Microsoft shipped 2 million copies of Windows Phone 7

A Microsoft executive said this week that the company delivered more than 2 million copies of its renewed operating system, Windows 7 Phone, in the last quarter.The careful recording of a time triggered another spasm of misconstrued, misinterpreted, mistaken and misanthropic speculation on success or failure of Microsoft's smartphone platform.The same executive, Greg Sullivan, a senior product manager at Microsoft, in a storey reported by Bloomberg, quoted the results of Microsoft's internal surveys of customer satisfaction and brand names awareness.Customer satisfaction for the product is at 93% and brand awareness has jumped 22 points to 66% since it was published, the story reported.The 2 million figure represents Microsoft's firmware shipments for the last quarter, not unit sales of handsets running as firmware.In U.S., the handset went on sale in November
Software Developer, Microsoft has revealed that it shipped more than two million Windows 7 Phone (WP7) handsets to mobile operators in the last three months.Microsoft has been very quiet about WP7 sales to consumers and the last figure of two million units - not sold - is something of a disappointment.Further comments by Greg Sullivan, a senior product manager at Microsoft, will do little to remove the suspicion that Microsoft's last ditch effort to save themselves from disappearing in the market for smart phones floundering.Sullivan told Bloomberg that Microsoft isn'h using sales as a barometer for success, rather it has decided to use the customer satisfaction.Sales is an important measure, but for a new platform that we believe customer satisfaction and active developer support several important indicators of how sales will be in the long term, said Sullivan.
Yet there was a distinction lost quickly in both mainstream publications running Bloomberg story, and in a wave of Internet posts that oftentimes seemed to deliberately misunderstand it.Businessweek's editors abbreviated heading to Microsoft ships two million Windows 7 Phone Units create impression that Microsoft had sold handsets.Redmond Pie is the headline was misleading on two points, conflating OS phone shipments of retail, and the time frame: Microsoft sold over 2 million Windows 7 Phone Handsets Since Launch.WinRumors: Microsoft has now delivered two million Windows 7 Phone devices.The new route of confusion mirrors that in December, when Microsoft said that carefully handset manufacturers had sold 1.5 million Windows 7 Phone handset ... to mobile carriers.At time, said Business Insider's Dan Frommer Windows 7 Phone is toast.
Of course, Sullivan was quick to predict that sales will grow WP7 and one would hope that, given the amount of cash Microsoft throw at marketing WP7.It should be noted that Sullivan said of WP7 units sold, not sold.The difference in numbers between WP7 units delivered and sold is anyone's guess, as Microsoft has been a buy-one-get-one-free promotion in the U.S. for a set time now.To WP7 Microsoft's sales in perspective, Apple managed to flog over 16 million iPhones in the three months Christmas.With until they somehow figure to beat, it is not surprising that Microsoft does not want to use sales as a measure of success.μ.
Microsoft clearly trying to avoid direct comparison
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at least for now
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with the reported retail sales for Google's Android and Apple's IOS devices.Bloomberg reported that Apple sold 16,200,000 iPhones alone in its last quarter. (And IOS platform has been the main driver of Apple's profitability
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According to an analysis of Asymco's Horace Dediu.Since introduced the first iPhone in 2007
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days IOS powers about 70% of Apple's current gross profit
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Dediu write.) In an e-mails
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Bloomberg reporter Dina Bass confirmed that Sullivan refused to comment on how many of these shipments were in OS phones that is actually used by mobile subscribers.The story also notes he declined to forecast specific future sales.Sales is an important measure
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but for a new platform, we believe the customer satisfaction and active developer support several important indicators of how the sale will be in the long term
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Sullivan was quoted as saying the online saying.He Windows phone market has 6500 applications
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and 24,000 programmers have registered as a Windows phone developers.