The difficulty they experienced, whether due to bias or just poor training, is so obvious that I'm surprised they even bothered to write about it.
This is a perfect case-study in why Microsoft NEEDS its own retail presence. WP7 provides a first-class experience, and is probably the ideal platform for first-time smartphone owners. However, if Microsoft doesn't put people in retail stores to demonstrate why that is, no one will buy Windows phones. You can't rely on the carriers to sell anything, because the carriers either don't know or don't care. All they care is that you sign that contract, not which phone is right for a given consumer.
You know the funny thing is, I can understand your point about carriers not caring as long as you sign, and your point about MS needing retail presence holds true in that case, but what's weird is in many cases, like what I faced, these guys that aren't supposed to care what phone you buy, as long as you do, go out of their way to convince you not to buy a WP7 device. This is after I walked in asking for a specific device. What kind of bs is that? I can only assume certain phones/platforms give these guys kickbacks/have higher profit margins, because otherwise I can't imagine why they'd want to risk pissing off a customer by telling them stuff they don't want to hear about a phone they want to buy.
I don't know why MSFT is even trying. It's bad enough they'll never be as good as the iPhone; I doubt they'll ever get nearly as capable as a lowly Android phone.
June 9th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
The difficulty they experienced, whether due to bias or just poor training, is so obvious that I'm surprised they even bothered to write about it.
This is a perfect case-study in why Microsoft NEEDS its own retail presence. WP7 provides a first-class experience, and is probably the ideal platform for first-time smartphone owners. However, if Microsoft doesn't put people in retail stores to demonstrate why that is, no one will buy Windows phones. You can't rely on the carriers to sell anything, because the carriers either don't know or don't care. All they care is that you sign that contract, not which phone is right for a given consumer.
June 11th, 2011 at 11:57 am
You know the funny thing is, I can understand your point about carriers not caring as long as you sign, and your point about MS needing retail presence holds true in that case, but what's weird is in many cases, like what I faced, these guys that aren't supposed to care what phone you buy, as long as you do, go out of their way to convince you not to buy a WP7 device. This is after I walked in asking for a specific device. What kind of bs is that? I can only assume certain phones/platforms give these guys kickbacks/have higher profit margins, because otherwise I can't imagine why they'd want to risk pissing off a customer by telling them stuff they don't want to hear about a phone they want to buy.
June 10th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
I don't know why MSFT is even trying. It's bad enough they'll never be as good as the iPhone; I doubt they'll ever get nearly as capable as a lowly Android phone.
July 7th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Windows Phone 7 Handsets?
scsi