bberry brought to the table for innovation years ago but couldn't complete in the touchscreen era...so anyway, why jump now when better changes could be on the horizon?

A "Windows 7 phone." It's Windows Phone 7 (like Windows Mobile #.) I realize the names are almost there - but they're two different beasts entirely.

I didn't know what to call these Windows Phone 7's until just now. Maybe what is lacking is Microsoft isn't tooting their horn enough. Apple has commercials all the time showing off their O/S for the iPhone, and I know what the iPhone is called because they actually go out and advertise.

If you get a Windows Phone running Windows Phone 7 today, it will run Windows Phone 8 when that is released. The Microsoft tech bloggers have mentioned that before, and I haven't heard anything to contradict that yet..

The only thing that might change is newer, faster hardware; but that's an issue with technology in general, not a Windows problem.

http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-evangelist-retracts-claims-windows-phone-8-updates

You will need a new device, you cannot upgrade 7 to 8 or 7.5 to 8. Carrier issues, and 8 architecture changes not compatible with 7. Buy a cheap phone for 7.5 and use it for 12-18 months, then get a newer better phone. That's what Apple fan boys do but for $100's of dollars each time, not $49-199. If you have a 7.5 phone may not even need 8 for the near future anyway. Depends upon what you expect from your device.

What's the point, if Windows 8 runs on ARM processors, there's totally no point to getting a Windows 7.5 Phone which has a bespoke OS. Plus I hate Windows 7.5 because it has no USB sync with Outlook.

I won't move off my Win Mobile 6.1 until I have a solution for synchronizing with an Outlook client via USB or Bluetooth. Why has MS abanodonded this capability? Why am I forced to synchronize through the wireless connection to an Exchange server or other internet store of one sort or another? The only thing in MS favor is that Android and Apple phones also lack this capability. Come on MS, grab this piece of the market! Yoiu can actually own it!

Well...I guess if you're not using exchange but have outlook set to use imap/pop then it would make sense to facilitate contacts/calendar sync. Ok, I can see why you would need that.

This functionality isn't included in the newer phones because people aren't demanding it. I personally have no use for it, my personal email is Gmail and my work email is Exchange. In fact the move away from USB sync is a giant leap forward in my opinion.

I guess if you still had a pure POP3/SMTP mail solution that required you to download all your email to a local client such as Outlook, the USB sync would be of benefit. But doing email that way is antiquated. Use IMAP instead of POP3 and then your need for USB sync goes away.

Why do you need USB sync to Outlook?

Apple's iPhone, although it wasn't the first touchscreen phone, had great marketing (remember those amazing television commercials), great design (tell me you weren't in love), and an awesome software base in a short amount of time. They showed WHY you wanted an Apple Iphone. [Note: I say all of this as an Apple-hater now-a-days...not because their products aren't good, but because of the business model that Jobs put forward...though, I must admit--it was ingenious...if not simply conniving lol]

The Android-based smartphone's approach was to be the Anti-Apple...while simultaneously looking much like Apple's iPhone. It was the "competition" to the aforementioned closed ecosystem.with openness and full customization. The carriers interfered with this openness, but since, the open-source community has offered all sorts of ways to free people from their carrier-induced chains. As a matter of fact, having just rooted my Android Phone...I now see the light. It's really a beautiful thing.

Microsoft's WIndows Phone creation...where does it fit in outside of the tech community? In all honesty--even after my horrid experiences with Windows Mobile 5 and 6 (which lead me to fully dismiss MIcrosoft when shopping for my next phone)--I would like one. If I had more money at this moment, I would've probably bought the Lumia 900 (outright and then flashed it to Cricket). I realize, however, that my interest is based on my awareness of their existence to a greater degree than simply knowing that they're an alternative to the others.

That's about where they stand, I believe, to the other Phone OS options: The other guys... Couple that with people like me who haven't forgotten the old WinMo (and haven't forgiven as I have), and MS has quite a few issues in this market.

Is it insurmountable? No. They've proven that with Vista...kind of (since Win 7 is how Vista was supposed to be)... However, for people who are used to openness (Android Community) and strong, proven ecosystems (iOS Community), a closed, unproven community is not the best option.

So what should they do: Start courting lower end carriers like Cricket and MetroPCS to get your foot back in the door. Providing Windows Phone to that demographic...where people will brag about their $60 "unlimited talk, text and data" phone bills to their iOS friends who pay $100 and their Android friends who pay $100, and people will take note. Both of those "lower end" carriers serve nothing but MAJOR MARKETS...

The best word is word of mouth, and right now, the only word of mouth is coming from geeks and techies who actually care about the full intuitiveness of WinPho7...meaning that your average joe doesn't really give a damn about what their nerd-friend is talking about since they're happy with what they've learned to use.

