7 ms·

Persisted = Burn millions of $ because some insignificant minuscule minority happens to like their phones.

MarkCole 9y ago
The minority that likes their phones may be miniscule in comparison to say the iPhone. But in the phone market a small market share can still equal billions a year. There is room for them to carve out a niche of Microsoft Phones earning them a couple of billion in revenue, and a couple of hundred million in profit. However for a big company like Microsoft that money is a drop in the ocean, and they want to own the market which at this point in time is unrealistic for them unless they can produce something truely groundbreaking.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  >>The minority that likes their phones may be miniscule in comparison to say the iPhone. But in the phone market a small market share can still equal billions a year. Ah yes, the good old "even if we captured only 1% of this huge market we would make billions!" argument.
- jliptzin 9y ago
  It's the ecosystem. My friend swore by his Android, always telling me how he could never switch to iOS. Until one day one app that he REALLY wanted to use had a nice polished iOS version but the Android version was clearly total crap with no obvious intention to improve, since then he's switched to iOS and isn't talking too much about Android anymore. So even if you have a small following, those people eventually drop off too one by one over things like this.
  - vorticalbox 9y ago
    That could be said for any phone system, the photo gallery and editing on windows phone is extremely good. Your friend could have easily gone from iPhone to android for the same reason.
    - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      I think the point is that any given person is more likely to find an app they "can't live without" on Android/iOS than on WinPhone, just because there's so many more to choose from.
- jl6 9y ago
  But new phones are incredibly sophisticated devices requiring a lot of investment to create and bring to market, so maybe even billions a year of revenue might not be enough.
  - MarkCole 9y ago
    That's true hence from that revenue they might only be able to squeeze tens or maybe hundreds of millions in profit from it. Which for Microsoft is in their eyes probably not worth the effort.
endorphone 9y ago
Billions of dollars. Windows Phone has been failing for years, and the same chorus has been saying "just a little bit more!" while Microsoft dumped billions and a large amount of goodwill into a clearly failed venture. They put more effort into it that the overwhelming bulk of businesses on the planet could ever imagine. There's a point where it's just a lot of good money and effort after a futile cause. People's discussions about Windows Phone -- the invariable commentators who talk about how great it is -- is the sort of thing I'm incredibly wary about, having been misled by it before in this field. The people professing love for Windows Phone almost invariably spent very little time with it (and haven't dealt with the enormous number of flaws and gaps), or have a profound bias to like it regardless. As a developer across a number of platforms, and with no affinity or vow of loyalty to any of the makers, I think it was a terrible platform that had tiny nuggets of promise, but never a compelling enough reward profile.
- vorticalbox 9y ago
  I have had my 950 for almost a year, I always read "bugs that have never been fixed" I haven't seen anything as such. I'll agree it has gaps and the settings is all over the place, wallpapers in personalise and not under display. I get it, its just not like any other mobiles os, even screen time out isn't in display its in lock screen. It also has annoying links to faq at the bottom of every single page.
devonkim 9y ago
Yeah, I can't find the article now but there's always a group of consumers out there that have a strong affinity for products that have failed in the market. Anything from soft drinks to candy to fast food to electronics devices - they're among the greater predictors of a product failure than any focus group could offer. I'm someone that was all about alternatives to MP3 such as Ogg Vorbis and VQF and ripped nearly 300 CDs to them before giving up and just going with... FLAC, which at least lets me pick and choose whatever I want in the future.
- tjalfi 9y ago
  Were you thinking of the following article? Eric Anderson, Song Lin, Duncan Simester, and Catherine Tucker (2015) Harbingers of Failure. Journal of Marketing Research: October 2015, Vol. 52, No. 5, pp. 580-592. It was posted to HN in July 2015[0] and a PDF is at [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9839344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9839344 [1] http://www.bm.ust.hk/mark/staff/song_lin/song_lin-jmr-2015.pdf http://www.bm.ust.hk/mark/staff/song_lin/song_lin-jmr-2015.p...
  - Roboprog 9y ago
    Thanks for that. I wonder how many of us in this readership have "flop affinity", given often very particular tastes and goals?
ChuckMcM 9y ago
I believe many people would argue that 'computing in the 21st century happens on the phone' not on the desktop or laptop for a large fraction of the population. And because of that, it would seem the worlds leading software vendor would want to participate there. So persistence here is not perceived as throwing away billions for a small minority, so much as investing billions so that you're a credible alternative to tens if not hundreds of millions of users. That keeps your company tuned up in the most dominant software delivery mechanism of our time and avoids overall company death by irrelevancy.

