Welcome to another Windows Phone Central From the Forums where we bring you the latest discussions that are happening on our community forum. If you've somehow been too busy in life to be checking the community out on a daily basis, you may find yourself being out of the loop when it comes to discussing the latest news. So what's been happening the past few days?
Forum member AdalLS has brought to the attention a Forbes opinion piece, written by Adam Hartung. The article goes into the negatives surrounding Microsoft and its performance. Taking into account numerous sources, it's a definite downer and is perfect for reading on a rainy day. A short snippet of the opening paragraph:
"Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet. But that did not happen."
Now whatever you may feel about the author, website or sources used in the editorial, it definitely sparks up the debate on "what if?" What if Microsoft did go down a down spiral path of self-destruction? It's a difficult thought to process - a world without Microsoft. An impossibility?
So is this really the end of Microsoft, or the beginning of the company's downfall? Add your thoughts and opinions in the "Forbes heralds the end of times for Microsoft" thread.
Microsoft needs to watch out for RIM
BlackBerry 10 is shortly upon us and Microsoft is already struggling to gain traction in the industry, so what's going to happen when RIM hits back? Forum member jjmurphy believes Microsoft should focus on improving relations with developers. Both those already established on the platform and who have yet to submit an app.
A number of suggestions on how the company can quickly improve things have been provided:
- Make submitting apps free for the rest of 2013, including the tools necessary to build them.
- Change the marketplace to hide 1-2 star apps unless the end user requests to see them. (setting a review threshold that apps have to receive before filters kick in.)
- Change the marketplace to really promote 4-5 star high quality apps.
- Set a monetary pay off system. i.e. If you have an app that stays 4 stars for x-months, give a bonus. Make it a scale so that developers will want to keep adding value to an app.
- Fix their own apps. FB, Photosynth, etc.
Be sure to add your suggestions of what you want to see Microsoft do for developers in the "Microsoft needs to pay attention to RIM in regards to developers" thread.
Miscellaneous: humorous 90s Internet Explorer 10 commercial
Our own Krystea has embedded this pretty humorous Internet Explorer 10 commercial on the forum, which sees Microsoft recap on everything that rocked back in the 90s. It's also a really well put together advertisement. How does one feel about IE now we're on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8?
You can check out the discussion in the "Nostalgic IE10 commercial" thread. Care to relive your 90s moments and memories?
