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MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, some trade-offs. Trade-offs like no “cut, copy, and paste,” no third-party multitasking, and no tethering support, to name a few more.
Fried reports, “The company made the decision to delay the CDMA version earlier this year but had declined to publicly confirm it until now. While GSM is much more widely used in Europe, the decision means that Windows Phone 7 won’t be available on two of the four major U.S. networks at launch–Sprint and Verizon.”
“Microsoft is slated to tout Windows Phone 7 at an October 11 ‘open house’ event in New York, though devices won’t immediately be available and will instead trickle out as various hardware makers and carriers are ready to start selling them,” Fried reports.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, bring it on, Kinboys! The more confusion, false starts, and dead end disasters there are out there, the better it is for Apple. People want consistency, reliability, and the assurance that the company making their device/OS will be doing so for many, many years. Only Apple can really offer those things. Buyers do not want fragmentation, superfluous platforms, empty promises, and risk.
Do they push back every product they make? Geez.
Another well deserved Microsoft device DOA. Better inform next of Kin…
Windows Phone 7 is a platform, like Android. It gives all the lazy smart phone makers, who rely on an external source for something as critical as their product’s OS, another choice (where they currently only have Android). Only Apple, RIM, HP, and Nokia have full control over their own success in mobile devices. For the rest of the industry, Windows Phone 7 is a source of further fragmentation. I actually hope it is reasonably successful, because Windows Phone 7 competes mostly against Android, not iPhone.
Think about it, Microsoft is really trying to copy every thing about the first iPhone. Making it GSM only is part of the copying.
W7 Home Basic, W7 Home Premium, W7 Enterprise?
Follow the Kin W7, follow the Kin!
It’s time Verizon got with the program and dumped CDMA!
Geez! I love Ballmer. I reaally do. The bloke never gives up, does he?
The biggest complaint about iPhone is no CDMA, at least in the US. If iPhone gets CDMA first they are dead.
I love their strategy.
Because it helps my AAPL.
Actually, I’d like to see WP7 do moderately well, to take some turf back from Android, as we all know Android’s path was paved on top of WinMo hardware specs.
I heard today that T-Mobile is giving the Windows platform one last chance as a device that they carry. If it flops, (which it surely will) then T-Mobile will not offer any more Windows based phones.
You’re giving them trouble for no 3rd party MT, no cut-copy-paste?
What kind of fanboys are you? I mean Apple shipped with the same limitations.
In 2008…..
!!!
I wish Apple would let T-Mobile have the iPhone, then you wouldn’t see winblows 7 on it.
Microsoft maybe be a wreck, but even THEY are smart enough to support the global cell phone standard, GSM.
CDMA, no way!
@yet another steve
That was 2007
So it is not only Apple, but also Microsoft who are holding out on supporting CDMA, which will go away soon. Why spend money as Verizon will be migrating to GSM based G5 anyway?
As Mr. Reeee points out, CDMA is only used in USA by one carrier (or does someone in Canada use it): Verizon
GSM (Global System for Mobiles) is used pretty much everywhere else in the world.
CDMA is going to have lesser and lesser support, it’s such a small market in global terms; so Microsoft being quiet sensible here, as was Apple in the past.
@ yet another steve
That’s the advantage Apple often has; Apple was first with a mass-market touch-based smart phone. You don’t have to have all the pieces in place when you launch (the first iPhone wasn’t even “3G”), and everyone still loves the product because it is revolutionary. When you try to replicate that success 3+ years later (as Microsoft is trying to do with Windows Phone 7), the minimal expectation is that your product matches the leader’s current product. If it doesn’t, what’s the point? Who’s going to want it?
Apple did the same thing with iPod. It was the first popular digital music player, but it was functionally limited initially – and only for Mac users. But it was revolutionary, so it was successful. Then Windows support was added. Then the iTunes (Music) Store was added. Then iPods could also play videos and games, and that new content was added to the iTunes Store. Then the premier iPod morphed into iPhone minus phone, a handheld computer. And Microsoft did the same thing (with Zune) that they are trying now (with Windows Phone 7); Microsoft’s Zune had to replicated everything Apple built (over many years) all at once, and they basically failed (they always seemed to be copying what Apple had two years ago – sound familiar).
Apple is starting the same cycle now with iPad. It is another revolutionary product, but two years from now, the first iPad will seem somewhat limited and even a bit archaic because Apple will make it better every year. Meanwhile, the competition will have to match what Apple has already accomplished (up to that point) in one shot. It’s beginning to look like Apple will have iPod-like dominance with tablets, because they are no where close to matching iPad 1.0.
And Apple may do it yet again with Apple TV 2.0…
“…the decision means that Windows Phone 7 won’t be available on two of the four major U.S. networks at launch–Sprint and Verizon.”
So Windows Phone 7 will compete head-to-head with iOS on AT&T? FAIL!!! Game over!
The smart thing would have been to bring out the CDMA version first and grab all the Sprint and Verizon subscribers possible. This is one more example of the denial and hubris that goes into Ballmer’s decision making. Pathetic!
@ Zeke
I think you are right. Microsoft’s true competition is not iPhone, it is Android. iPhone is a smart phone, not an OS. Windows Phone 7 and Android are playing the same game – getting lazy smart phone makers without an in-house OS to use their respective platforms. Any market share attained buy Windows Phone 7 will be (mostly) at the expense of Android. To do that most effectively, Microsoft needs to focus on Verizon, not AT&T, before iPhone makes it onto Verizon.