For most people, Windows Phone is a MUCH better experience than Android.

The problem is that no one gives Windows Phone a chance. I don't know many people that used Windows Phone and switched back to Android/iPhone. Beside the app factor (which is much less of an issue than what people think), Windows Phone is an excellent mobile OS.

For example: My sister wanted a laptop, I recommended a Macbook even though I'd never used one; she bought one and loved it and now I do have one too. My Mum has a Samsung S3 Mini, I have a HTC One X, all the rest have iPhones. Microsoft would have to radically alter their DNA before I'd take a look at any of their software or hardware offerings.

The difference is, I bought my Apple devices for dirt cheap from my previous employer, whereas she'd be buying one retail. Spending 2x the money for the same hardware capability and an OS that's equivalent does not make economic sense to me.

Have you ever used a Windows Phone device? Probably not. Windows Phone is the most consistent mobile OS out there, and the simplest to use. I would never recommend an Android device to my parents (or any non-geek). iPhone is okay, but I'm not a fan of the skeuomorphism. Windows Phone is simple, elegant, affordable and extremely usable. It's NOTHING like Windows on PC.

I recommend Macbook Airs and Windows Phones to most people. I only recommend iPhones to "cool kids" and "early users" (those who want access to the cool new apps and games).

It's easy to say in a place like HN that there is a "social stigma" around using Windows, but for the average consumer this is clearly not the case. For a lot of typical desktop users, Windows is the computer ("reboot your Windows", "start up Windows", etc). Microsoft simply couldn't find a way to leverage that in the mobile space.

In the meantime, everyone I know working in enterprise transitioned to Android and iPhone (except some on BlackBerry) - this happened as soon as those platforms had working Exchange sync, encrypted storage and remote management. To get any significant market share Microsoft now has to pay their way to it with extreme subsidies and massive marketing, or wait for Apple and Google to stumble, something they have yet to do.

Most people do not even have a clue about which operating system their phone has. And they do not care. Just like they do not do with PC either.

If Windows Phone doesn't interest anyone. It is because they were unable to fit a niche. It is because their phone is a disaster. The operating system is irrelevant for most of phone users.

You just proved his point that no one talks about Microsoft because of the social stigma attached to it. You just proved that if you say something nice about Microsoft, your peers will make you an outcast.

1) In mainstream use, Microsoft and Windows are 'Big Business'. Nobody wants that anywhere near the photos of their kids.

2) For geeks, Microsoft is the devil because they've managed to annoy most long time geeks in some form or another.

Indeed, it really is the problem. But it's the problem Microsoft is going to have to fix - and believe me, their 'spam the forums' and 'give free things' approach is not going to cut it. They need to drop the Windows and Microsoft branding for consumer devices in the same way Lexus is not Toyota. They need to make sure that the business and consumer products look as different as possible also.

I realize Microsoft is doing the exact opposite of what I've said above - and that's the real problem. What you're complaining about is just the mis-branding and mis-management of Microsoft bleeding through into the general populace.

But I would ask that the platform be in some way open. Windows has always been open in that it will run on a variety of commodity hardware and there are no restrictions on who can develop for the platform and in how they can distribute their software. MacOS (and iOS) has always been restricted to Apple hardware. So Apple has always been more closed and walled garden-y than Microsoft with the exception that they use a load of open-source software in their OS stack once you look under the hood.

Microsoft (seeing as how they won't go the open-source model cuz it aint in their blood) could try and make the Windows Phone OS installable on a whole bunch of phones, it could allow for easy side-loading of apps and have a very low $ (perhaps even zero?) entry into their app store. That way Microsoft might eventually replicate the dominance they have on the desktop. But even then a lot of geeks are going to be wary.

Android really seems unstoppable. Nokia should never have gone exclusively with Windows Phone OS - it seems really strange back then and it seems practically suicidal now.

They were right to predict Samsung would be the major Android player.

Instead of competing against a company that already had a major lead and essentially becoming one of the smaller fish in a larger Android pond, it's taking a bet on becoming a large fish in a smaller pond that has very real upside potential. I stress potential because we've all been a little disappointed with Microsoft's latest maneuvers, but there's still a chance for the company to turn it around.

At the end of the day I respect such a great risk being taken at a massive firm (you don't see a lot of that these days). Nokia still believe a third ecosystem can be a very real option for smartphone consumers and they want to be that third option. Takes guts. I'm all for a little more competition.

That leaves the hardware arena, where, by my reading between the lines, Nokia felt it would not be able to compete effectively enough given Samsung's "vertical integration", not to mention, their "resources" (read: marketing budget).

1) Branding

2) Hardware reliability

3) Customer service

4) Ownership events

5) Carrier logistics and partnerships

EDIT: 6) Industry 'firsts', such as SMS and MMS that were pioneered by Nokia. These days it's Samsung, Google and Apple coming up with new features while others struggle to catch up.

The 'OS customization' is just the potatoes of the business. Most people are just as happy - or happier - without any customization or differentiation on the software level. Windows Phone isn't exclusive to Nokia either, so the sheer stupidity of Nokia's strategy should be plainly obvious.

Or maybe... Could it be that Android has commoditized the handset business, just as Windows did the PC hardware business, so maybe all those things don't help as much any more?

In response to your edit: It's not really Samsung bringing new things to the table, it's Google and maybe to some extent Apple. The big innovations aren't in the hardware or even the software, it's in the services, such as Siri and Now. Sure every Android vendor and their grandmother have their own cloud services, but the ones everybody wants are Google's. Unfortunately, since it's not limited to a specific Android manufacturer, it wouldn't help Nokia either.

Is there any evidence of that? From what I could Google, Windows Phone market share is still under 5% and only recently surpassed Blackberry: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24108913

I think that's a good demonstration that number of people determined to buy Windows Phone in the market is, in fact, entirely trivial.

Nokia could have, and probably should have run Windows Phone, Android, and Meego on their smartphone hardware. And the likely result would have been that WP would not sell well compared to the other choices.

EDIT: The parent post here sounded just a little too pat. But I didn't check until after I had posted a response. Yup. It's this first post even for this user. Hello Nokia PR!

I think that's actually pretty smart on nokia's part.

So long as Samsung and HTC Windows Phones offer the same experience as Nokia, they've caught up already. In fact, they'd "caught up" before Nokia even shipped! So, who's playing catch-up here anyway?

- custom apps ( even if it's not on the phones by default) - marketing. once you've got your phones so much associated with and OS, it takes some time to convince your existing users that they'll need to change

However, that strategy seems to have changed, with Drive being licensed to all Windows Phone devices, regardless of manufacturer. So they do lose a major differentiating feature, but they gain something else: the ability to make money on any WP device sold. I guess they prefer to differentiate on hardware going forward.

I wish. I own an N900: it's twice as big (and twice as heavy) as the original iPhone, with a very unsexy industrial design, and the OS is a hodgepodge of toolkits and hacks, deprecated the minute it came out. It was incredibly hackable and customizable, but nowhere as robust and coherent as an iPhone.

I loved the concept and would have loved to see it become a platform for commercial Python/PySide mobile apps, but it was nowhere near the iPhone when it came out. Its successor, the N9, was on par with the iPhone, but never got a chance, commercially, thanks to one Stephen Elop.

According to their own site, Chevron is just a third-party implementation of the Android's "Unknown Sources" (i.e. sideloading) checkbox: http://chevronwp7.tumblr.com/post/1679668269/windows-phone-7...

Good for Microsoft for supporting for a while (and boo for changing their minds), but either way this doesn't get Windows Phone any brownie points vs Android.