{"id":452,"date":"2010-10-12T09:08:38","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T07:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.pricecheck.co.za\/?p=452"},"modified":"2010-10-12T09:08:38","modified_gmt":"2010-10-12T07:08:38","slug":"microsofts-windows-phone-7-last-chance-in-the-mobile-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/microsofts-windows-phone-7-last-chance-in-the-mobile-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft&#8217;s Windows Phone 7:  Last Chance In The Mobile Space?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Ballmer unveiled a variety of new cell phones that will be using Windows Phone 7 yesterday. Unfortunately Ballmer&#8217;s presentation bombed. Which leads me to wonder whether this is Microsoft&#8217;s last chance with <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.pricecheck.co.za\/2010\/02\/microsoft-unveils-windows-phone-7\/\" target=\"_blank\">the mobile platform<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/beta.images.theglobeandmail.com\/archive\/00928\/windows7-3phones_928785cl-8.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\nWith Microsoft&#8217;s share of the smart phone market accounting for just 5 percent of the worldwide smart phone market in the last quarter, there&#8217;s increasing pressure on Ballmer to kick-start what even he acknowledges has been a disappointing performance.\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pricecheck.co.za\/categories\/f\/126\/Cellular+Phones\/f\/269\/Symbian\/0\/tp.weekly\/DESC\/\" target=\"_blank\">Symbian<\/a>, on the other hand, had a 41 percent share, 18 percent went to Research in Motion&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pricecheck.co.za\/categories\/f\/126\/Cellular+Phones\/f\/269\/BlackBerry+OS\/0\/tp.weekly\/DESC\/\" target=\"_blank\">BlackBerry<\/a> phones, 17 percent for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pricecheck.co.za\/categories\/f\/126\/Cellular+Phones\/f\/269\/Android\/0\/tp.weekly\/DESC\/\" target=\"_blank\">Android<\/a> and 14 percent for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pricecheck.co.za\/categories\/f\/126\/Cellular+Phones\/f\/269\/iOS\/0\/tp.weekly\/DESC\/\" target=\"_blank\">iPhone<\/a>, according to research firm Gartner.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing that any gadget lover will notice is that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pricecheck.co.za\/categories\/1298\/Microsoft\/\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft<\/a> logo is on the button that is below the screen. As far as I know this is something new and it just does not impress me. You don&#8217;t need constant reminders about what operating software is found on your phone.\u00c2\u00a0 The second problem is that developers are really not excited about the Windows Phone 7 software platform. Developers can simply use Visual Studio to create applications.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/i.i.com.com\/cnwk.1d\/i\/tim\/2010\/10\/11\/ballmer_370x278.jpg\" alt=\"Would you buy anything from this man?\" width=\"370\" height=\"278\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ballmer (seen in the image above) has made it clear that Microsof&#8217;ts dabbling in the mobile business is a long term strategy. Mr Ballmer, you might need to bring the cheque book and purchase a competitor to survive.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe take some classes from Steve Jobs on how to market your products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Ballmer unveiled a variety of new cell phones that will be using Windows Phone 7 yesterday. Unfortunately Ballmer&#8217;s presentation bombed. Which leads me to wonder whether this is Microsoft&#8217;s last chance with the mobile platform? With Microsoft&#8217;s share of the smart phone market accounting for just 5 percent of the worldwide smart phone market<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"\/blog\/microsofts-windows-phone-7-last-chance-in-the-mobile-space\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"amp_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[193,829],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}