As far as the costs...even Amazon took a profit-loss to ensure that their e-book reader would be significant in the game...look at them now--they're selling TABLETS. It's called investment. You've built the infrastructure, you have your base followers, you've implemented a great technology (Metro), you've picked yourself up out of the ditch (of Vista)...Come on... You're almost there...
Just some food for thought.

P.S.-If Microsoft is looking for more ideas, just contact me...I'm available...

and you are so right about who cares. The average "joe" is by far the majority of cell phone purchasers who absolutely do not give a tinker's damn about rooting his/her phone or the fact that is or is not an open system. They just want it to work whether to make a call, play a game, send a text, or check e-mail.

Precisely. I keep coming back to the idea that Microsoft should look into buying Republic Wireless or similar and making it work with the Nokia phones and Skype, then set some ridiculously low $20/month price for voice/data/text. I would drop my fangirl allegiance to Android in a heartbeat if they would do that for me.

I haven't used a Windows Phone. Or Win7P, or Phone 7 Windows, or whatever you call it. I have experienced enough as an IT admin to view MS products with some skepticism. But mostly, I haven't seen any reason why I should care.

I don't always agree with Apple's approach to business. I don't know if you *can* be that big without stepping on toes. (Google is apparently evil now too.) But, one thing they did get right was their advertising. When the iPhone first came out, I was more interested in having a small phone with a battery I only charged once a week. I couldn't have cared less about it. Then I saw what it could do -- and it actually *could* do those things, it wasn't just advertising BS. (Although, I could do without the snooty "if you don't have an iPhone, you don't have 'x'" guy.)

Sooo... MS. I'm listening. Why should I gave a rat's end about your OS? What makes it so great?

P.S. All the "your smartphone beta test is over" nonsense does nothing for me. My iPhone is possibly the most stable computer I've ever used.

P.P.S., I don't really do social networking, and don't really care to start. What else ya got?

is more a challenge to Android than IOS. WP7 is unbelievably stable. Many people report months without ever rebooting. The main advantage over IOS is a more streamlined integration between Apps, processes, etc. In IOS everything gets siloed(sp?) into separate apps. Each app is its own island. Its hard to explain the difference without using, but the more you use it the more you see it.

It doesn't have the same volume and in some cases quality of Apps as OS, but I've found it to be sufficient so far. All the apps I used in Android are there.

If you like One Note/ Office/ Skydrive, MS has very good integration there. I love taking a picture in my phone and having the image show up in a skydrive folder on my desktop a few seconds later. Very handy. I am also a big One Note fan, so using the best mobile implementation of it is nice.

Looks are better too. The WP7 is comparably fluid, if not more so, than IOS. The look and animations are interesting and fun to look at. Well designed Metro apps are a joy. I've never seen anything that matches the Facebook app for example (which I see you don't care for much).

On a personal note, I detest the father knows best attitude that Apple approaches technology with. I know it works for some and I can appreciate that, but for me, I always feel like I'm renting Apple hardware and using it with their permission rather than doing as I please with it. I'd always feel like I was cringing under the ban hammer if I ever did anything so horrible as root my device and tether it.

I think that the Apple marketing machine really took advantage of the Vista blunder that MS put out (for which MS should bear the burdon of having made the mistake and opened the window of opportunity for Apple). The outcome of that was simply that MS reputation in the consumer product industry was damaged badly. I think that's why they are not being taken seriously on the consumer front even to this day.
Apple was very succesful in their marketing strategy. Apple who was rated #1 in insecurity since 2009, managed to make MS look worse. They managed to present themselves as the cool guy while MS was the uptight guy in a suite. These are the same people that put out huge EULA's and control everything that is purchased to now trying to control what's sold (the iBook Store owns your book if you sell it there).
Apple has successfully created an image that people want to buy despite all the hooks and gotchya's. The image they created combines both cool and technologically hip, and like it or not people buy it.
It's only an image though and hopefully someday people will wake up and realize they are just giving their money away to a giant (in a suite, not a cool guy) and that they could have had better hardware and better control over their devices for less money had they gone a different route.

In OS/2 times, I bought an OS/2 Warp CD, and I was able to buy a MS W98 OS.
Unless you are a real hacker you are not able to buy a terminal - any - and isntall the OS you want.

Even the only one you can install, with some mods, the Android OS you need to be a real hacker and follow different ways for each terminal.

If at PC there are segmentation, as well there are standarization, and any user can install a new OS with a little of knowledgement. Perhaps someday mobiles would let you EASILY instal whatever mod or OS you want.

Probably the main problem windows phone has is the negative perception created by clueless articles like this.

Now, what's your problem with the article? Why is it "clueless" exactly?

I can stand over here and claim Einstein is a moron, and maybe I'll impress *someone*, but I better have some physics to back it up if I want to be taken seriously.

