{Rumour} -update- NoDo tip off early March wrong, now late March ?

[Strider_Aus]

Sweet! Let it be so.

http://www.wpcentral.com/ATT-focus-g...nd-nodo-monday

Raphael Rivera of ChevronWP7 and who seems to have an inside track with Microsoft (see the Arrive prediction), is claiming that the AT&T Focus should be getting both the pre-NoDo and NoDo update this Monday.

AT&T devices have so far been left out of the pre-NoDo update fun, leaving many to believe that carriers are actively blocking the fix, regardless of evidence. Instead, it looks to be what Microsoft has been saying all along: carriers are testing and will roll out the update accordingly. AT&T seems to be taking the approach of doing both at the same time, getting it all out of the way for at least their Focus customers. Interestingly, this Monday is the 7th, which puts right around that rumored March 8th release date a few weeks ago.

queue excitement

[CrowdAds]

[Briankealing]

That would be sweet - i've been waiting for copypaste on my focus.

[Strider_Aus]

Haven't really had a need to use C&P since I've had the phone..... I'm looking forward to marketplace improvements and memory/gfx tweaks resulting in faster OS and especially apps and games load-times.

[Strider_Aus]

Now it looks like it is delayed.....2nd half of March has been reported in France. sigh

[medion]

Delayed releases? Fragmented patches (pre-patch for Samsung)? Should we just merge this into the Android forums?

Just kidding. Looking forward to that copy/paste. It's on my checkbox of features that WP7 has to get before I make the jump. Just a few more to go before they're back in consideration for me.

[kasrhp]

That will be terrible if this is delayed. Microsoft needs to get their act in gear. If you are going to give release dates and fuel rumors, you need to be able to stick to the schedule. Supposedly this has been ready since December.

@Medion, this is starting out worse than Android All of this is really making Apple look good right now. Nobody else is efficient as they are. The consumer doesn't care if you have one phone or 20, you need to be timely on your release schedule.

[medion]

Originally Posted by kasrhp

@Medion, this is starting out worse than Android All of this is really making Apple look good right now. Nobody else is efficient as they are. The consumer doesn't care if you have one phone or 20, you need to be timely on your release schedule.

To be fair, Google was smart. They started with one phone on one carrier, then slowly expanded from there. MS should have known this was coming, given all of the delays they were having (WP7 was started over from SCRATCH and was originally supposed to be out in 2008). They should have made an exclusive deal with one OEM to make a must-have phone using the OS, then made the carriers compete over it so that they could get some perks.

With that, the phone itself would have sold enough volume to turn heads, and then MS could move the brand to other OEMs after having some experience with the way they intended to do updates. It would also have given them bargaining power. I mean, they paid $1B to get Nokia as a partner, and supposedly blew $500M on advertising, only to have their market share DROP since releasing WP7.

The OS is enticing. The UI is breathtaking. The strategy thus far has been a botchery. But, the amount of money they are throwing at it (especially the Nokia development) has me holding out hope that they will get this right.

But for me, the term smart-phone has become something more. A smart-phone has to be a portable computer that can act on its own. Android devices do this. The Iphone and WP7 do not. By my definition, these are high end feature phones. They are dumb phones. One of them has to mature into a real computer, like Android is today, before I can consider it.

[jmerrey]

This is a bit frustrating, but part of the problem is the mountain of misinformation that somehow turns to fact. So far, the only firm word we have gotten from microsoft (not "inside sources") is the first half of march. In my mind, until march 15 passes, it's not delayed. That said, if I get my update on march 22, and the process is painless, I won't complain. I'd rather it be later and work than sooner and flawed...

[kasrhp]

@jmerrey,
I see your point. The problem with all of this is the behind the scenes work that goes on. There are many people "in the know" who say this was ready in December, but due to carrier, OEM, and other related issues, it's being delayed. The big picture is whether this will continue to be a problem with Microsoft's new OS, or whether they learn. If this has been getting pushed back since December, thats a problem. If this was only ready for launch in March, that's another problem (too long for an update).

[jmerrey]

That is a huge problem. Who are these "in the know people?" Show me one verified microsoft source who said the update was ready in december, january, or february. And by ready I mean completely ready, not "the software is ready but we aren't sure about the update process." So far, we have Ballmer saying the first two weeks in March, and now the update moved back a week or two. That's it. The rest is speculation. At this point I'm giving MS a small pass, simply because this is the first update, and I'm sure they want to get it right. Now, if mango is delayed until March 2012, I won't be as forgiving

Originally Posted by kasrhp

@jmerrey,
I see your point. The problem with all of this is the behind the scenes work that goes on. There are many people "in the know" who say this was ready in December, but due to carrier, OEM, and other related issues, it's being delayed. The big picture is whether this will continue to be a problem with Microsoft's new OS, or whether they learn. If this has been getting pushed back since December, thats a problem. If this was only ready for launch in March, that's another problem (too long for an update).

[Strider_Aus]

MS Support staff in France confirmed the update's only actual <first> shipping date was originally March 7. Now late or second half March. Hardly a massive delay. but check out the passion/negativity in the MS WP Blog link in my other post. Ouch.

[medion]

jmerrey, you're correct about the media (and us) assuming there were delays. And while I have very good reason to believe that the software itself was running on internal hardware in January, that doesn't mean it's ready for release.

This media frenzy is similar to that of the HTC Thunderbolt "delays" on Verizon. The only date Verizon has ever specified was "1st half 2011 for a 4G phone." That means that a 4G phone, not necessarily the Thunderbolt, will launch before July 1st this year. Unfortunately, a lot of people took that as "February."

[Strider_Aus]

What MS need to improve on is;

- Their transparency and communication re: update process.
- Clarify the role of the carrier and who knew of and why the main carriers (AT&T and Telstra AUS) would not be putting pre-Nodo updates out.

Why MS would announce the pre-update to the world when the biggest carriers of their handsets in the US and Australia (as just 2 markets) were never going to put it out before the arrival of NoDo.

Just plain stoopid! Geez I would love to step into that organisation and drive some key message delivery and customer engagement to support WP7!

MS Techs, Engineers, PM's etc = All good.
MS External Comm's and Market engagement = fail.