Will existing phones be upgradeable to Windows Phone 8?

Posted on April 22, 2012 by halberenson

I’m not going to make some great revelation, as if I know the answer to this question.  I have not asked my sources, and if anyone with irrefutable knowledge of the answer told me then I wouldn’t pass it on.  But I will apply a little ‘softie experience to trying to answer it.  You see, I can think of only one reason why Windows Phone 8 would not come to existing phones.  And I’ll explore that shortly.

First let’s jump to the main technical issues blocking Windows Phone 8 from running on existing hardware.  Done.  Yes that was quick.  As anyone who has followed Windows 8 on ARM (WOA) knows Microsoft has had Windows NT running on phone hardware for many years.  Years before the Windows Phone 7 effort began.  There is nothing about the speed of the processors or amount of memory in Windows Phone 7 that would prevent Microsoft from running Windows Phone 8 on those devices.

Microsoft and its partners are very specifically going after the low-end of the Smartphone market, which would include devices well below the specs of devices like the Nokia Lumia 900.  So we have more evidence that it wouldn’t be a problem to upgrade most, if not all, first and second generation Windows Phone 7 devices.

Now let’s talk about business reasons.  Indeed carriers are not going to care about, or want to put effort into, upgrading existing phones.  And in many cases I agree with them.  When Windows Phone 8 ships nearly anyone out there with a first generation Windows Phone 7 device will be approaching the two-year mark.  For super rare devices like the Dell Venue Pro it makes absolutely no sense to offer an upgrade to Windows Phone 8.  And even for the more popular models like the Samsung Focus or HTC HD7 it is quite possible that carriers will decide to offer customers replacement phones at no cost (as long as they renew) rather than push out the WP8 upgrade.  That leaves Nokia’s phones along with the few second generation phones from HTC and Samsung as theyonly likely candidates for an upgrade.  To take several million customers and abandon them, and make no mistake that is what not offering them an upgrade would feel like, less than 6 months into a two-year contract would be disastrous.  Alienate your influencers and early adopters?  The platform has weak enough consumer support already, so that would be fatal.  The carriers might be that stupid, but Microsoft’s Terry Myerson is not.  What, you say?     Microsoft already did this once with Windows Mobile 6.x.   Two answers for you.  First, the Windows Mobile customer base was primarily enterprise users and Microsoft was going for consumers, so they took the risk that they would gain far more than they would use.  Why not take that risk again?  Exactly because it would be the second time.  There is no more “willing suspension of disbelief” magic for Microsoft, they must build on the Windows Phone 7 customer base or Kin-themselves.  Microsoft will make a Windows Phone 8 upgrade available, at least for second generation phones, unless…

So let me get to one scenario where Microsoft could decide not to make a Windows Phone 8 upgrade available, and to the alternative they would have to pursue.  Current Windows Phone chassis specs have a screen resolution of 480×800 (aka WVGA), the minimum for a Windows 8 (not Windows Phone 8) Metro app is 1024×768.  So what would be a natural minimum screen resolution for Windows Phone 8 Metro/WinRT apps?  Perhaps not WVGA.  In other words, although Microsoft has made it quite clear that existing Windows Phone 7 apps will run on Windows Phone 8, what if new Windows Phone 8 Metro apps could not run on WVGA displays?  That would mean it makes little sense to put Windows Phone 8 on the older WVGA devices made for Windows Phone 7.  Another way to look at it would be that Microsoft needs to kill off WVGA, rather than supporting it in new Metro apps, in order to avoid the long-term fragmentation for developers.

So if abandoning second generation Windows Phone 7 device owners destroys the platform and supporting WVGA unacceptably fragments the platform then what is Microsoft to do?  Well, let us assume there are 10 million second-generation Windows Phone 7 devices on contract when Windows Phone 8 ships.  Then Microsoft and its partners could simply offer to replace them all with free Windows Phone 8 devices.  Oh, I’m sure there would be some strings (e.g., extend your contract by a few months so you have two years from when you received the new device), we won’t debate that right now.  Assuming a manufacturing cost of $250 per phone, and that Microsoft bearsnthe bulk of the cost of the replacement phones, it would cost Microsoft $2.5 Billion.  They have the cash, and it would go on the books as a one-time charge (similar to the $1 Billion charge they took to fix the Red Circle of death in the XBox 360).  Wall Street would be fine with it, perhaps even applaud them for stepping up to align Windows and Windows Phone.

