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Comment by te_chris | Hacker News Reader

This guy ignores the fact that Microsoft has a fair bit of experience being the latecomer to a ( admittedly less dynamic and crowded) party.

The first Xbox was just a stake in the ground, a declaration of micrsofts intention to play in a field that was already quite competitive and saturated. It won a few people over but it didn't win the market. Then they released the 360 and the main consoles in the market are now in a 3 way battle, instead of a two way one. Microsoft are, I hope, playing a long game that recognizes that people don't stay with their current phone forever.

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I didn't ignore it, I hadn't even thought of it! :) That's actually a really good point, and I'm a little disappointed that I didn't think of it. Nearly every time I see Metro, I'm reminded of my XB360 console interface, and I've always felt that the XBox is Microsoft's best product. It works in a way that very few products do. I turn it on, it does exactly what I expect. Except when I get the RRoD... Heh.

I don't think he does ignore it. I think you're ignoring the other cases where they've been a latecomer but weren't successful - Zune and Bing, for example. They have finally gotten there with Xbox 360, although one might argue the door was really left open by the (significantly more successful) Wii targeting a slightly different market segment and Sony really stumbling on the PS3. It's not obvious to me that that will translate to success against iOS and Android which are in strong positions and getting stronger.

People bought an XBox because you had to if you wanted to play Halo.

I'm not seeing a similarly good reason to buy a WinPhone.

Wait until Microsoft spend $500 million on a WP7 exclusive app...

Well, maybe not $500 million, but Office for WP7 will be better than Office for Android or iOS equivalents, even if it means MS have to buy those developers first :)

Yup, if they can do something like that, then they'll get a big chunk of the business market.

Provided nobody else can easily copy it, of course.

WP7 comes with Office out of the box... perhaps MS should try marketing that fact a bit more aggressively.

I don't see that reason yet either, but after playing with a Nokia Lumia I do believe it's within the realm of possibility.

They did get the basics right here, WinMobile is actually surprisingly good. First and foremost it's hands-down the most responsive UI, even an iPhone feels laggy in contrast. Also most of the core interface and features worked really well for me when I tried; the whole thing feels right, the interface is intuitive and beautiful. It seriously makes the iPhone look dated.

What it lacks (apart from bugfixes) is customizability and the app ecosystem. Those are obviously huge issues, but not insurmountable when you have the warchest of a Microsoft.

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