That's the thing. MS has actually produced a really good product, better than any of the alternatives. But it's not going to be enough, because they're too late to get the app developers.
There is late and there is staying power. When Google's G1 came out people said "Has promise but the iPhone has too much of a lead." People said that Apple would never be compelling in the personal computer business again. People said RIM was too entrenched to be dislodged from the Enterprise. It goes on and on.
Time and time again, making a good product, sticking to the mission and making it the best it can be, has resulted in success for that product. So if Windows Phone is a solid product, and Microsoft sticks to it, they will have a very good chance of becoming a force to be reckoned with.
>When Google's G1 came out people said "Has promise but the iPhone has too much of a lead." People said that Apple would never be compelling in the personal computer business again. People said RIM was too entrenched to be dislodged from the Enterprise.
In each of those cases the new product that gained ground offered something significant that the existing product didn't. Android offered comparable quality for less money. MacOS offered a significantly better user experience than desktop Windows and also leveraged a higher level of consistency in user interface between mobile and desktop for the new generation of iOS users. And iOS did the same to RIM from the other side.
None of those are simple cases of comparable products gaining ground against intrenched competitors, they're cases of superior products gaining ground. And that's Microsoft's problem. They've produced something comparable, not something superior. Where's the killer app? The UI is neither abominable nor spectacular. It doesn't run desktop Windows programs. It isn't any cheaper than Android. What should make me want to buy one of these over Android or iOS that makes up for the lack of apps and the training cost of learning a new UI?
> MacOS offered a significantly better user experience than desktop Windows
I have both system and I just got a Mac to be able to code for iOS. I don't find your statement true at all. Actually I have a better experience with Ubuntu (as buggie as it feels) than MacOSX. For instance, in my case, I never got used to the Dock / Exposé way to switch between windows. Maybe I am just too used to the task bar but whatever the reason is, I suffer a lot anytime that I need to work on a Mac.
WP8 is not better than the alternatives. It's good and has some cool features, but it was buggy on release and still suffers from being brand new and all of the lack of polish that comes with that.
There's also, ironically, giant gaping holes in the app/feature selection for business users. No Citrix, no VPN, no app that lets you get to OWA mail if ActiveSync is disabled on your Exchange account, etc.
Yes and no... on one hand, I'm at times frustrated by the app selection, on the other hand, every day I look at the Marketplace, some other app is there (and I realize I miss less and less yet another app I had on my iPhone).
On the /third/ hand, I find myself more and more tempted to download VS2012 every day and do some development of my own.
Not really, I think that WP will have a bigger userbase than RIM and I think that a better to compare against Android. I also assume that "phoneapps" will work on desktop/tablet windows 8 as well... But again, this is just my thoughts.
>I think that WP will have a bigger userbase than RIM and I think that a better to compare against Android.
I think you're being extraordinarily optimistic. The latest numbers I could find quickly[1] show RIM with more than double the share of Microsoft, and with both showing a reduction in share vs. six months prior. You might be able to claim that people are abandoning RIM faster than they're abandoning Windows Phone, but even that is arguably because RIM is falling from a higher initial position.
The other problem is that .NET makes no sense for mobile apps, because neither of the two largest mobile platforms have good (if any?) support for it. Everyone who is not some kind of Microsoft evangelist is going to support Android/iOS first, which means they're not using .NET and are not going to worry about a Windows port unless Windows Phone gets enough share to be worth worrying about.