It was fun speculating about both a potentially real reason for not upgrading Windows Phone 7 devices and a way to address the resulting existential customer satisfaction problem, but that all still seems like a long shot to me.  I continue to believe that, despite people with good sources having contrary information, Microsoft will offer a Windows Phone 8 upgrade to some subset of the existing Windows Phone 7 devices.  I just can’t see Microsoft playing Russian Roulette with Windows Phone.

 

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Windows Phone | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Fewer Windows 8 Editions, thankfully

Posted on April 18, 2012 by halberenson

Well, one of the shoes I mentioned has dropped and I pretty much got this prediction right.  We are down to the logical number of editions for Windows.  The “new” one for ARM-based systems, mainstream Windows, Pro, and Enterprise.  The one interesting difference from what I’d predicted was the creation of a media add-on pack of some kind, that apparently Microsoft will charge for.  This resolves the problem that Media Center created which is that Microsoft has to license (i.e., pay for) Codecs and thus has tried various options for passing that cost on to consumers.  Now instead of burdening an edition (Home Premium) with these costs, even  though actual usage was low, they’ll apparently charge just those who want to use the feature for the Codecs.

The bottom line here is that things are a lot less confusing with nearly all individual decisions limited to the Windows vs Windows Pro choice.  Personally I think most notebooks should have Windows Pro, while it is a little bit of a toss-up for traditional desktop computers.  I’ll write more about this topic in the future.

Meanwhile I’m keeping my eyes open for more falling footwear.

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Windows | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Third party mobile phone pricing

Posted on April 10, 2012 by halberenson

A post about the price of the HTC Titan II price being dropped drove me to this little piece.  The price has NOT been dropped, Wal-Mart is simply offering the Titan II for $50 less than the official AT&T pricing.  So what?  Indeed Wal-Mart and Amazon, amongst others, frequently offer phones for less than their pricing from the carrier stores.

When I was pricing out a Nokia Lumia 900 at the Amazon Wireless site I came across a line item for (something like) “Reseller discount applied”.  There was no explanation, but there was a link, and when I clicked on the link it explained that Amazon was giving you an extra discount and that if you cancelled your contract in under 6 months you’d owe Amazon $250.  Ok, we can now reverse engineer the carrier/reseller discount.  The carrier (in this case AT&T) pays the reseller (in this case Amazon) $250 to bring them a customer signing a new two-year contract.   If the customer leaves the carrier in less than 6 months than the reseller has to pay this finder’s fee back to the carrier.

Discount retailers such as Wal-Mart or Amazon are happy to live on less of the Finder’s Fee than dedicated brick and mortar mobile phone resellers, because of course they have lower costs.  And so both are happy to live on a $200 commission for selling you the Nokia Lumia 900 or HTC Titan II rather than keep the entire $250.  Without this discount why would you buy your phone from Wal-Mart or Amazon rather than directly from AT&T?

That the Nokia Lumia 900 has received all the love in this week’s dual launch should not be a surprise.  Nokia obviously wanted to devote a lot of resources because, along with T-Mobile’s launch of the Lumia 710 a few months ago, this is their return to the U.S. market.  That Microsoft and AT&T wanted to join them to make the launch huge is also not a surprise.  Microsoft because it needs an iconic device to power Windows Phone forward, AT&T because it needs a new differentiator from main competitor Verizon Wireless.

So why no love for the HTC Titan II?  Well I think three things.  First, the HTC device is aimed at more of a niche and thus a poor candidate to be the Windows Phone standard-bearer.  Second, HTC itself was likely unwilling to put a large amount of resources into its launch.  Their big marketing spend this quarter is on the HTC One line of Android phones.  Third, and most importantly, I don’t think Microsoft and AT&T wanted to dilute their messaging.  Focusing on a single iconic device has worked for Apple (iPhone) and Android (Verizon’s original Droid campaign).  The next broad multi-device Windows Phone campaign will come with the launch of Windows Phone 8 sometime this fall.

