Microsoft Holds iPhone Funeral Event

theodp writes "TechFlash reports that Microsoft celebrated the completion and upcoming launch of Windows Phone 7 on Friday with a 'Windows Phone Pride Parade' complete with zombies, a 'Thriller' Dance, and pallbearers carrying a giant iPhone. 'These kind of "ship" parties are common throughout the industry,' explained Microsoft communications VP Frank Shaw. 'It's a great way for teams that have worked overtime to create a kick-ass product blow off steam and have a little fun.'"

Are they 'kin mad?

[gilesjuk]

Hmm let me see, which company recently withdrew a phone after a few weeks on sale?

Why will Windows Phone 7 succeed when Kin failed?

Windows Mobile sold reasonably well, but all the OEMs who pumped out WM handsets have largely moved on and release Android phones now.

HA HA HA

[Antisyzygy]

Dude, I am not really an Apple person, but I seriously doubt a Windows based phone will bet able to take down the iPhone. The funeral aspect just makes Microsoft look like a bunch of twats.

Re:Its just one tragic blunder after another

[0123456]

Who the fuck at m$ thought this could bring them anything but ridicule?

Presumably the same people who think that anyone would intentionally buy a phone that runs Windows?

Re:When...

[yoyhed]

I'd say Office and Windows are still pretty damn relevant. However, in the mobile space - yeah, WinMo7 isn't going to change anything. iPhones and Android phones will still rule the smartphone market, and though BlackBerries are a dying breed in terms of the cutting-edge, even they will far exceed WinMo7's usage.

iPhone is dead

[the eric conspiracy]

Windows 7 phone is DOA.

OK to have the funeral too. For both of them.

The thing they missed is that Android has done the killing.

Why not show hubris?

[RyanFenton]

If you know your product is highly likely going to fail, why not add some poetry to existence by showing the maximum hubris possible?

If you can't be a good example of success, then you can also play a role of being a very loud example of failure.

The problem is that, at looking to politics and business, most extremely loud examples of failure end up being repeated anyway the very next political/financial cycle, with very little modifications to counter that same method of failure.

Ultimately, it is because people remember claims, not results [chicagobooth.edu] - so the loud hubris ends up attracting more imitation than the results drive a logical reaction.

Ryan Fenton

MS used to scare people

[astrashe]

These guys used to strike terror into people -- they'd kill startups by just hinting that they were working on something similar.

I never thought I'd feel sorry for them.

Re:HA HA HA

[magus_melchior]

If I didn't know any better, I'd say they're still sore about the "I'm a Mac" ads. Although they weren't very accurate and they were arrogant as hell, Microsoft's responses ("look ma, cheap PC with a ton of bloatware I don't need!" and of course Seinfeld & Bill) have been absolutely pathetic-- and in the case of mobile, they had a golden opportunity to rip Apple a good one over their response to the iPhone 4 antenna design flaw. I mean, come on... they had a ton of examples from other handset makers.

Watching Microsoft's recent PR is sort of like watching a grown man miss a tee-ball. In three swings.

Re:What about the rest of the family?

[DurendalMac]

Why no funeral for the Kin, MS? Also, I have to laugh heartily at the iPhone and Blackberry funerals. WM7 is going to kill those just like the Zune killed the iPod!

Re:What about the rest of the family?

[Inner_Child]

'It's a great way for teams that have worked overtime to create a kick-ass product blow off steam and have a little fun.'

So why does the WinMo7 team get to do this?

Re:Are they 'kin mad?

[UnknowingFool]

I haven't seen much of Windows 7 that puts it above Android and iPhone. In some respects, it appears several years behind the other two. The only thing that has kept WinMobile relevant has been business users. Windows 7 is breaking all backwards compatibility forcing those users to migrate.

Re:Grip and Tip

[Anonymous Coward]

The fuck?

Re:Are they 'kin mad?

[UnknowingFool]

It's one thing to hold a ship party celebrating your product. It's another to predict that your product will be the demise of your competitor who has been kicking your butt for the last several years when your last several attempts have been laughably pathetic. It's called arrogance, hubris, delusion, etc.

Notify next of Kin

[broKenfoLd]

Dear Microsoft, Seriously? Anyone remember the Microsoft Kin, launched in 2010? If the iPhone has died, then the Microsoft offering was a stillborn. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20009336-56.html [cnet.com]

Re:Mad Old Uncle Bob, Too.

[davester666]

It's kinda tasteless to throw a funeral when everybody made fun of him and you knifed him in the back.

Why do we care about this?

[AusIV]

I'm getting tired of all this circle jerking about smart phones. There can be more than one smartphone operating system. There doesn't have to be a "victor" to have a successful smartphone OS. There's no reason that the success of Windows 7 phone (or whatever it's called, I don't really care) has to be predicated on the death of the iPhone. The two can coexist. Yes, they'll compete with each other, but there doesn't always have to be a winner and a loser.

