Behind the scenes with Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 team: 'I think about this really as a first release'
By Chris Ziegler 
posted June 17th 2010 4:23PM
posted June 17th 2010 4:23PM
On a related note, some existing Windows Marketplace devs have started getting notifications that Microsoft wants to send them loaner Windows Phone 7 devices -- yes, loaners, meaning they'll need to be returned to the mother ship at some point down the road. They're apparently set up for delivery in July, which should give publishers plenty of time to stock up the Marketplace in time for that planned holiday launch.
@pika2000 In such a scenario, the OEM's need to push out some good devices. MS has the guidelines, so the manufacturers have to deliver on them.
There are some devices that can provide this guidelines and some tough competition for the other OS' and devices running them. Such as the Lightning, Panther, Mondrian and Scorpion. Time will tell how they perform and lure the consumer into buying.
Additionally, MS and the OEM's have to price this right with the carriers, something that can undercut the price of it's competitors, if by at least $50. But then again, I probably think a WP7 will be seen at $199-$249, so I believe that the iPhone 3GS will hold it's place in the $99 segment.
dear Steve...
GIVE IT UP... lost cause... fire the clowns
MS, it's not 2007 anymore. You aren't competing with iPhone OS 1.0.
@DTJ With Xbox Live, Zune, Office 2010 and a kick ass UI... I think they know that.
@Paul Elmy You've clearly never used a windows phone device before. It will be a horrible miserable failure.
i seriously thought that was andy bernard for a second.
@Android looks Hacked Together
You should check your facts before talking out your ass but yes, last quarter Android outsold the iPhone.
"I think about this really as a first release" is codespeak for, "WinPho7 is going to be severely gimped so don't expect much."
@sracer
Or perhaps more likely, "We're fully committed to WP7, and will be producing regular iterative updates". There is no indication whatsoever in the statement that the initial release will in any way be lacking in functionality, sounds to me like they're trying to convey that the platform will be as future-proof as possible.
@sracer
Wake up ladies, its obviously the first release that was built from the ground up to compete against the iPhone...
Remember what Winmo 6.5 looked like? A pathetic joke, being pummeled into the ground by Apple. This is 1.0 because its them copying iPhone from the ground up....
It's just too late for anyone to care about this thing.. bribery or no bribery..
It's obviously 1.0 because they totally cut the cord, no backwards compatibility whatsoever.
@Wesscoast
That's some spin there. Microsoft has had a mobile OS in one form or another for over 10 years. If you believe that WinPho7 was written completely from scratch then I have some nice land in the Everglades for you to buy. Lack of backward compatibility is NOT "proof" that it was written from scratch.
Look at that quote carefully. He said that he thinks about it as a first release. That's how he is viewing it. Not that it IS. The only reason to view it as a first release is to set expectations low.
@Wesscoast They added a massive developer bonus though with Silverlight. Developer buzz about being able to develop a Silverlight app that can run on Windows, WP7 and CE Embedded is huge.
@Paul Elmy OEM's is actually biggest reason why WM platform failed in the first place. Too many hardware platforms, too many drivers to write and debug, too complicated to scale every app for all possible hardware specs... It was a nightmare. Even flagship devices from HTC were released with obvious bugs and missing drivers because neither HTC not Microsoft had time to write those. For instance, Kaiser, biggest phone for 2006 that had powerful Qualcom chip with 3D and video acceleration, never had drivers for either, meaning that you can't play or develop 3D games or play video with decent resolution without dropping frames. Similar things were happening to other devices as well.
@Fanfoot
WP7 is not a copy of what Apple is doing. Their concept of the devices are completely different. Microsoft has been in the phone business. Yes they became stagnant and let new competitors come in and make them look like a joke, but now they are fighting back with a completely new OS not reminiscent of the iPhone OS or Android (which are very similar as far as appearance sans the HTC Sense. They can definitely become a competitor. Especially with the Xbox integration (which is huge) and Zune integration (which if anyone could compete with Apple in the music space it's Microsoft). iTunes and Zune have the strongest ecosystems for entertainment, one is just a lot more popular than the other right now.
I hope Sprint doesn't have their phone sitting in drawer for a year before it becomes obsolete as they have in the past. Their "testing" department which doesn't even test if a phone can make calls can delay a phone release till a device becomes completely obsolete.
It would be great if Sprint just gave the phones to end users who actually make calls and try out an OS instead of use their existing "testing" group. The EVO has been out for just a number of days and already endusers have pointed out what any "testing" group would have discovered if they had it and actually used it for a couple of weeks.