With that as context we can revisit the pricing of the HTC Titan II.  A few bloggers out there are already jumping on the Wal-Mart pricing as a sign that this weeks’ Lumia 900/Titan II launch is a failure.  I don’t think it says that at all.  If Wal-Mart even listed the Titan II at full price I thinkthatwas a mistake, and the $50 discount is the norm for them.  But I still would expect to see the Titan II price dropping fairly quickly, including at AT&T, because I just don’t see how it is going to sell at $199.  With almost no promotion, little differentiation, and a complete overshadowing by the Lumia 900, who is going to buy it?  Honestly you’d have to be a HTC fan, and probably one looking to upgrade their HD7 to a device featuring a front-facing camera, to get excited by the Titan II.  And there just aren’t enough of those, particularly enough coming off contract, to make the Titan II a success.

The bottom line here is that resellers have (at least) $250 to work with when deciding how to price mobile phones.  And while their pricing may give clues about how successful a particular device is, it is mostly a clue about how successful the device is for them and within the context of their own strategy.  Wal-Mart is known for “Always low prices”, and Amazon is the place you go to save money after browsing at a brick and mortar store.  So if they don’t discount from the price you can get at the carrier, why shop there?

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Mobile, Windows Phone | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

More on Apps for Windows Phone

Posted on April 9, 2012 by halberenson

My post last Friday elicited some comments that I wanted to address, and I felt that a new post was more appropriate than just replying to the comments.  Some found it amusing that I picked Starbucks and United as examples of apps that Microsoft should be focused on, because of course what really excites people is Words With Friends.   So let’s explore that a bit more.

How would people feel about buying a smartphone that didn’t support Facebook?  Yelp?  TripAdvisor? Twitter? OpenTable?  Three years ago few would have cared.  Two years ago these were the hot apps that sold phones.  This year buyers assume that phones have these apps and if they don’t then “don’t call us we’ll call you”.  Fortunately Windows Phone does have these, and has gone even further with its integration of Facebook and Twitter into the core user experience of the phone.  So we have Social Networking, and Physical World Interaction, as two key categories of applications that people just expect to be available on a smartphone.  Of course the physical world interaction apps I mention here are at the intersection with social networking.  Yelp and TripAdvisor in particular are social networking tools for navigating the physical world.  Last year my wife and I were in Rome and Vienna.  How did we find hotels and things to do?  TripAdvisor.  A few weeks ago I went to Las Vegas, how did I find restaurants?  Yelp.  How did I make reservations? OpenTable.  My Sister-in-Law and a friend both used OpenTable to make reservations when we saw them this weekend.  Indeed OpenTable has become the defacto restaurant reservations service in the U.S., so if you dine out frequently (particularly in a big city) you really want an app for it on your phone.

Let’s take another physical world interaction app that is missing from Windows Phone, Red Box (which has become the most popular way to rent DVDs in the U.S.).  When I checked today the Red Box app was #155 (out of 100s of thousands) on Apple’s list of most popular free apps.  Tweetdeck, which one Nokia Lumia 900 reviewer called out as a critical missing app from the Windows Phone Marketplace, isn’t on the App Store top 200 list (and judging from the rating of the iPhone version, is probably not in the top 1000, or even 10,000 either).  Should Microsoft prioritize getting an official Red Box app or convincing Twitter to create a Windows Phone version of Tweetdeck?

Let’s even compare Fooducate (the app the WSJ called out) to Red Box.  Fooducate is indeed #10 on the App Store’s list of free Health and Fitness apps, but it doesn’t make the overall top 200 list.  So once again Red Box seems more important than Fooducate.  Note that I’m not saying Fooducate wouldn’t be a great addition to the Windows Phone Marketplace, I’m just trying to prioritize Microsoft’s efforts to get maximum bang for the buck.  Even within Health and Fitness the Weight Watchers Mobile app is ranked #7, and was promised for Windows Phone back around WP7 launch.  It still isn’t available (though they did make a small subset, a Points Plus calculator, available).  Even if you want to focus on Health and Fitness, I would argue Microsoft should prioritize physical world Weight Watchers over pure Internet Fooducate.

In the early days of planning for the Windows Phone developer platform there was definitely a focus on the top 100 (ish) apps on the iPhone.  Microsoft was understanding what they needed to perform well and making sure the development platform could accommodate their needs.  No doubt the app recruitment effort also targeted them.  This focus on the Top Apps, perhaps the Top 1000, needs to continue.  So getting Zynga to pay attention to Windows Phone is critical, as is making sure popular Social Networking tools like Pinterest are available.  And Microsoft also needs more unique content, something the focus on XBox Live (amongst other things) was supposed to bring.  But I see the physical world interaction apps as both a “price of entry” issue, and part of Windows Phone’s potential competitive advantage.

