Microsoft apologizes over 'Smoked by Windows Phone' controversy

http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/26/2903250/microsoft-smoked-by-windows-phone-apology-sasha-katta

by Slimy • 14 years ago

53 51 14 years ago

wizzard• 14 years ago

Good on them for making it right. Although at first he just told Katta to go in for a rematch.

@therobpoz is probably right, I don't think Apple would have gone back and given him the laptop. Of course Apple doesn't need to give away their products in the first place...

rbanffy6• 14 years ago

Apple wouldn't lose.

While I use an Android 2 phone, I must admit an Apple iPhone would be a better choice if all I wanted was a smartphone. What took me to the Android one was the things I couldn't do with the Apple product.

talmand2• 14 years ago

I'm sorry but you need to explain that statement a little more for me. You say the iPhone is superior as a smartphone but you chose Android because it can do things the iPhone doesn't? Isn't it true then, at least in your case, the Android phone is the superior product? Do you use your Android device as something other than a smartphone? Could you specify what that might be?

FredFredrickson• 14 years ago

Apple does give away their products - they give them to production studios for TV shows and movies.

Why do you think almost every movie and show made over the last few years features a laptop with a glowing Apple on the back whenever a shot calls for someone to be using a computer?

delinka• 14 years ago

It's been said many times that Apple doesn't pay for product placement. That it's just a consequence of the show's writers and designers using Apple products. I tend to believe that. But I still suppose it's possible that providing free products is considered "not paying."

Pewpewarrows2• 14 years ago

I find it more interesting how incredibly shady and underhanded the entire "challenge" is to begin with. They get to choose the exact rules and conditions, for which they've specially customized their phones beforehand, even if it's completely outside the bounds of what an average consumer would ever do.

In this case, it was to show the weather of two different cities. The only reason the contestant won was because he happened to need that information enough in his day-to-day life to warrant the two separate weather widgets on his home screen. The Microsoft representative obviously knew what the challenge would be going in, and already had the tiles ready to go.

Livven2• 14 years ago

Reasonable that a contest Microsoft is hosting to promote their own product is skewered towards their own product.

The thing is, most of the Smoked by Windows Phone challenges (at least those that they did at CES and MWC) are actually pretty everyday tasks like uploading a photo, posting something to social networks etc. Those actually do make some sense.

Though, they did screw up this one pretty badly. Instead of giving out a $1k prize they're now paying way, way more with all the bad PR...

rbanffy6• 14 years ago

> Reasonable that a contest Microsoft is hosting to promote their own product is skewered towards their own product.

No. It's not reasonable at all. If you propose a challenge, I would assume you want to prove a point beyond how much you can stack the deck (we already know they can go very far with that).

Wouldn't it be nicer if they actually had a superior product instead? If they have a superior product, like they claim, why do they need to manipulate the rules to favor their product?

ajross2• 14 years ago

To be fair, I think consumers are pretty well aware that this is a stunt. No one I can see is looking at the results and claiming any kind of objective superiority. What MS wants is just to get you into the store and show you their cool phones -- "Can your phone do this?" stuff. So they dangle a carrot (the prize) to get you in the door.

Where it went off the rails is that somehow the store staff didn't feel comfortable actually awarding the prizes. That is shady, and it implies that the incentives are screwed up internally: if the stores get punished for prize awards, do they likewise get hurt for providing other stuff with dollar values attached (what would normally be called "good customer service")?

huggyface• 14 years ago

To be fair, I think consumers are pretty well aware that this is a stunt

I'm a pretty in touch, technically focused person and I didn't think it was the farce that it actually was. I thought they were legitimately demoing average things that people were doing, from scratch, highlighting the benefits of the platform.

That they pre-configure their device for ridiculous scenarios is simply incredible. That the now much more apologetic Microsoft rep originally offered a rematch on the incredibly long odds seemed extraordinary.

bradleyland• 14 years ago

"To be fair, I think consumers are pretty well aware that this is a stunt."

Does that really make it OK though? Do you feel OK giving your money to companies that use "stunts", if you're aware of the stunt? I don't. I find it disingenuous. It feels like those door-to-door vacuum salesmen who dump crap on your carpet. Blech, no thank you!

Show me the product. Let me try it out. Trust me to recognize where you've done well. Feel free to point out areas where you think you've done well, but these "head to head" contests are just silly, and they can easily turn around and bite you, as we've seen here. Just skip it and let people make their own assessment.

phillco• 14 years ago

Right, it's like midway booths at the State Fair. You know the games are jaded and you only play for fun. But if you win and they don't give you the toy, then it's just not honest.

KeyBoardG4• 14 years ago

"Specially customized their phones"?

If you mean specially designed the phones to be efficient at every day tasks, then you are correct. Don't get all bent out of shape because of your loathing of Microsoft.

talmand2• 14 years ago

I wouldn't call it loathing a company when pointing out the obvious flaws in a rigged contest.

mitchellhislop• 14 years ago

You must not have read the article. The challenge was to pull up the weather in 2 different cities (later, the manager said 2 cities in different states)

The reps phone just "happened" to have LiveTiles setup so that the weather in 2 cities was the first thing on the home screen.