@alex904 OEM's are the exact reason why Android is a success, not to mention this is a new and updated kernel of CE.
@Fanfoot To say that "Android is outselling iPhone" is extremely misleading. Android is an operating system that is licensed to MANY different phones/phone manufacturers, whereas the iPhone is essentially a single phone product. You would either need to compare the iPhone to one single Android phone (be it the Droid or the EVO, etc). You either need to compare phone to phone or OS to OS. is the Android OS outselling the iPhone OS? Absolutely. Any manufacturer that wants it can get their hands on it. If Apple's iOS was licensed out then it may be a different story (who knows?). But if you compare any single phone that runs the Android OS to the iPhone... there is no comparison the iPhone has outsold all of them by a large margin.
tldr: You need to compare Apples to Apples.
@alex904 Yet you fail to mention that WP7 wont have any of those issues. WP7 takes the very focused nature of the iPhone (not in design but philosophy) and pares that with the business model of Windows PCs (sell the software and have handset makers produce many options for the consumer)... its a win win for the consumer. Yes, MS is saying that they wont be able to compete feature for feature in release 1, but make no mistake, they WILL do some things better than anyone has done them before on smartphones and bring some of their leading services over in a tightly integrated package.
WP7 has been a project for less than two years. Yeah, they are a big company with lots of engineers, but come on get real. It will be a miracle if they can get this out in 2010 and not be totally embarrassed. The bar is set way too high for amateur jumpers.
@GAM3R Why must you exaggerate so much to try and make a point? WP7 does have a compass and Apple just added a gyroscope like last week... now all of a sudden it has to be standard?
MS is offering money (NOT massive amounts, another exaggeration) to devs with POPULAR iPhone apps because of the work it would take them to convert those apps from iPhone to WP7 and because they want all the important/interesting apps they can get... why not? It doesn't negate the fact that there are tons of .NET devs that are making apps for WP7. MS has even started its own MGS Mobile game studio to port over and create popular Xbox titles.
@Fanfoot You might want to revise your statement. As of last week, against a 1 year old phone, yes, Android barely snuck by iPhone in sales. But let's get real, assuming multiple reports of Apple manufacturing 3 Million units a month are correct, and that half of those were reserved for pre-order, Apple just shipped more phones in 3 days (assuming ship dates being pushed back = sold out batch) than Android has for the month, even with the phone to end all phones, the EVO 4G, being introduced. And you're talking pre-orders... theres no telling what these numbers will read come the 24th.
@GAM3R Now after reading your second reply, Its clear your just a misinformed teenager who likes to hear himself talk... Ive heard enough.
I'm really amazed at all the people screaming about WP7 being doomed to fail blah blah. Are they just that big of fanboys for something else that they can't see how big of a deal this really could be?
Saying there's no place for a Windows device in the market? Please. MS has what? 90% of the computing marketshare? 90+% of the marketshare in productivity programs (as in Office). Even if they are late to the show bringing something epic they'll still have the cards in their favor. Furthermore I'll argue previous WinMos were just fine if you're not an app whore which WP7 should change. So how are they doomed to fail? They'll bring real competition, especially the more we expect our computers and phones to exchange and our phones to take the role of our computers when they're not in front of us.
I look forward to it, I can't get on the Apple bandwagon although I admit they have a good product for the happy shiny sheep and I can't do Google because I hate the reliance on "the cloud". Clouds are good, but I still prefer my phone to mate primarily with my PC and then the cloud. Bring it on WP7, bring it (and please please someone mod it onto my HD2)
@ElGuero I totally agree a point you missed is Microsofts tradition of begin very good to it's developers. They have done it once again on WP7 by providing Silverlight and XNA. Lot of developers have experience with both platforms and they will both run with minor modification through the product range of Windows, Win CE 7 and WP7 and in the case ox xna xbox 360. Cross platform is what developers want and Microsoft are providing it.
the captured picture of the room looks somehow anti-inviting. is it somewhere in a curt building or such?
@shizzledmg o
@youngluck
That's a lot of Assuming.
@GAM3R How have they dropped XBOX 360 the new one works exactly the same as the old one. Except on the old one you need to plug the kinect into power as well.
Now imagine that all the people you see on this photo - is the entire WinPho7 dev team? No wonder the OS gets delayed.
I don't know why you would say "we look at this this is as a first release". You should be looking at it like its a FINAL release. I don't think anyone who makes things would say "I imagine this final product as a prototype". You gotta do it the other way around!
