Windows Phone Lack of Upgrade
What is Microsoft thinking?
As a website all about apps for phones, our position in the market is to review apps across platforms. Hence, we have phones of all types here at the office. Today I was planning on spending a good portion of the day on my much ignored Windows 6.5 machine from Sprint.
I got to thinking about buying new apps and what my upgrade path will be when I/we adopt Windows Phone 7. Microsoft has decided to start from scratch in their development for their new OS and that means no upgrades. Yes you read that correctly. If you are, a loyal customer of Windows Mobile, your cache of apps will be garbage when you make the light year jump to Windows Phone 7.
If I am a Windows Mobile developer I would look at this with two minds. For one, Microsoft has screwed you royally. Sure you can hopefully get your valued customers to re-buy everything again and you need to develop everything again. You really need to sit and determine the viability of this platform. Does it makes sense to rebuild from scratch for Windows, or move to another platform altogether?
Consumers are facing the same dilemma. Why should I take another chance on Microsoft and have to re-buy every app, knowing that the platform is going to be all new, few apps at launch, and when there are great alternatives already out there in the form of webOS, iPhone and Android?
Clearly we all have some decisions to make.
If I were Microsoft, I would be helping the developers here in a big way. Without developers, the platform is dead on arrival. The time has come when hardware isn’t ruling the purchase process for smartphones, it’s the software stupid.
As a developer, if you’ve made the decision to stick with Windows as a platform, you’ll need to entice me, the customer, as to why I need to pay for your software again, on my shiny new phone.
Bottom line, it’s a chance for Microsoft and the developers to get creative. Not just with their software, but with their pricing and their marketing of the apps. Should all Windows Phone 7 apps be free for the first 6 months? As a developer, what if you allowed your software to be free for 6 months, and after that time, you needed to pay for it?
There are lots of options for Microsoft and its developer community to be successful here, but getting out of the gate is going to be critical. I haven’t heard what the overriding plans are from Microsoft, but I’d like to see how they plan to make me buy all of my apps…again, instead of just jumping platforms for more options, diversity, and arguably cheaper apps on other platforms.
Stay tuned…
Filed under: Editorial •WM Editorial •
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Windows Phone Lack of Upgrade
What is Microsoft thinking?
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