They knew the challenge, and setup their phone do win it as fast as possible. The "Specially customized their phones" comment is that they rigged the phone to be near-unbeatable ahead of time, since they made the challenge.

Pewpewarrows2• 14 years ago

Can you honestly not see that they stacked the competition in their favor by customizing the device from its stock install state?

And not that it's relevant, but I like Microsoft's products. I think their direction of the latest Windows Phones are great. I'd rather they didn't resort to cheap tricks to try and "prove" that their product is better.

r00fus2• 14 years ago

The point is, how does it sell to your customers to do weird things like "show weather in 2 cities"? Are these valid common uses of the device?

The root issue is the competition itself, seems to be a bizarre way of marketing a mass-produced device OS... done right, it could be a great way to tout the qualities of your devices, but done wrong it has so many downsides.

freehunter• 14 years ago

That is but one of the challenges they use. This one might not be of interest to you, but what if the challenge was "open an IDE and create a 'hello world' application"? Microsoft's TouchDevelop just may win out on that.

barefoot• 14 years ago

For those of you not familiar with TouchDevelop (like me):

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/touchdevelop/

cryptoz2• 14 years ago

I can build a Hello World app on Android in under 2 seconds. It takes another 2-3 seconds for my phone to compile, install and run the package locally.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui is really, really slick.

I would love to see a race. I very much doubt WP7 could win but I'll be very impressed if it does. Anybody have the appropriate collection of devices and the time to film a demo? :)

waterlesscloud• 14 years ago

I've got a Weather app set up to show me weather in 4 locations. One where I live, another where I used to work (hey, this is LA, temp differences of 15-20 degrees within 20 miles can easily happen), another where my brother lives, and lastly in my hometown (for nostalgia and to know about friends/family).

It would take me maybe 5 seconds to load the app from a cold start, but so what? Windows phone doesn't win because a specialized pre-setup could save me 3 seconds. It would win if it could do something my android couldn't do at all...

KeyBoardG4• 14 years ago

I agree, and I think Ben and Microsoft is doing it right. Its all in good spirit and they never directly put anyone down.

danellis• 14 years ago

Offering him a phone (presumably a Windows one) seems to be entirely missing the point.

rbanffy6• 14 years ago

"Here is your laptop and the phone you proved is not as good as the one you currently own".

Priceless.

sp332• 14 years ago

What else would they offer? his money back?

darxius• 14 years ago

They could offer a cash prize, which he could use to pay his telephone bills. I agree that it makes no sense to give him a phone he just "beat".

I guess he could sell it on eBay or something...

manojlds• 14 years ago

What happens if I go in with a Windows Phone ( yeah, I do have a Windows Phone and I think its good and all, but am sure an Android phone can smoke a Windows Phone in reasonable tasks.)

When I lose, do I get to say - "My Windows Phone was smoked"? :)

reiichiroh3• 14 years ago

Maybe Microsoft could try a challenge of uploading a review to Yelp from your Windows Phone. The lack of apps and full functionality as compared to their iOS and Android equivalents is crippling.

KeyBoardG4• 14 years ago

This point would be valid, save for the fact that there a Yelp app on WindowsPhone.

reiichiroh3• 14 years ago

There is but you can't do anything useful with it like login or submit reviews.

mrspandex• 14 years ago

Yelp has a Windows phone app. Even if it didn't, you can do that from a web browser too.

azakai• 14 years ago

Regardless, the point stands, WP7 receives a lot less app attention - which makes sense since it has 1.7% market share.

For example, the new Angry Birds launched on iOS and Android, and has no plans to port to WP7 due to the need to rewrite it for that platform,

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-22/-angry-birds-space-...

psykotic• 14 years ago

Smoked by Windows Phone? Is anyone else reminded of the funeral procession Microsoft held for iPhone a few years ago?

http://www.intomobile.com/2010/09/10/microsoft-windows-phone...

potatolicious• 14 years ago

Not just the funeral procession, but also the recent Google-salesman ad, and just about every attempt at marketing MS has done in the last few years.

I really have to wonder, how is it that Microsoft is seemingly so completely disconnected from reality? In what crazy world did the Seinfeld ads look amazing and awesome? Where the iPhone funeral procession would look like anything other than premature celebration? Where the anti-Google ad looked anything other than sleazy and underhanded?

Though I have a theory. MS's marketing stunts have been known to be unnecessarily hostile to the competition, overly self-congratulatory, seemingly unaware of why people choose the competitor, has overtones of arrogance... remind you of a CEO? :)

stumm• 14 years ago

I thought this ad was pretty good and makes fun of the old versions of IE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4...

shareme• 14 years ago

Kind of failed just like the rigging of Nokia to choose WP over Android right MS? :)

Microsoft apologizes over 'Smoked by Windows Phone' controversy

Related Stories