Looking at Windows Phone’s main marketing message, it boils down to personal productivity.  Make it easy to stay in contact with your friends.  Make it easy to find restaurants and other forms of entertainment.  Make photography easy and ubiquitous.  In other words, make it easy to interact with the physical world.  Take a look at the Smoked By Windows Phone challenge, do you see “Play Words With Friends” as one of them?   Windows Phone runs apps, lots of apps, and it does it as well as the competition.  But once you are in Words With Friends it really doesn’t matter if you are running IOS, Android, or Windows Phone.  So Microsoft’s real differentiator is how they can make your physical interactions with the world better than their competitors.  They need to make Windows Phone better not just at finding restaurants, but at making reservations.  They need Windows Phone to be better at filling prescriptions, replacing the need to carry around dozens of loyalty cards, tracking package shipments, buying products, making and keeping doctors appointments, etc.  than their competitors.   That’s how they’ll win.  But think about where they are today.  Local Scout will let me find a Starbucks (if one is close) faster than is possible on the iPhone or Android, but on the latter two I can actually pay for my coffee.  I can’t currently do that with Windows Phone, so which is really the better user productivity tool?

One of the earliest hit iPhone apps was “Find My Car”.  Another was iFart.  They each contributed to the iPhone’s buzz. Find My Car represented the iPhone’s substance, iFart represented its sizzle.   You need both, but Windows Phone is ultimately going to win (or lose) on substance.  And if I had to prioritize my resources I’d make eliminating the substance gap with the iPhone and Android my number one priority.

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Mobile, Windows Phone | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Is Microsoft courting the wrong developers for Windows Phone?

Posted on April 5, 2012 by halberenson

The Wall Street Journal has yet another article on Microsoft’s efforts to woo developers to the Windows Phone platform.  The example they use to show how difficult this has been for Microsoft is Fooducate.  Fooducate?  While getting the long tail of applications has some importance, and is the primary reason that the iPhone and Android phones have so many apps available, that isn’t what is impacting people on a day-to-day basis.  Plus it isn’t the biggest marketing problem for Microsoft.  Microsoft wishes it could counter the absolute numbers argument by having the right apps, but it doesn’t, and that is the real marketing problem.

Starbucks would really like me to download their mobile app and use it (amongst other things) as a digital rewards card.  Not only is the app only available for iPhone and Android, but you see signage when you walk into the store pushing the app on those platforms.  Great Clips would really like you to use their mobile check-in app when you are going to come in for a haircut.  iPhone and Android only, and again this is in your face every time you get a haircut.  I have a really nice little United Airlines app for IOS that I run on my iPad, but on my Windows Phone I have to use their poor mobile website (or a third-party app that just wraps the site).  Check out United’s mobile tools web page and there it is, Apple and Android, with no mention of Windows Phone.  How about the Wall Street Journal, which has apps for IOS and Android but not Windows Phone?  The place that Windows Phone is hurting the most is in lacking the apps that connect our mobile digital world with the physical world.  And in the message, reinforced daily by its presence in the physical world, that the only two mobile operating systems of consequence are IOS and Android.  Starbucks, Great Clips, United Airlines, and thousands of other firms are doing Apple and Google’s marketing job for them.

If you characterize apps using something akin to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs then the apps for manipulating the physical world are nearer the base of the pyramid while those such as entertainment are nearer to the tip.    To drive this home, consider that “Good Phone” is definitely at the base of the pyramid, and the ability to send and receive text messages is (for most people under 40, and many above) right there with it.  Almost no one will care that they can play “Word with Friends” on their smartPHONE if they can’t make phone calls.

That’s not to say entertainment apps are unimportant, for example my wife would laugh her head off if I suggested she move to Windows Phone when it doesn’t yet have “Words With Friends”. But then, as is the point with Maslow, once you satisfy the needs at the lower levels of the pyramid then (and only then) the needs at the higher level become important.  The iPhone (and Android) satisfy those lower level needs, Windows Phone still needs work.

