A lot has been made about how Windows Phone 7 is supposedly abandoning the IT worker crowd that makes up most of the audience for Microsoft’s current smart phone platform, Windows Mobile. This is not the case at all. I mention this in my recent article, Windows Phone: Key Themes, Part 2: Seven Areas of Differentiation, where “Best in Business” is literally one of those seven areas, identified by Microsoft, where Windows Phone will be better than the competition.
So how did this misconception start? Off the top of my head, I’d blame Microsoft. I mean, in my own understanding of how the company has communicated Windows Phone so far, they’ve been very top heavy with regards to user experience and consumer usage. And there’s been precious little talk about business (again, so far).
But even this isn’t fair. Trapped on an Amtrak train for three hours this morning, I figured I’d continue my note-taking for the book, and I’ve been going over Microsoft’s Mobile World Congress and MIX’10 videos again and again, looking for both frequently-repeated key themes and language. And in watching Joe Belfiore’s session, “Changing Our Game: An Introduction to Windows Phone 7 Series” from MIX, something interesting emerges. He is very clear about the target audience for Windows Phone. And it is not what you think you’ve heard. Here’s the relevant bit.
“If you look at our history, we were more focused on the mobile knowledge worker, or the mobile business user,” he says. “And I want to explicitly say–and you have probably already figured this out–that is not our intent with Windows Phone 7.”
Pretty clear cut, eh? Not so fast. Watch what he says next:
“As smart phones have become more capable, as more and more people are carrying them, the kinds of scenarios that need to light up, are both work and life. And so we’ve picked an audience target for our own designs … This audience target is called the ‘life maximizer’.”
Looking at the slide that’s present during this part of Joe’s talk, you learn that the life maximizer is busy personally and professionally, is juggling priorities, and values technology as a means to achieve goals (goals which are both personal and professional). They are trying to balance priorities (both personal and professional) and are explicitly trying to grow both personally and professionally.
Get it?
Windows Phone is not just for consumers. It’s for that increasingly huge percentage of the population that blurs the line between work and play. I’ve been working at home since, oh, about 1994 or so, so I am just used to this blurring of the lines and have a hard time understanding the 9 to 5 lifestyle. But for most of the world, this kind of thing just happened over time. You got a laptop from work, or on your own, maybe. And suddenly you’re answering emails at night when you watch TV.
There’s even a very interesting comment in here that, I think, speaks to Microsoft’s plans for Pink and how this system and Windows Phone do not target the same audiences. Check this out:
“If you think about these people and contrast them with, you know, youthful , 17-year-olds getting phones,” he says, “they’re pretty different. They care about their work email, for example. And this is an audience, because they have jobs, they have a little bit more money, so they’re more likely to spend more money on a more expensive device and then load it up with apps. [With Windows Phone], we’re trying to deliver an experience that is really fun, but is great at work.”
Yikes!
That is pretty darned explicit, don’t you think?
So there you have it, folks. Windows Phone is not just for consumers. And Pink, very clearly, is a low-cost, feature phone system aimed at teenagers who are not yet working full-time and can’t afford a smart phone.
Mystery solved. Well, two mysteries solved. :)
Feature phones have always been, at least in my mind, a bit more than the average dumb-phone you often get for free with some new prepaid plan. They’re like a fancy middle ground between dumb and smart phones. People who just want to make calls won’t get them or a smart phone. People who want to make calls and text/chat alot probably will.
The key here is that a feature phone is a starting point where teens get drawn in and then later (because they’re hooked already) will go for that more expensive smartphone. Thus the carrier can upsell you a full smartphone and that pricy data plan in a few years.
So in that sense, they’re a key part really, more marketing and the whole “get them while they’re young” idea.
This is a great move for Microsoft. Some have said this phone will fail, but it’s aimed at a completely different market, like Paul said. I would say that those who bought a Razor or those other Verizon phones that aren’t android or WM phones, would be interested in this phone. Simply because it aims at what you do with a phone. Not what you can do with a device that also makes phone calls.
Plus on top of that it will offer up a Zune experience (if i recall correctly). Which is a HUGE plus. I really think if Microsoft wants to make a dent in Itunes, they need to offer that Zune portal to different devices. This will be one of those phones you get your kids because you don’t think they need to on the internet 24/7 and being brainwashed with the term “APPS”.
Does MS really believe it has discovered a class of users that no other brand of phone has served?
I have trouble believing that. This ‘life-maximizer’ thing, really, is just marketing-speak.
I have no comment on how the phone itself will do, just on that phrase.
Everyone: Word usage lesson. Wrong: “they’ve been very top heavy with regards…” Correct: they’ve been very top heavy with regard . . .”
Regards is used as a salutation, i.e., give my regards to . . Regards, Bill.
Good article, Paul.
This comment from Paul’s unwelcome gadfly.
At 20, I’m technically in their target demographic. Yet for me, I couldn’t see myself using one of those. My last three phone’s have been various Windows Mobile devices and I’m hooked at how powerful it is, how customizable it is, the apps that are available, (no apps on this thing? even their SideKick predecessor has apps) etc. Even though this looks pretty, it suffers from the same “information overload” that Motorola’s Blur UI on top of Android suffers from. It looks cluttered.
I will say that the phones look nice though.
I can see my daughter using one. She prefers that type of keyboard and the media sync using Zune software is pretty cool. Her and her friends text almost exclusively, so its all in the keypad and how it feels.
If this runs WP7, maybe we’ll see the new platform earlier than we thought.
I hope Palm holds on, I see Verizon allows using the MiFi feature with them now for no additional fee. Its truely a sign of desperation, but also a helluva deal. They wanted between 30 and 50 dollars before depending if you went to the Verizon store or a independent.