Windows Phone 7
plays the long game
REVIEW: Microsoft' s Windows Phone 7 has experienced some growing
pains in its first few months, but the company continues pushing the
platform as a viable one.
sparked two days' worth of drama
on Microsoft' s online help forums.
In the wake of that mini-incident,
Microsoft seemed to take a more
cautious note with ª NoDo,º its
March update.
ª After careful consultation with
the team and our many partners,
we' ve decided to briefly hold the
Windows Phone 7' s promised updates
include multitasking and a Twitter feature.
By Nicholas Kolakowski
Windows Phone 7 repre- sents Microsoft' s next best hope for carving s o m e s m a r t p h o n e
market share away from the likes
of not only Google Android and the
Apple iPhone, but also Research In
Motion' s BlackBerry franchise and
the Palm devices resurrected under
the Hewlett-Packard brand.
By some analyst estimates,
Microsoft has poured hundreds
of millions of dollars into its Windows Phone 7 development and
marketing efforts. It recently signed
a deal with Nokia that will see the
software ported onto the latter' s
smartphonesÐ an agreement both
companies hope will boost their
respective market shares in the long
battle against their mutual rivals.
Microsoft made sure to sign a
number of carriers and manufacturing partners to its initial smartphone rollout. It also imposed
strict hardware requirements for
the devices themselves to ensure
a consistent user experience.
Despite those efforts, Windows
Phone 7 is still experiencing growing pains.
It started when a February soft-
ware update, designed to help with
future updates, stalled a small
number of users' smartphones and
March update in order to ensure
the update process meets our stan-
dards and that of our customers,º
a Microsoft spokesperson wrote
in a March 10 email to eWEEK.
ª As a result, we will plan to begin
delivering the update in the latter
half of March.º
The ª NoDoº update brings a
number of things to the proverbial
table, including faster app load-
ing and the addition of a cut-and-
paste feature. However, for many
users, the last week of March ticked
by without an updateÐ sparking
another round of online protests.
Microsoft responded with a pair
of charts detailing the update status for devices both in the United
States and around the world. The
chart broke the update path into
three categories:
Testing: The update is undergoing network and quality tests.
Scheduling: Microsoft is scheduling the update for deliveryÐ a
process the charts suggest will take
ª 10 days or less.º
Delivering: The smartphone
could receive the update within
the next ª several weeks.º
Public frustration
Although the substantial majority
of Windows Phone 7 devices had
reached the ª deliveringº stage by