What amazes me about this situation is that these critical missing Windows Phone apps are from the very organizations that Microsoft has the most financial leverage with.  The individual developer, or small startup, is going to look at the Microsoft incentives for writing a Windows Phone app as crumbs compared to the opportunities on IOS and Android.  Nearly every large organization spends millions of dollars per year on Microsoft products.  Microsoft will have an existing account relationship with them, and in many cases partner with them on other initiatives.  So why does Microsoft seem to have such a difficult time getting these organizations to “take a chance” on Windows Phone?  Microsoft has the ability to make it economically worthwhile to these organizations in ways far beyond its ability to get startups and individuals on board.

I’m not saying Microsoft should completely abandon efforts to woo individual developers and startups, I just wonder if they are spending too much effort on the tip of the pyramid while the base is still shaky.  Fooducate?   Seems like a good idea.  But waiting another year or two to get it on Windows Phone won’t make a difference.  Not having Starbucks, Great Clips, United, Walmart, etc. apps pretty soon is an existential problem.

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Mobile, Windows Phone | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

The Corruption of “Release Candidate”

Posted on April 3, 2012 by halberenson

With various news reports that a “Release Candidate” or RC of Windows 8 is due in May or June it is useful to reflect on how that term has been corrupted over the years, particularly by Microsoft’s Windows team.

Once upon a time you did a series (one to three) of beta releases, followed by a series of later builds that were for internal testing.  Some of those later builds were also given to close partners (internal and external to Microsoft) to test as well.  At some point you were doing builds that only contained a handful of bug fixes, and when you did a build that contained all the planned bug fixes it became a “potential RC”.  Only if internal testing revealed no additional bugs needing to be fixed, and thus the build appeared ready for release, would you declare it the Release Candidate.  In other words, you only called something a Release Candidate if it was something you thought actually had the potential to be released.  Often when you produced the RC there were still a few problems that needed investigation, triage, and occasionally a fix, plus you’d hand out the RC to your partners (to test and even put into production for a few days) and that would produce a few more problems to investigate and triage, so in reality there would be a small number of RC builds before you actually had something to Release to Manufacturing (RTM).  But this was a process that would take a week or two, not months.

Somewhere along the line the Windows team started treating the notion of Release Candidate differently.  RC now marks the point in which all functional and user experience changes are complete and they enter a bug fix only mode.  The bar for making bug fixes goes up, but doesn’t seem to be limited to Priority 1/Severity 1 bugs (e.g., data corruption or other problems so significant that you would pull the software back from manufacturing to fix them) as it was for the traditional definition for post-RC builds.  Other products would have called this another beta, and saved the RC designation for a true potential release candidate.

So while I’m excited by the possibility that we’ll see a Windows 8 “RC” in May or June, it is apparently going to be a build with quite a number of user visible changes.  And that means the Windows team will need at least several weeks of testing and bug fixing before they can produce a true candidate for release to manufacturing.

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Windows | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Strike 3 for AT&T?

Posted on March 26, 2012 by halberenson

In my entry on AT&T’s Unlimited Plan debacle I discussed why despite AT&T’s customer unfriendly policies I was probably going to stick with them.  Now I’m having second thoughts on that conclusion, because of AT&T’s refusal to ship Windows Phone updates in a timely fashion.  The latest slap in the face is AT&T’s apparent refusal to ship build Windows Phone build 8107, which fixes a disappearing keyboard problem on some Windows Phones (including on my Samsung Focus).  Microsoft made this fix available at the beginning of January, and we are approaching the three-month mark without AT&T having allowed it to ship to their customers.  This is inexcusable.

The problem isn’t isolated to simple bug fixes.  In March of 2011 fraudulent SSL certificates were issued by hackers of the Comodo Registration Authority.  This was a serious breach of one of the key Internet security mechanisms and vendors reacted quickly.  Windows was patched almost immediately.  Apple pushed the IOS 4.3.2 update to iPhones and iPads in mid-April.  Microsoft made the certificate fix available in build 7392 of Windows Phone in early May.  When did AT&T make build 7392 available on my Samsung Focus?  Not until October, when I received it as a prequisite to the Mango update.  So my Windows Phone was vulnerable to a site faking that it was Google or Live for 6 months, all because AT&T refuses to ship updates to Windows Phone in a timely fashion.