I'm an android fan. My current phone is Android based, and my next phone will probably be android based. But if someone would prefer an iPhone, a Windows Mobile phone, a phone from Palm or Blackberry, I really don't care. The existence of competitors in no way reduces the utility of my own phone. In fact, the existence of competition probably leads to improvements for all of the phones.

launch for which product now?

[lawpoop]

It's pretty sad that the events around the launch of their product are about the iPhone rather than their own. Don't they have anything to tout about Windows phone 7? Or can they only tear down the other guy?

Re:Are they 'kin mad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or it could be they're just having fun after a lot of work. Everyone hopes their product will be the one that wins out. The market will decide in the end, so for now let them have their fun, and you can go do something more productive.

Re:That is so pathetic

[antifoidulus]

Microsoft as of late has been shown to be a company that doesn't even seem to know what is going on inside the company let alone the outside world. From what I have read(and just my own experience working in an unrelated but huge company) there are a lot of "empire builders" at Microsoft, ie managers who only care about increasing their influence and power in the company, nothing else. And to do that they constantly try to undermine other managers at Microsoft and give their pet project top billing. You can see this in their mobile lineup(kin, multiple flavors of mobile windows that are largely incompatible etc) and even within products themselves. Windows settings and GUIs are incredibly inconsistent, you can tell that managers responsible for certain parts of the OS were unwilling to cooperate with each other and thus you get multiple different places where you can change the same system component(firewall being a prime example).

The big problem at Microsoft seems to be that they have totally unqualified people at the top(in both technical and managerial skills). Most of the senior management(including Balmer) at Microsoft were just people who sort of stumbled into the right place at the right time. If Balmer joined Microsoft a couple of years later I doubt he would be anywhere near the top. Ballmer has shown that he is either unable or unwilling to actually find a cohesive vision for Microsoft products and actually push it through. Despite Linux being developed by a large # of people(with an almost equally large # viewpoints behind them), I actually find the experience of using a Linux machine MUCH more cohesive than Windows. Looking at an out of the box Windows installation, you would find it hard to believe that it was actually put together by one company and is, in my opinion, the hardest OS to use of the big 3 desktop OSs.

Re:Are they 'kin mad?

[hardburn]

After looking at Wikipedia's KIN Missing Features page [wikipedia.org], I found that every single bullet point there deserves a Picard Faceplam. I mean, no calendar app? At all? Even Free w/Activation phones get some kind of calendar app.

Re:Why do we care about this?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

It's just another in a long line of IT religious wars. Anyone who takes it serious is an idiot. Maybe it's the geek version of sports rivalries.

Re:You figured the trick

[Low Ranked Craig]

The difference is that Apple only charged people $29 for the Snow Leopard upgrade. The Vista to 7 upgrade was, uh just a bit more [microsoftstore.com]

I use both OS X and Windows 7, but for me the big difference is that Leopard was a good OS and for $29 SL was reasonable. Vista, in my personal experience was shitty, and in no way do I feel like paying $150 or more to upgrade to what Vista should have been in the first place.

Windows Mobile 7 may be great, but I'd suggest to Microsoft that they at least have a bit of success before declaring their major competitors dead and fucking up a Michael Jackson song...

Re:HA HA HA

[wampus]

They are Microsoft. They could give away a product that simultaneously gives head and cures cancer and slashdot would have a problem with it.

Re:I've been in the industry a while

[Undead Waffle]

I was on the teams that shipped the iPod, every generation since the first.

LET ME INSTALL ROCKBOX YOU JERK

Re:You figured the trick

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually most computers that came with Vista roughly a year before 7 was released had offers for completely free upgrades to 7.

Re:You figured the trick

[UnknowingFool]

Um no. Only certain versions of Vista allowed for free upgrades. If you got Vista Starter, Vista Home Basic, or Vista Enterprise, you were not eligible. Also you limited to the same version as you had before.

Jesus, people.

[flimflammer]

Why is everyone taking the iPhone "funeral" thing so literally as if Microsoft actually expects to be the end of the iPhone?

They're just goofing off, just like that cheesy internal marketing video that surfaced on the web a few years back. Are Microsoft employees not allowed to have any fun by poking fun at their competitors?

You won

[tokul]

You will know that you are winning, when your competitor wants to bury you.

Re:What about the rest of the family?

[jellomizer]

MS has a lot of work to get done.

1. Windows 7 mobile will need to be THAT much better then the iPhone. It can't be a little better or have a few different features.

2. Android is a good platform too and is a easier sell to other hardware manufactures. And has already took Microsofts place as the the OS for all the other Cell Phones.

3. How well are they going to follow the Internet standards. As some one who does make web UI for phones I am estatic that I can use proper standard HTML 5. Windows 7 may have some surprises when it gets to some advanced mobile sites.

4. Who are they going to target. Across RIM Apple and Android you have a lot of people who are happy with their phones.