"...acknowledges that it'll take a long time and several releases to catch up to the competition..." Sigh, do they really have that much time left?
@SaggyBalls you forgot a dum
I hate all these dumb people talking about how windows is too late in the game...SERIOUSLY???? It's a damn electronic business, you can't possibly tell me everyone buying an iPhone 4 will have it in 5 years can you? How the hell are they too late? You think because they weren't first they shouldn't even try? Maybe Apple shouldn't have entered the phone business either since Motorola already dominated the world with the Razr and that's what everyone wanted, huh? People are so dumb, they have no clue about change, and think of the world as "now" rather than "tomorrow." Go back to your fast-food job, and in four years you'll be wondering how you lived without your Windows Phone 7.
@Katarn Why should we not lump all the Android devices together? If I'm an Android developer, I care only about how many total phones there are (ignoring the OS fragmentation issues for the moment), not about which particular model you might have. Assuming the app I'm developing can run on all of them at least... And don't forget that Apple has some fragmentation too--various hardware features not in the older models (GPS, compass, lower rez screen, slower CPU, no front-facing camera, etc).
@theSynergist Good point. I do suspect that in the long run though Android WILL outsell iPhone if only because of its obvious advantages--e.g. lots of different phones from different companies on different (more) carriers at different price points etc. But we'll see of course. In the US for example I can only assume that currently being limited to the horrid AT&T is keeping their sales at maybe half what they might be if they were on Verizon, Sprint etc. Presumably that'll be dealt with eventually.
BTW I'm not some Android biggot. I own an iPhone, and I've had Windows Mobile 6.5 devices in the past. Jeez...
As a student, I'm actually really interested in getting a Win7 phone, seeing as it has Office integrated into it. Seeing as nearly every assignment I turn in has a typed up element to it in some way, being able to review/edit/add stuff to my assignments once I actually get to school and realize I forgot something (which is quite often) is huge. Not to mention it looks like there will be some awesome games on here, so unless the OpenPandora goes into full swing production, this will be the mobile device to keep me busy when I'm bored. And Zune features are a bonus too.
@GAM3R
Oh no! Evil, horrible, no good Microsoft went and banned a bunch of people for something they know they're not supposed to do and yet decided to do so anyways even when they knew the risks! I have an idea! Let's all write angry letters to Microsoft telling them we are very upset that they aren't letting people get away with illegally stealing stuff! After that, we should write angry letters to the Cops for catching murderers too, because stopping people from doing illegal stuff is wrong!
Oh wait...
And what do you mean by Microsoft ditching X-Box 360 owners? The new system is merely an improved hardware design, you play the same games on it! How is that ditching anyone in anyway? Because they didn't give you a new one for free or something, even though the one you currently own is still supported just fine?
"METRO" lol
If you have to have a poster that tells you "it's entirely authentic" then maybe, just maybe it's full-of-shit hyper-marketing-speak and you wouldn't know "authentic" if it were slapping you upside the head.
Finally a phone OS that thinks outside the box of a never ending series of app icons... sometimes i like to have incredible design mixed in with my tech experiences and Microsoft is the only one offering it.
Added bonus of being able to bug my friends and face chat with them on 360... phone to phone, meh but phone to 360/tv might be interesting
@GAM3R Metro UI is much quicker and interesting than the iPod UI... Im a WinMO high end user, i havent been ditched ive just been upgraded, not too mention they are releasing 6.5.3... seems odd to keep updating if they "ditched" it
@kineticdamage
Buncha fools. took one of these morons 3 years to suggested, why not make a os based on Zune. Wow, extremely smart Sherly! Be proud of your achievement!! I really liked the part where they figured out that people don't a computer in their hand, they want a phone, that was just told us why it took them 3years.
Isn't Google giving away free Nexus Ones, Droids, and EVO 4Gs to developers? And MS is offering "loaners"? Wow....
I love the poster in the background of the pic; it's typical Microsoft.
Most of it is great:
"Metro is our design language. We call it Metro because it's modern and clean."
(Modern and clean? Great. Check.)
"It's fast and in motion."
(Okay, bit of a stretch, but not awful.)
"It's about content and typography."
(Not sure where 'Metro' comes into that, but it's surely a good idea.)
"And it's entirely authentic."
Huh? Manager school bullshit overload. It's entirely authentic...what? Authentically a design language? Authentic Microsoft? Authentic Italian leather?
Sigh.