Microsoft's Mobile Dilemma

Just about anyone who has actually used a Windows Phone will tell you: they're amazing devices. The user interface, security, stability and data synchronization capabilities are unrivaled in the mobile market. The phones also boost near seamless integration with Office365, SharePoint and OneDrive, meaning you can stay productive without whipping out your laptop or tablet. The mobile versions of Office are surprisingly useful, allowing you to even zoom into and edit Excel files while standing in line at the coffee shop. Some devices, like the Nokia Lumia 1020, even feature better than DSLR quality cameras with the up to 40 mpx Carl Zeiss lens and amazing Lumia Camera app with burst photo support and HD-quality videos. Throw on the mobile version of PhotoShop and you can leave that $1000 bulky camera at home. With IE on board, most web pages run without issue, assuming you can handle desktop content on the smaller screen.

So why on earth is Microsoft unable to get this amazing piece of technology out of third? My opinion (based on a couple of decades of technology field experience) is Microsoft is their own worst enemy, and here's why:

1. They've gotten into the nasty habit of releasing their best phones exclusively through AT&T. Hey, Microsoft! You only have a paltry 3.6% share of the smartphone market share. AT&T only serves about a third of all mobile phone users and are generally running neck and neck with Verizon. (In addition, AT&T store employees push Android despite your "exclusive" agreements.) T-Mobile and Sprint split the remaining third. Why on earth would you choose to ignore about 66% of your potential customers? It's not like you're the big dog and can afford to cherry pick in the mobile market. What amazes me is that this method has done nothing year after year but alienate loyal Windows Phone users who refuse to be forced into complete financial servitude to the traditionally non-customer-friendly AT&T corporate machine, but also leaves little room to gain market share among those mobile users most likely to be open to platform changes. Why? Because when someone is ready to upgrade their phone, they go to the provider's web site or brick & mortar store and explore the devices available. New smartphone buyers lean toward the lowest cost device that they can get for the least out of the pocket up front expenditure. That means that they need to see a device is available through their provider's store and financing programs. Even better if their provider offers the device for free with a plan or for $50 or less. (Hint, this is how Android took over the once Apple-dominated market.) Now, Microsoft seems to think that releasing their flagship Windows 10 devices through the Microsoft Store in addition to AT&T will give them greater reach into the market place. Really? How many Microsoft Store locations are there out there? Oh, yeah, there's less than 110 Microsoft Stores in the United States and a large number are small "best of" stores that carry only small tablets, a few phones and a ton of video games. In a country that boasts well over 3000 COUNTIES (not cities), this leaves the Windows Phone largely unseen by the majority of potential buyers. (About 60%)
2. Their advertising/marketing sucks. Microsoft is notoriously incapable of creating a successful marketing campaign for their small devices. Anyone remember the Zune? Technically superior to the iPod at a lower cost, it failed miserably mainly because no one knew it existed. Those who did see a commercial about it saw it being used by an unattractive dork who had to ride his bike to pick up pizza and lived in a crappy little apartment. Yeah, I want to be just like that nerd. NOT! Meanwhile, Microsoft left marketing for the Windows Phone up to the providers that they shunned with their top device releases. Let's not forget, AT&T was still advertising mostly iPhones despite their exclusive flagship device agreements with MS. After that, they pushed Samsung very hard and still are today. I've met college freshmen who can come up with a better marketing plan than that. So while Xbox has flourished from multimillion dollar, well-focused marketing campaigns, MS has just about completely ignored using those same skills with the Windows Phone, yet continue to act confused about why it hasn't fared better with America's heavily media-obsessed consumers. Really? Where's the Xbox tie-in? The "better selfies with Windows Phone" campaign? The celebrity endorsements - by someone under the age of Methuselah?" (A Kardashian, maybe?)
3. Speaking of selfies - when MS did finally wake up and realize they'd gain greater adoption by releasing a lower cost phone to compete with Android, they blew it big time. The top uses of smartphones by the largest market of gotta-have-the-latest-gadget consumers (i.e. teens and young adults) include taking/posting selfies and playing music. So what does Microsoft do to capture this massive potential market? Remove the front-facing camera and enhanced stereo speakers from their lower cost phones, of course! Wouldn’t you? Seriously, MS, you would've been better off ripping Office from those phones to reduce the cost. No self-respecting Gen Y'er or Millennium is going to buy a phone without a front-facing camera in this day and age. You can't give that kind of phone away. Not even to a kid.
4. Which takes me to the next Microsoft fumble at the goal line. Microsoft Family Safety is awesome. One of the best tools a parent can have in this digital age. Cortana, too, is really awesome. So, I buy a Windows Phone for my kid. I set it up, knowing her Xbox music and movies will sync and thinking "I can use the find my phone feature to track her down if she gets lost." She's 11. Getting lost is really less of a worry than her wondering off to a friend's house without permission or getting snatched up by some creep in the park. I'm also looking forward to the quiet hours putting an end to the 24x7 calls from moderately-developed countries that constantly violate the US do not call list rules. Okay, that and angst-ridden middle-school preteens who have no grasp of "no calls after bedtime" proclamations. She wants to use her phone as an alarm clock so she can constantly change the alarm tone. (This helps, trust me.) We get the phone, set it up, boot…"Sorry, you're too young for Cortana." (Well, that's the summary, anyway.) What no one at Microsoft bothered to mention was that not only is Cortana disabled for users under 13, but it also shuts down a good number of the useful features like find my phone, quiet hours, and "you need to get moving if you don't want to miss the bus" reminders. Combine that with the continued failure to roll Family Safety fully out to the Windows Phone, and basically paid $100 for a device that gets email, answers calls and can send text messages. I could've gotten that for free with the Android of the week. Not only do I feel completely cheated as a parent, but have to think that most parents are going to buy their pre-teen an iPhone or Android device that doesn't suffer from these crippling feature cuts based on the user's age. Microsoft, I get that you're trying to do the right thing in terms of Federal child protection laws, but you've done it at the cost of handing an entire generation over to your competitors because most kids have developed platform loyalty long before they turn 13.
5. Finally, Microsoft has gotten themselves shut out of the app market by failing to successfully romance developers early on. The only way out of this conundrum is to improve market share, which the pathetic lack of apps is going to make very difficult. If MS wants to improve this, they're going to need to find a way to entice top app developers to include them, or provide a shell to run apps built for iOS or Android.

So, to sum up: Microsoft has single-handedly managed to alienate potential loyal customers by:

• Restricting best in class device availability to less than 40% of the marketplace
• Failing to invest in advertising to tell the other 60% their platform exists, and
• Leaving out key features for important market segments.

What I'd like to see MS do to remedy the problem and give this outstanding mobile platform the life it deserves:

• Provide a "free" device that offers a low res front-facing camera and decent stereo output to incent new mobile customers to try the platform. MS could bring the per device licensing cost down by removing Office from the device (but providing users an option to buy it via the Windows Store instead). Yeah, I know the devices aren't free. However, because Google doesn't charge a huge fee to license their OS, hardware vendors like Samsung are able to offer nice devices running Android at a low enough cost that the mobile providers can afford to give them away in exchange for a new service contract. Again, this is how Android took over the mobile world. It was certainly not because they build the best devices.
• Make deals with Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint to sell the devices and provide store employees training and incentives so they can properly sell them. Trust me, this has worked for Apple who was smart enough to realize they'd need to expand beyond AT&T to hang onto their market share.
• Market the device to kids and parents as the safest choice. To accomplish this, they need to do two things:
1. Fix Cortana so it complies with Federal child protection laws without disabling it. This would mean they'd need to reduce the data Cortana stores in the cloud about a child or prevent apps from accessing that data without a parent's permission. Most important to parents based on user forum feedback is 1) Find My Phone and 2) Quiet Hours. Re-enabling Cortana's reminder service is somewhat important as well.
2. REALLY deploy Microsoft Family Safety to Windows Phone. This would give parents the option to manage which sites and apps kids can access just like parents can do on the desktop today.
• Provide an emulator so iOS or Android developer's apps will run on Windows Phone, then entice those devs to include their apps in the Windows Store. No extra pain for devs + opening another revenue source = pathetic app landscape problem resolved. Let's face it MS, if users can't swipe for a potential date or participate in Disney contests, they aren't going to buy your phone. (And no, they don't realize the websites work on your phone. They want their apps, dammit!)
• Finally, stop trying to copy everyone else. Rumors about adopting Android don't help you, MS. In fact, it makes you look a little bit desperate and pathetic. Not only do you need to flex some of that financial muscle you have to let people know your platform is awesome, but you need your executive team to buy in philosophically as well.

Since Ballmer took over following Gates' retirement, MS has done nothing but give into knee jerk reactions to competitors' success. They've given up on nurturing their really cool technology and investing in marketing to ensure adoption, instead looking for instant wins and bailing out on good ideas before they've had a chance to take hold. Windows owns the desktop because it really is the best OS out there AND because Bill Gates was passionate about his mission to make it available to everyone. He focused on making it user-friendly and sold it cheaper than competing operating systems. That got the individual consumer's attention. He also marketed the heck out of it for a very long time until it finally took off. Microsoft, take note. THAT's the formula that works. Keep building great products, invest in reaching consumers and ignore what's working for your competitors today. This isn't a field of dreams - you have to do more than just build it for the consumers to come. You need to believe in your own technology and show EVERYONE it's there and why it's cool or you'll never get out of third place. My last tip: shell out the big bucks for a marketing company that thinks like a consumer. Ditch the nerd ads, PLEASE!