Now that Microsoft has bought out Nokia, Balmer’s company is trying to convince the world that the Windows Phones will win by somehow doing better marketing.
The critics doubt this. Chris Silva, an analyst with the Altimeter Group, argues that “The app ecosystem is the least likely to benefit from this merger,” “With good-enough marketing, you can probably get people on board, but the app ecosystem is what’s going to keep them there.”
Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform offers just a fraction as many apps as its rivals: There are 160,000 Windows Phone apps, while Apple offers iPhone owners over 850,000 and Android more than 700,000.
I say “so what?”
If I may offer to help Mr. Balmer, there is an answer. GET OUT OF THE NUMBERS GAME! Most of the Apps in the Apple and Google world are junk. Sadly this is true for the limited number rf apps available in the Windows store as well.
What drives sales is not the number of APPS, it is key apps. So, Steve, here are my recommendations:
1. Steve, you gotta foregettaboutit! Stop trying to use the phones to sell other MS stuff!
Many of the best apps are free because they drive users to retail stores or onlkine services. Great examples are the Amazon store app, the Amazon Kindle App, and the Amazon Video/MP3 app. Currenlty Mucrosoft wastes its own efforts by competing with the last two of these. Microsoft can not build its phone business if WINDOWS is seen as a marketing tool that competes with iTUNES and Amazon.
2. Steve, you gotta foregettaboutit! The Windows Phone MUST support gMAIL.
I bought and got rid of a Surface RT because the mail app did a hoirrid job with gMAIL. I heard all the excuses bity I canb easily do gMAIL on an iPAD so the real answer is that MS does nto want to cede this world to Google. That is fine, OUtlook is grerat and you should promote it but, just as I can do my OUtlook mail on my Google phone, I ought to must be able to do gMAIL on a Windows phone.
Ok, those are the foregettaboutits! What apps does WinPhoine need and who should finance them?
3.. Steve, you gotta make a tile for this app! The app world IS maturing. Apple’s pursuit of a McDonalds-like claim of over a billion apps eaten, is getting boring because most of t apps are boring. The number of key apps used widely is relatively small and most of these are already in the Windows store. MS should PROMOTE these apps even where they compete with other MS businesses. Windows 8 offers a way of doing this. Microsoft needs t take better advantage of its live tiles. The idea is great, but most tiles are as alive as Julius Caesar. MS should work with developers of key apps to be sure they offer very live tiles.
4.. Steve, you gotta port this app to the desktop! The design of the Surface neatly bridges the tablet/desktop chasm. Windows 8 is a big part of that design but, sadly, it does little to highlight its UNIQUE ability to run phone/tablet apps on a desktop.
5.. Steve, you gotta buy this app! At one point Balmer was offering developes all of $100 to write apps for Windows 8. $100! If MS can pay 8 billion for a nearly bankrupt Nokia, why can it not invest a few millions in getting key apps on to the Win8/Winphone?
6. Steve, you gotta figure out what apps are missing! I actually use few of the popular apps but I just looked into the Windows Store and I did find apps for Facebook and Twitter. iTUNES, itself is missing, presumably a lost cause that could be remedied, as above by MS marketing Amazon! In the same spirit, why not co market with Costo, Walmart, Burger King? I suspect a lot of retail biggies would create apps for the first platform that offers help in developing that.
7. Steve, you gotta take advantage of the MS ecosystem! There was an effort to do this with the RT … porting Office was and is a great idea … if only MS had marketed the RT as an Office device! A lot more of this should be done including making Outlook a key feature of all Windows devices. That meme requires a whole post on its own BUT it seems to me my phone, if I bought a Winokia, should automatically integrate with my gMAIL, should allow me to place3 phone calls over Skype or my carrier at my choice, and should automatically store attachments in Skydrive. My tablet and desktop should include the phoneapp. Even if I do not place calls on the desktop, Outlook should treat ophnes calls as paret of its record keeping.
8. Steve, you gotta take advantage of the MS ecosystem! Why did you buy Skype if it is not better integrated into my phone and into Outlook?