I'm just trying to figure out how a comment gets to be up-voted so much without really saying anything. What exactly is clueless about the article? Without an explanation, the comment is meaningless.

When an article paints a less than sunny picture of a Microsoft product, a percentage of the readers here will agree with any comment that disses said article. It does not matter what the comment says, or if it says much of anything at all.

It is always curious to read reviews by technically competent people and then try and figure out if the reviewer actually knows what they are writing about or if they have a leaning towards a certain product.

After being given an iPhone and using it (in a Windows Server/MSOffice/Exchange Server business environment) I chose not to take up the offer to swap to iPhones (for free) by our service provider. If I have to explain why, then it means that the person asking either had very low expectations of the iPhone or was too use to a long winded way of getting things done with an iPhone.

Preferences are preferences however and I find the WP7 environment easier to use. It also makes more sense and works more logically and faster. I'd give examples but there are already a number of videos under "Smoked by a Windows Phone" all over the internet. They give straight forward examples to everyday tasks.

WP7 is an entre to the Smartphones for both Microsoft and Nokia with the synergy of the other MS products along with WP8 on the horizon I dont think you can count MS or Nokia out. Lets have this same conversation this time next year.

And by the way I was one of those that worked with the OS/2 Warp Beta. After two days of using it, I - like most - were convinced that it was nowhere near as smooth, functional or user friendly as Windows 95.

WP7 is no nowhere near what Warp was and to say so is stretching the truth a great deal. Don't laugh but the iPhone may just become the Lotus123 of smartphones!!

OS/2 Warp was released before Windows 95.

And OS/2's biggest failing was, quite frankly, IBM.

Actually the biggest problem with OS/2 was that while Microsoft was working on it up front they were working on Windows in the background and waiting for their contract with IBM to expire so they could abandon OS/2. The first version MS wrote they wrote in 20286 assembler instead of C which made it extremely hard to move to the next generation of CPUs. MS did everything they could to kill OS/2 so they could have complete control and not be tied to IBM. Then when IBM took over they created the superior product but by then MS had the market and IBM didn???t market OS/2 very well and there were lots of folks that picked Windows because MS was the upstart taking down the evil empire.

IBM made developers and companies pay through the nose for OS/2 initially. Whereas Gates and Ballmer famously catered to "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!" and literally gave away copies of Windows at every tech conference they could.

By the time IBM got religion about how to market OS/2, it was too late.

MS really has to give this away -- not just the phone, the whole package, the phone, the network services, the apps -- in order to get traction.

I rember using OS2/Warp on a computer that was sold as part of an Fetal Monitoring system by a large corporate giant who shall remain nameless (but there initials are G.E.).
I'd really have a hard time saying it was really that much better than any other windowing software out there at the time.
DR DOS had no GUI and was a far better OS then Windows or OS2 at the time.

IBMs OS/2 was part of an effort to regain complete control of the PC market that included the new PS2 systems. In the original PC, IBM allowed MS to sell DOS to other parties and used an open architecture. Everybody started creating PC clones and IBM was loosing market share fast. So they decided to create a new platform, new hardware, new software, both completely controlled by IBM and legacy free. OS/2 was unable to run DOS applications and PS2 systems where not compatible with IDE. Oddly enough, OS/2 was optimized for 80286 processors and unable to use the 386 virtual mode. Windows 3.0 had none of these problems and quickly took the market. OS/2 Warp solved all the shortcomings. It was awesome and a better OS than Windows, but it came too late.

OS/2 worked great on ATM's.

Didn't like it, not as good as an iPhone for sure. Like I said above the main thing that killed it for me is that you can only sync OTA, which isn't practical for me. Camera stuff in it isn't as good as an iPhone either, there were other things, I can't remember off-hand. Really I think what pooched it overall is that I was expecting it to be backward compatible with Windows Mobile 6.x, which it's not, so if I was forced to change to something entirely new, I decided the iPhone was better.

I just changed my HTC Touch Pro (Windows Mobile) for an HTC Titan (Windows Phone 7.5). Wow! Fast, Metro look-and-feel, etc. Much better than my Samsung Galaxy Tab. Don't knock the OS, guys.

Just saying that for me, like many others, it does not do all we need, there are some serious questions on upgrade ability, the question "will the hardware be applicable after year one of my two+ year contract" and what does it have that would make me want to switch to WinOS.

When you look at all of that it is hard to justify the switch.
Really hard.

There's a whole bunch of Tech Bloggers who suffer from a sever case of My Phone is a Computer...
It's not. Phones are commodities, and every phone will have a different OS than the last one. Get it into your heads already!
The only thing required to "justify the switch" is that one unfortunate phone falls into the toilet bowl, or suffer similarly prohibitive mishap. That's the end of the old. You pick up something new, and it will be a "switch" anyway.

Articles like this one are the common ground at TR today, making you search for the delete account option, which BTW is nonexistent...

