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More bad news for Windows Phone 7: One UK online retailer reports that it accounts for only 3% of smartphone sales, and that Android phones outsell Windows Phone 7 by a whopping 15:1 margin. Can Microsoft ever catch up? The UK phone retailer MobilesPlease reports on its blog: Windows Phone 7 has got off to a sluggish start as far as our customers are concerned, accounting for just 3% of smartphone sales and a little under 2% of overall sales through MobilesPlease.co.uk and our network of partner sites that share our data feed. The blog goes on to note: I...

Microsoft needed its Windows Phone 7 launch to make as big an impact as possible to give it some momentum in order to catch up to the iPhone and Android phones. It's now clear that didn't happen. What went wrong? Initial reports say that on launch day, Microsoft sold only 40,000 phones. Given that the iPhone 4 had 600,000 pre-orders and Google activates 200,000 Android devices a day, this was an underwhelming launch. It's even more underwhelming when you consider the amount of marketing dollars Microsoft has been throwing at Windows Phone 7. Computerworld reports that the company is spending...

Smart phones running Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 operating system arrived in stores Monday. And at least one of the phones has been a sellout, for a few hours at least. The HTC HD7, sold by T-Mobile, was listed as being out of stock on T-Mobile's website Monday night, up until early Tuesday morning when the phone was listed again as being in stock. T-Mobile spokeswoman Patty Raz confirmed that the HTC HD7 was, in fact, temporarily out of stock on the carrier's website, but that the phone was now available again online. Raz declined to comment on specific sales...

The Android platform has been steaming along, making pundits wonder whether Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Phone 7 has a chance. But if developers have anything to do with it, and they do, WP7 seems to represent an easier way to mobilize their applications. During an event in Hong Kong, Michael Dell reportedly said that developers have been telling him that it's easier to develop for WP7 than it is for Google's Android platform. Interestingly, those comments are no longer in the original article. Perhaps Dell got itself into hot water with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). Sign up for our FREE newsletter...

European mobile phone operator Orange is facing shortages of Windows Phone 7 handsets, and is offering vouchers to disappointed customers. The shortages could bode problems for the phone's U.S. launch later this month. According to a report in Mobile Today, Orange sent an e-mail to managers of its retail stores warning of shortages for both the HTC Mozart and Samsung Omnia, and is offering 20-pound vouchers for customers who can't get a phone they preordered. The shortage is most likely caused by scarce supplies of the components used in touch screens. Shortages of AMOLED screens affected both HTC and Samsung...

In a report that is raising eyebrows this morning, UK-based market research firm Canalys estimates that total shipments of Android phones in the U.S. during the third quarter were nearly twice as large as iPhone shipments. Out of 20.9 million smartphones shipped in the U.S., about 44 percent, or 9.1 million, are running the Android OS. Apple, shipped an estimated 5.5 million phones, or 26 percent of the total. Apple ships only one phone, the iPhone. And it became the single largest smartphone in the U.S., surpassing all Blackberry phones combined (with RIM shipping an estimated 5.1 million phones, or...

Good writers borrow, great writers steal, or so the saying goes. Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 (WP7) operating system borrows heavily from Apple's iOS and Google's Android but then takes the interface and navigation in an intriguing new direction, offering a user experience that at least equals and in some ways surpasses them. Yet WP7 is very much a work in progress; adopting it out of the gate requires something of the same leap of faith that the first iPhone or Android buyers took. Certainly, there's no expectation at launch that the application marketplace for Windows Phone will be anything...

Let's just get it out of the way: Windows Phone 7 is the most exciting thing to happen to phones in a long time. WHY IT MATTERS There's a million reasons why Windows Phone 7 matters. It's the most important PC company in the world, battered, bruised and badly lagging, coming back to the next generation of PCs, after crashing on a bunch of rocks and abandoning ship. It's potentially the most tectonic shift in mobile since the launch of iPhone and Android. It's Microsoft starting over and betting massively on its future. SNIP SNIP USING IT Windows Phone 7...

Before Apple's iPhone barged in and changed the game, Microsoft was one of the leaders in the smart phone arena. Its Windows Mobile phones were popular contenders, particularly among business users. But the iPhone took smart phones in a different direction. The clunky menus and awkward navigation on Microsoft phones paled in comparison to the intuitive, touch-screen-based competition. Microsoft couldn't respond fast enough, and Windows Mobile's market share imploded. Because smart phones are a rapidly growing and lucrative category, Microsoft isn't about to give up. Enter Windows Phone 7, a completely reworked version of the company's smart phone software and...