The update situation around Windows Phone is intolerable, and while the fault might not be Microsoft’s the repercussions certainly will accrue to them.  I am on strike against Windows Phone (and Android, BTW) on AT&T, and on any other carrier that doesn’t have a customer-friendly update policy.  This means I won’t be getting a Nokia Lumia 900 or any other new device until I am assured that I’ll be receiving software updates in a timely fashion.  The policy I want to see is that the carrier will ship all updates made available during my contract period within 60 days of the OS vendor or OEM making them available.  I’d prefer 30 days, or less.  Absent this, or a similar clear and customer-friendly, policy from the carriers I will likely move to the iPhone.  For better or worse that is the only smartphone platform that currently enjoys an update policy unfettered by the customer disdain shown by the carriers.

I know that Microsoft is working the problem of carriers not making Windows Phone updates available in a timely fashion, so I’m not abandoning the platform yet.  They have some time, at least until the next generation iPhone ships.  If they haven’t solved it by then I probably will make the switch.  But it certainly won’t be to the iPhone on AT&T.  This is strike 3 for them, and unless they announce a customer friendly update policy soon I’ll be looking for a new carrier.

 

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Mobile, Windows Phone | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Windows Phone Apps on Windows 8: Missed opportunity or a Shoe yet to drop

Posted on March 17, 2012 by halberenson

There is a very recent hint that Microsoft might be planning to allow Windows Phone 7 apps to run unmodified on Windows 8.  To date Microsoft has focused on encouraging developers to port their Windows Phone apps to Windows 8 by modifying the UI to conform to Windows 8 Metro design guidelines and changing Silverlight .NET Framework API calls to Windows Runtime calls.  This is no doubt the preferred way to go as the ideal user interface on a 10.1″ tablet screen  is quite different from a 3.7″ phone screen.  However, like Android and IOS before it Microsoft may find that many phone developers will take their time creating tablet-specific versions of apps.  And with Windows Phone likely to have in excess of 100,000 apps in its Marketplace by the time Windows 8 ships, Microsoft could immediately make Windows 8 more attractive to consumers by allowing those apps to run on Windows 8 tablets.  At least that is the conventional wisdom.  So recent hints that Windows Phone apps are being tested on Windows 8, despite being in conflict with everything we’ve heard since the BUILD conference, might indicate this is another Shoe Microsoft is planning to drop.

Allowing Windows Phone apps to run on Windows 8 is trivial from an engineering standpoint.  Windows Phone apps are simply Silverlight .NET apps that use a few Windows Phone-specific libraries.    The former already work on Windows, the latter could be ported to Windows by an Intern.  The real work is in having the Windows Store make them available, support installation of Windows Phone 7 packages on Windows 8, etc.    To be honest I’d always expected Microsoft to support Windows Phone 7 apps on Windows 8, and was rather surprised when they didn’t announce this at BUILD.

Despite Microsoft’s desire to have a pure Metro/WinRT world, and put everything else in the Desktop legacy category, there are exceptions.  Building an alternate browser?  Microsoft will let you break the rules and create a Metro browser that uses more than just the WinRT APIs.  Basically this is a compromise that maintains the status quo around browsers from its antitrust settlements.  Office 15 is a hybrid as well.  Making an exception to Metro/WinRT for Windows Phone apps wouldn’t be setting a new precedent.  So why not do it?

There are two reasons I can see for not supporting Windows Phone 7 apps on Windows 8.  The first is not wanting to bring a legacy to Windows 8 that won’t be of that much benefit to users.  Take a key difference between Microsoft’s situation and Apple’s.  When Apple introduced the iPad the iPhone was already a run-away success.  So when a customer bought an iPad they already knew they wanted to run “Kissing Toadstools” and most of their other favorite iPhone apps on it.  Windows Phone won’t have enough penetration at Windows 8 RTM for this dynamic to really play out.  Microsoft can work to make sure the most popular Windows Phone apps have native Windows 8 versions at or near launch, and the “long tail” of other Windows Phone apps isn’t going to drive sales or customer satifaction the way it did for Apple.

But the second reason Microsoft might not want to allow Windows Phone apps to run on Windows 8 is the Android experience.  Android tablets had, and still have, very few native applications.  Nearly the entire application library consists of Android phone apps that you run on the tablet.  Basically Android has allowed the chicken and egg question to live on way too long, with software developers waiting for Android tablets to take off before they create tablet-specific versions of their apps.  And one of the reasons the tablets haven’t taken off (Kindle Fire aside) is that there are so few tablet apps for them.  By not giving developers the easy out of running their Windows Phone apps on Windows 8 Microsoft would hope to break the cycle and force developers to create Windows 8 apps if they want to play in that world at all.  It is a gamble with lots of upside and little downside risk.