I am tired of reading this man's articles. I used to enjoy but it seems that he just hates Microsoft and Windows applications. I cannot make sense of anything in this article. I have been using windows phone for a while now and the connection with Exchange is just fantastic. It helps me doing my business with no worries. These articles are not credible anymore!

I don't hate Microsoft, and I think it would be good for consumers and IT departments if a solid third alternative emerges in the smartphone market. I've written that Windows Phone 7 is quite good -- one of the best pieces of software Microsoft has created. But, a big part of my job is to be a technology critic -- especially when it comes to the big players like Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

I find it quite humorous that these Microsoft fanbois are whining because their beloved WP7 is doing so poorly. Jason is simply reporting the facts as a good journalist, yet what many of the comments seem to want is a "Fox News" sort of spin.

Thank you Jason for delivering an article that accurately reports what is currently going on.

Journalism isn't quite dead yet!

"In Europe, where the Lumia 900 has been on sale since December." How many other facts are incorrect? Regardless, in my opinion WP8 will make or break the platform. WP7.5 is still playing catch-up feature-wise to Apple and Google, but WP8 is where the battle really begins. If WP8 fails to gain double-digit market share for the platform by 1Q13 then MS really has problems.

What known/advertised features are coming in WP8 that will bring them up to parity and/or vault ahead of the competition? Right now, we're simply taking it on "trust" that multiple cores, higher res screens, etc will save the platform (at least make it more marketable) but as far as how the update to the OS changes its actual features and expands the platform, we really haven't seen or heard anyting. I'm not saying this to say WP8 won't be great. I'm sure it will be and I'm actually holding off on buying my next phone until it comes out (though the Lumia 900 did turn my head a bit) but to take a phone update (update - we're not even sure of that yet at this point, are we?) and say that it will bring the platform up to par with everyone else is a bit of a stretch until we know more about it. Just saying...

...I'm making assumptions based on that WP7.5 is very close to the competition currently feature-wise, but they have a fresh and exciting take on the UI and the phone's basic premise of people first. Android and Apple are both stagnant (mature?). If either of them comes up with something fresh and new then MS will have more problems as well. It'll be fun to watch from the sidelines!

Windows Phone 7 has already caught up and surpassed Android and iOS on features. There are only two places where WP7 falls behind it's competitors, when judged objectively, and no I am no including sales volume as a criteria.

1. App numbers. Now, we can argue that the total number of apps is irrelevant, which it is. Total apps means nothing, good quality useful apps is what matters, but even so, iPhone leads the pack with Android finishing second and Windows Phone 7 a distant third.

2. Hardware, which is also mostly irrelevant, because Windows Phone 7 runs on slower processors but out performs Android and iOS on the few tests where it doesn't match them.

But, the public perception of fewer apps, and weaker hardware is a problem for Windows Phone 7.

Windows Phone doesn't need 8 to match the Android or iPhone. 7 already did that. Windows Phone needs to win in the arena of public opinion, which it isn't going to do if it isn't given at least a fair shake by the carriers. AT&T has never pushed Windows Phone 7, and Verizon carries exactly one model, and you'd barely know it was there.

I wish that I really saw the signs that Microsoft, Nokia and AT&T were really pushing the Lumia 900, but if MS really wants to get Windows Phone 7 off the ground, they need to get the kind of committment AT&T has promised (not delivered yet) from Verizon. With a bigger committment from the two biggest carriers, it might have a chance in the US.

"But, the public perception of fewer apps, and weaker hardware is a problem for Windows Phone 7."

That and they are third into the market. Market inertia is VERY difficult to overcome without throwing LOTS of money at it AND having a VERY good product. Until Microsoft decides to throw LOTS more money at this, it isn't going to go anywhere because the competition is entrenched and VERY good. There just simply isn't that much enticement to switch - no matter how much the MIcrosoft fanboys want it to happen.

@ Technical John

So you're implying that Fox News is slanted but the others like CNN, MSNBC and ABC are somehow not? I don't get my news from any of these sources because they are all the same. If you think any of them are unbiased, which you obviously do then I have a bridge to sell you.

Back on topic, I don't know if WP7 will ever take off. But I have been using it in an old HTC HD 7 since it first came out, which has a first gen Snapdragon processor. And even with its crappy specs it is quick and responsive. It's funny how Windows operating system has always been known for being resource heavy and the most popular while Linux and Mac OS have always been known for being much more quick and light on older hardware. Yet with the phone operating systems it's the opposite. Windows Phone OS is the light and quick operating system and the least popular. I think this article by itself may not hurt WP7 adoption but this article combined with all the hundreds just like it most certainly does influence people. Jason H definitely didn't bring any kind of new, interesting or unique analysis or perspective to the table. He's just parroting the exact tame things that numerous other tech writers have written. He just kind of follows along with the herd.