WinPhone 7 Woes

Tweet

Sales are sketchy. App developers are grumpy. And, the cheeriest news, at the moment, is that there might be a big update coming in January. You know; the month when everyone is broke and burned out from holiday shopping!

This is not what I'd call a good start out of the gate for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. For example:

1. Major online mobile seller in the UK, Mobilesplease.com, reports that Android is outselling WP7 fifteen to one. Ouch! Even Symbian (i.e. Nokia N8) is outdoing them three to one. Mobileplease complains that WP7 is nice enough, but the handsets are too generic with Android being offered on the exact same phone models.

2. We're not really sure yet of official sales figures of the wet-behind-the-ears WP7 smartphones. Microsoft is not exactly bragging or shouting those figures from the mountain tops. Hmm... why do you think?

3. Anecdotal information from the app developers is not good right now. In fact, common complaints include poor technical support for developers, buggy tools and payment delays. App developers have to go through App Hub, where there is no phone number for live help, no immediate response by e-mail or through the boards directly from Microsoft (and that holds true even if you are the $99 premium member).

4. Story after story, posting after posting all tell of would-be customers and the curious alike not being able to find a working WP7 phone to play with in stores that are supposedly retailing the phones. Memo to Microsoft, Many customers really like to actually demo the phone before they buy it. Crazy; I know!

5. The rumor du jour is that a major update is on the way; January, to be exact. The update will reportedly include "cut and paste" and "multi-tasking". Those are big, big feature updates. Too bad they are due out in January when no one is shopping.

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio