{"id":2145,"date":"2010-10-21T13:12:29","date_gmt":"2010-10-21T13:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2145"},"modified":"2011-11-28T21:32:47","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T21:32:47","slug":"windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/10\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm","title":{"rendered":"Windows Phone 7 will fail if the channel is not ready"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Windows Phone logo\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/images\/windows-phone-logo.png?w=700&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" \/>Windows Phone 7 is a great new operating system. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/05\/overview-of-windows-phone-7.htm\">With an innovative and fresh user experience, it could help to put Microsoft back into the mobility game<\/a>&#8230; but they are coming from behind &#8211; a long way behind established competition from Apple (and more recently Google) so Microsoft needs every little bit of help it can get from it&#8217;s channel partners.<\/p>\n<p>Today is Windows Phone 7 launch day in the UK. Except the channel is not ready.\u00a0 And that means they&#8217;re selling competitive devices.\u00a0 Not good for a company that&#8217;s trying to get its mobile mojo back&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not a journalist, and I haven&#8217;t been briefed on Windows Phone 7 launch so I don&#8217;t know who the launch partners are but I have seen some of the comments on the web and elsewhere so, this lunchtime, I headed into London&#8217;s busiest shopping street to see what the various mobile carriers would sell me.\u00a0 Remember, I&#8217;m a consumer &#8211; and I&#8217;m also right smack bang in the middle of the demographic that Microsoft wants to sell Windows Phone 7 to.\u00a0 What I found was dissappointing.\u00a0 Not so much a big bang launch as a fizzle.<\/p>\n<p>I started out at Vodafone, where the duty manager was happy to give me advice.\u00a0 He asked what I was looking for (bored of my iPhone, currently out of contract, looking for a personal smartphone, with ActiveSync support for connection to work e-mail) and, to be fair, he asked me if I&#8217;d be interested in a Windows Phone.\u00a0 That was positive, as the Windows Phone merchandising in that store was almost non-existent (a small poster on the wall, and a small transfer on the window, right next to a bigger one advertising the iPhone).\u00a0 Unfortunately, he didn&#8217;t have stock: there had been some mix up with the courier delivering HTC Trophies; and the LG Optimus was, apparently, delayed due to a software fault.\u00a0 So I left the store empty-handed, although he did ask if I&#8217;d consider an Android device if I couldn&#8217;t get a Windows one.\u00a0 Further along Oxford Street, a larger Vodafone store had stock of the HTC Trophy but, again, no real merchandising to indicate that a new device was in town (just a small A-frame outside), despite the entire store being wrapped in Smartphone advertising.<\/p>\n<p>Next up was Carphone Warehouse, who suggested a Nokia N8, or Blackberry Torch might meet my needs.\u00a0 When I asked about a Windows Phone they said it&#8217;s was not available yet, even when I told them that today was launch day and they told me it had been put back by a couple of weeks, before suggesting I try the HTC Desire (on Android).<\/p>\n<p>At Orange, there was at least a big display for their exclusive Windows Phone &#8211; the HTC 7 Mozart, so I didn&#8217;t talk to any staff in store.<\/p>\n<p>A few doors along at O2 there was nothing at all to indicate there were any smartphones available from Microsoft. Meanwhile they had a big queue (this is lunchtime in London), so I didn&#8217;t speak to any staff &#8211; but I didn&#8217;t buy a phone either.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s great to see Windows Phone available in the UK ahead of the US &#8211; it&#8217;s been a long time since we were first in the queue to get our hands on a device.\u00a0 Except it seems the channel is not ready.\u00a0 I wasn&#8217;t expecting an Apple-style queue around the block but, if I was a &#8220;normal&#8221; consumer instead of a geek, I would be sold something else and, if Microsoft can&#8217;t get its channel partners to sell their handsets, Windows Phone 7 will be a monumental fail.\u00a0 I sincerely hope not &#8211; as I said at the head of this post, I think Windows Phone 7 is a great new operating system and it has stacks of potential.\u00a0 I just hope that Microsoft can recover from this false start and ship serious volumes of handsets over the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Windows Phone 7 is a great new operating system. With an innovative and fresh user experience, it could help to put Microsoft back into the mobility game&#8230; but they are coming from behind &#8211; a long way behind established competition from Apple (and more recently Google) so Microsoft needs every little bit of help it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/10\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Windows Phone 7 will fail if the channel is not ready<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[203],"class_list":["post-2145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-windows-phone"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Windows Phone 7 will fail if the channel is not ready - markwilson.it<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/10\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Windows Phone 7 will fail if the channel is not ready - markwilson.it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Windows Phone 7 is a great new operating system. With an innovative and fresh user experience, it could help to put Microsoft back into the mobility game&#8230; but they are coming from behind &#8211; a long way behind established competition from Apple (and more recently Google) so Microsoft needs every little bit of help it &hellip; Continue reading Windows Phone 7 will fail if the channel is not ready\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/10\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"markwilson.it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-21T13:12:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-28T21:32:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/images\/windows-phone-logo.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Wilson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@markwilsonit\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@markwilsonit\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Wilson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mark Wilson\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/98f61365e7c39d6be942174b8c4de468\"},\"headline\":\"Windows Phone 7 will fail if the channel is not ready\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-10-21T13:12:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-11-28T21:32:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm\"},\"wordCount\":684,\"commentCount\":8,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/98f61365e7c39d6be942174b8c4de468\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/images\\\/windows-phone-logo.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Microsoft Windows Phone\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Technology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.markwilson.co.uk\\\/blog\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/windows-phone-7-will-fail-if-the-channel-is-not-ready.htm\",\"name\":\"Windows Phone 7 will fail if the channel is not ready - 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In many ways it was a great announcement. Windows smartphones will have a \"common core\" with desktop Windows. The Windows ecosystem is converging, maybe a little late, but I said Windows\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1550,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/10\/microsoft-launches-windows-7-is-this-the-best-windows-yet.htm","url_meta":{"origin":2145,"position":2},"title":"Microsoft launches Windows 7 &#8211; is this the best Windows yet?","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Wednesday 21 October 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Every now and again, tiny tech bloggers like me get a break and are invited to events alongside \"real journalists\". So, here I am, at London's Hospital Club, brushing shoulders with the UK's mainstream media - from the BBC and Sky through to TechRadar and The Register, covering Microsoft's Windows\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft Windows 7\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft Windows 7","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/windows-7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4582,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/11\/microsofts-message-to-uk-partners-for-fy13-pbbbirm-mspartnersuk.htm","url_meta":{"origin":2145,"position":3},"title":"Microsoft&#8217;s message to UK partners for FY13 (#PBBBirm #MSPartnersUK)","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Wednesday 7 November 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I spent most of yesterday at Microsoft's Partner business briefing in Birmingham.\u00a0The afternoon workshops were especially good value (I was in the Public Cloud session, learning more about Office 365) but the morning keynote (delivered by Janet Gibbons, Microsoft's UK Director for Partner Strategy and Programmes)\u00a0had some interesting messages that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6326,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/03\/checking-windows-phone-update.htm","url_meta":{"origin":2145,"position":4},"title":"Checking for a Windows 10 Mobile update on Windows Phone 8.1","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 17 March 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a Nokia Lumia 830 for work, running Windows 8.1 Update 2\u00a0(with the Lumia Denim updates). 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