There is one more possibility that I think really tells the story.  When Microsoft announces the Windows Phone 8 SDK they will announce a way to write apps that can run on both Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8.  While existing Windows Phone 7 apps will run on Windows Phone 8, developers are likely to move quickly to port their apps to this new standard in order to have a great Windows Phone 8 version available at or near RTM. Thus they will simultaneously make their app available to (if still not tuned specifically for) Windows 8 tablets.  This is the Shoe I really expect Microsoft to drop.

So, will existing Windows Phone 7 apps be supported on Windows 8?  The jury is still out.  At this point I think it would be more marketing stunt (“Windows Store has more than 100,000 apps at launch”) than of practical benefit.  But for users the value is low, so skipping support of Windows Phone 7 apps isn’t much of a lost opportunity.

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Windows, Windows Phone | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

Tablets are creeping into business

Posted on March 16, 2012 by halberenson

Point of Sale (POS) systems (basically networked electronic cash registers) have been with us since the early 1970s.  I recall our local Burger King having a PDP-8 under the counter for running their registers back in 1973.  Around the same time my father was leading E.J. Korvettes’ evaluation of various POS systems and their eventual chain-wide rollout of NCR’s system.  These systems were extremely complex by today’s standards, consisting of an in-store minicomputer and set of special purpose terminals that functioned as electronic cash registers.  Another set of minicomputers sat back in IT, polling the in-store registers each night to get their sales data.  Then the data was transferred to an IBM mainframe where it was processed as though it had come from Kimball Tags.  As a child I’d spent many a day feeding the tags into a machine that read them and transferred the content to 80-column punch cards so they could be processed on the mainframe.  It kept me busy, meaning away from wandering around randomly “reprogramming” the boards in various pieces of Unit Record Equipment like this sort machine.

I recall the skepticism about the use of minicomputers.  Most IT people had no clue what a minicomputer was, and if they did they spoke derisively about how they might be good for niches like scientific computing but they had no place in “Data Processing”, as IT was then called.  Point of Sale systems were one the minicomputer’s first beachheads in the world of “Data Processing”.  They wouldn’t be minicomputer’s last of course, and by the mid-80s minicomputers were in use throughout the IT space.  Super-Minis had even taken their place on the raised floor computer rooms (now known as Data Centers), shoving mainframes to the side for many new applications.  Unix Servers, then Windows Servers, and now Linux Servers have also made their way into the Data Center, each time experiencing tremendous outcries from the IT cognoscenti about how unsuitable they were for “serious” business applications.

What happens out in the front lines telegraphs what is going to happen in the back office a few years down the road.  PCs and PC-based servers soon took over the POS domain from minicomputers, just as they were taking over the departmental computing needs in (and usually in opposition to the policies of) large enterprises.  Very small businesses started running accounting software on PCs, and soon medium-sized businesses were doing the same.  Gradually PCs and PC-based Servers became the backbone of large business.

And so here we are with Tablets, and more generally natural user interface based computers, invading the fringes of business.  The examples are everywhere, you just have to look.  The example I used in my infamous rant to developers was based on real examples I have seen in retail.  A friend of mine involved in the collaboration space is quite adamant about how mobile devices, and iPhones and iPads in particular, are rapidly spreading through the Information Worker space that has historically been the bastion of Windows PCs.  And yet much of the IT cognoscenti is playing their expected part and denying that these kinds of technologies have a role in “serious” business applications.  Well my fine reader I walked into a new coffee shop today and was greeted by the following picture.  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

 

iPad-based Cash Register

Posted in Computer and Internet | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

How many more Windows 8 shoes are left to drop?

Posted on March 15, 2012 by halberenson

Now that the Windows 8 Consumer Preview has been picked apart the question I’m asking is how many more shoes are there left to drop?  As we’ve all seen, the current Microsoft philosophy (particularly for  the Windows group) is to only release information that needs to be released.  I conclude there is still a lot we don’t know about Windows 8 and related products.