If you line up an iPhone 4, Droid X, and BlackBerry Torch next to each other, and zoom in so you only see the display alone, the similarities between the platforms seems to outweigh the differences. Windows Phone 7, however, breaks the mold on the sea of app icons, and provides an innovative means of interacting with the information and functionality of the smartphone through tiles and hubs. Microsoft attempts to say as much in its commercials for Windows Phone 7. The commercials are clever and appealing--not something one can normally say about a Microsoft marketing campaign. But, at the...

Last week, we told you the things that work against Microsoft's new mobile operating system; Windows Phone 7. Today, we list the top 5 things that actually work in its favor. Actually there are six; but since the first one is obvious, we'd rather not discuss it at length. With Apple you just have two iPhones to choose from. Windows Phone 7 trumps it there with at least four major manufacturers for now - HTC, Samsung, LG and Dell. Different people have different needs; some want a hardware QWERTY, some don't. So, it gives people a wider choice than what...

Taiwan phone firms say Windows Phone 7 too costly Microsoft may have lost key Taiwan phone manufacturers after the costs and long delays for Windows Phone 7, companies based in the area reportedly said Wednesday. Most of them, including relative heavyweights such as Compal, Foxconn, Inventec and Pegatron, have committed to developing for Android over the next two to three years and aren't ready to switch. The Digitimes contacts further allege that they consider Microsoft's licensing fee too expensive when Google gives away Android for free. As such, only a handful of companies may get into WP7 when it arrives,...

Perhaps Windows Phone 7 won't come dead on arrival after all. Maybe the analysts and naysaying pundits don't give Microsoft the respect it deserves. Maybe there is enormous pent up demand for Windows Phone 7. Maybe the silent majority that loves Microsoft products has waited for this day -- ah Monday, when Windows Phone 7 officially launches. Three days ago, I asked: "Will you buy Windows Phone 7?" The response was immediate and overwhelming: More than 150 comments to the post and more than 3 times the usual number of e-mail responses I normally get to buying questions. Among the...

It's not here yet, but next week Microsoft is hosting a media event where it is expected to unveil launch details for the highly-anticipated Windows Phone 7 platform. With Microsoft's virtual absence from the smartphone arena in recent years, and the rise of iPhone and Android, Windows Phone 7 may be too little, too late. However, there are a few compelling reasons to take a closer look and consider making a switch to Windows Phone 7. 1. Hubs. The hubs concept is one of the smartphone paradigm shifts imagined by Microsoft. Grouping apps and functions based on general categories is...

Various members of England’s technology press core have been invited to an event hosted by HTC scheduled to take place on the 15th of September at the Hyatt Hotel in London. Rumor has it that a successor to the highly praised HTC HD2 will be announced, and that it’ll be called the HD3, run Windows Phone 7, have a 4.5 inch OLED screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800, dual core 1.5 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, 32 GB of built in storage, 8 megapixel camera, HDMI port, 4G capabilities of some sort, and all in a 10...

It was all touched off by a classic bit of know-nothing blogosphere silliness: A prominent Silicon Valley blogger claimed that Microsoft's mobile business was "fatally flawed" because—get this—the software giant actually charges handset makers a small per-unit fee for its Windows Phone software. "That game is over for good," he-who-shall-remain-nameless claimed. As proof, he cited Google giving away its Android software—one reason why Android is "rapidly taking over the smartphone world." Meanwhile, Microsoft is charging about $15 per unit. How in the world will Redmond ever compete? How, indeed. As is typical of such insular, one-sided arguments, it conveniently leaves...

Microsoft is touting the fact that it's had about 300,000 downloads of its development tools for the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 mobile OS, which is expected to hit store shelves in the form of mobile devices in October. That's an impressive number -- until you compare it to the SDK downloads for the Android SDK over a comparable period. About three months after its November 2007 release, the original Android SDK had about 750,000 downloads. Of course, the number of SDK downloads doesn't necessarily correlate with the number of apps that actually become available. In its first three months after...

Numbers for Microsoft's new mobile phone sales projections are ricocheting around the echo chamber of the tech blogosphere Friday and research firm IDC wants to set them straight. Microsoft plans to start selling a new version of its mobile phone called Windows Phone 7 for the holidays. MobileTechWorld reported Microsoft expects to sell 30 million of the new phones by end of 2011, based on a slide shown at a ReMIX conference. The Thursday report cited IDC, the research firm in Framingham, Mass., as the source. ReMIX is a Microsoft Web developer conference where the company is courting developers to...

For years, people have accused Microsoft of being an imitator, rather than innovator. Finally there is evidence: The ways Windows Phone 7 Series imitates the very worst of Apple's iPhone. Unless there is the strangest of coincidences -- like two students having the same wrong answers on a high school history test -- Microsoft is imitating Apple, using the same strategy to make the same mistakes. It's either imitation or incompetence, and out of fairness I assume the former. The first imitation is the most baffling: Limited multitasking. Like iPhone, Windows Phone 7 Series will allow multitasking for some of...