The minority that likes their phones may be miniscule in comparison to say the iPhone. But in the phone market a small market share can still equal billions a year. There is room for them to carve out a niche of Microsoft Phones earning them a couple of billion in revenue, and a couple of hundred million in profit. However for a big company like Microsoft that money is a drop in the ocean, and they want to own the market which at this point in time is unrealistic for them unless they can produce something truely groundbreaking.

enraged_camel 9y ago
>>The minority that likes their phones may be miniscule in comparison to say the iPhone. But in the phone market a small market share can still equal billions a year. Ah yes, the good old "even if we captured only 1% of this huge market we would make billions!" argument.
jliptzin 9y ago
It's the ecosystem. My friend swore by his Android, always telling me how he could never switch to iOS. Until one day one app that he REALLY wanted to use had a nice polished iOS version but the Android version was clearly total crap with no obvious intention to improve, since then he's switched to iOS and isn't talking too much about Android anymore. So even if you have a small following, those people eventually drop off too one by one over things like this.
- vorticalbox 9y ago
  That could be said for any phone system, the photo gallery and editing on windows phone is extremely good. Your friend could have easily gone from iPhone to android for the same reason.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    I think the point is that any given person is more likely to find an app they "can't live without" on Android/iOS than on WinPhone, just because there's so many more to choose from.
jl6 9y ago
But new phones are incredibly sophisticated devices requiring a lot of investment to create and bring to market, so maybe even billions a year of revenue might not be enough.
- MarkCole 9y ago
  That's true hence from that revenue they might only be able to squeeze tens or maybe hundreds of millions in profit from it. Which for Microsoft is in their eyes probably not worth the effort.

endorphone 9y ago

Billions of dollars. Windows Phone has been failing for years, and the same chorus has been saying "just a little bit more!" while Microsoft dumped billions and a large amount of goodwill into a clearly failed venture. They put more effort into it that the overwhelming bulk of businesses on the planet could ever imagine. There's a point where it's just a lot of good money and effort after a futile cause. People's discussions about Windows Phone -- the invariable commentators who talk about how great it is -- is the sort of thing I'm incredibly wary about, having been misled by it before in this field. The people professing love for Windows Phone almost invariably spent very little time with it (and haven't dealt with the enormous number of flaws and gaps), or have a profound bias to like it regardless. As a developer across a number of platforms, and with no affinity or vow of loyalty to any of the makers, I think it was a terrible platform that had tiny nuggets of promise, but never a compelling enough reward profile.

vorticalbox 9y ago
I have had my 950 for almost a year, I always read "bugs that have never been fixed" I haven't seen anything as such. I'll agree it has gaps and the settings is all over the place, wallpapers in personalise and not under display. I get it, its just not like any other mobiles os, even screen time out isn't in display its in lock screen. It also has annoying links to faq at the bottom of every single page.

devonkim 9y ago

Yeah, I can't find the article now but there's always a group of consumers out there that have a strong affinity for products that have failed in the market. Anything from soft drinks to candy to fast food to electronics devices - they're among the greater predictors of a product failure than any focus group could offer. I'm someone that was all about alternatives to MP3 such as Ogg Vorbis and VQF and ripped nearly 300 CDs to them before giving up and just going with... FLAC, which at least lets me pick and choose whatever I want in the future.

tjalfi 9y ago
Were you thinking of the following article? Eric Anderson, Song Lin, Duncan Simester, and Catherine Tucker (2015) Harbingers of Failure. Journal of Marketing Research: October 2015, Vol. 52, No. 5, pp. 580-592. It was posted to HN in July 2015[0] and a PDF is at [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9839344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9839344 [1] http://www.bm.ust.hk/mark/staff/song_lin/song_lin-jmr-2015.pdf http://www.bm.ust.hk/mark/staff/song_lin/song_lin-jmr-2015.p...
- Roboprog 9y ago
  Thanks for that. I wonder how many of us in this readership have "flop affinity", given often very particular tastes and goals?

ChuckMcM 9y ago

I believe many people would argue that 'computing in the 21st century happens on the phone' not on the desktop or laptop for a large fraction of the population. And because of that, it would seem the worlds leading software vendor would want to participate there. So persistence here is not perceived as throwing away billions for a small minority, so much as investing billions so that you're a credible alternative to tens if not hundreds of millions of users. That keeps your company tuned up in the most dominant software delivery mechanism of our time and avoids overall company death by irrelevancy.