How about a couple of things that we have hints about but no definitive answers.  The first is what editions will Windows 8 be available in?  A leak from HP suggests fewer editions, dissection of the Windows 8 registry suggests more editions.  I’m betting there are fewer editions, but not as few as the HP data suggested.  For example, the HP information failed to take WOA into account.  And the registry data is suspect because engineers would have reserved values for all potential editions before the marketing side had worked through what actual editions were to be offered.  The proliferation of editions that occurred starting with Windows XP was the result of a number of dynamics that don’t need to hold true for Windows 8.  Bifurcating Windows into two editions, a basic offering and a professional offering made sense as volume growth slowed and an increasing amount of resources went into features primarily of interest to large enterprises.  But then things went crazy.  Home Premium, for example, exists as a way to charge for the Media Center functionality.  However for Windows Vista Microsoft also reportedly rebated most of the difference between Home Basic and Home Premium as marketing incentives for OEMs.  So effectively there was no price difference and OEMs simply offered Home Premium on new PCs.  For Windows 7 Home Basic was targeted more narrowly as a way to have a lower priced edition for emerging markets.  With the advent of WOA and its altered business model Microsoft could eliminate Home Basic and rely on WOA for addressing the low-cost emerging markets requirement.  Ditto for Windows Starter, an even lower cost version designated for Netbooks.  WOA addresses that need too.  Windows Enterprise and Windows Ultimate are technically the same, differentiated by licensing model rather than feature set.  I suppose Microsoft could keep them separate, although the world would be a happier place if they eliminated Ultimate and just made Enterprise individually licensable.  Another alternative would be to fold Enterprise functionality into Professional and leave Enterprise primarily as a licensing tool (including a way to obtain MDOP).  This leads to a 4 or 5 edition world.  WOA, Home, Professional, Enterprise/Ultimate.  That gives Microsoft the pricing flexibility it requires yet makes it much simpler for the user community to understand which edition they require.

The second, and more interesting, hint is around the level of Kinect support that might be present in Windows 8.  There have been reports of OEM’s preparing notebooks with built-in Kinect support.  They wouldn’t be doing that if the only software that was expected to be on the market from Microsoft was the current Kinect SDK.  I belive that manipulating Metro-style apps with Kinect will be fully supported in Windows 8.  I also believe that manipulating Office 15 with Kinect will be fully supported.  So imagine you are giving a Powerpoint presentation and you just wave with your hand to advance to the next slide.  You use gestures to switch to a demo app.  Etc.   Microsoft likely hasn’t revealed this as part of the Consumer Preview because consumers do not have the hardware to take advantage of it.  So extensive Kinect support could be one of the big reveals that Microsoft is saving for near or at product launch.

The Windows release strategy is also still unknown.  Built-in Metro apps, like Mail, are Windows Store apps and so can be updated at great frequency.  But what about Windows itself?  The norm for mobile devices has become annual releases with even more frequent minor updates (essentially service packs with minor functional improvements).  Windows’ main traditional competitor, OS X, has (with the exception of 10.4 “Tiger”, which had a Windows-like 30 month development schedule) had a more frequent update schedule than Windows.  After Tiger Apple went to a two-year cycle between releases and now appears to have put OS X on an annual cycle.  The competitive pressure to put Windows on an annual cycle is pretty intense.  With the need to re-engineer Windows now out of way the biggest technical inhibitor to putting it on an annual cycle has been addressed.  The bigger question is how willing the Windows team is to adapt their engineering methodology to the demands of the shorter cycle.  The Windows Phone team has proven it can be done at Microsoft.  Will the Windows team say anything about changes to their release cycle, or will this remain a secret until it is time to reveal the first such release?  While I would expect Windows President Steven Sinofsky to prefer the latter approach, he may bend to one reality: User’s may be more comfortable adopting Windows 8 if they know they won’t have to wait three years for Microsoft to refine it.

Of course there will be some, probably minor, refinements to Windows 8 before final release.  But those aren’t really shoes to be dropped.  The exception would be if Microsoft relented on its apparent decision to move the entire world to the Start Screen and provided a way to retain the Start menu.    Improbable but not impossible.  Want something completely off the wall?  What if Microsoft re-introduced the notion of Windows Workstation (for those who recall, Windows 2000 came in a Server and Workstation edition) that was a Desktop-only version of Windows 8?  Or at least could be put into a Desktop-centric/Start Menu mode?  Just what is the notional Professional Plus edition that appears in the Windows 8 registry?  Could that be the “Windows Workstation” that I just suggested?  Even more improbable, but still not impossible.

Beyond what I’ve mentioned here I think there are probably more Windows 8 shoes Microsoft has yet to drop.  After all, Windows 8 is an octopod.

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