Kicking off Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference in LA, Steve Ballmer touted the company’s achievements touching on Xbox 360, Bing and Windows 8. But on Windows Phone 7, he was forced to admit that the mobile OS has struggled to make an impact.
While Ballmer boasted about 400m sales of Windows 7 licences in the past twelve months compared to an unnamed company’s figure of 20m (hello, Mac OS X), he was rather more sheepish about the first year figures for Windows Phone 7…
On the jump from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7, Ballmer said: “We’ve gone from very small to very small…” He avoided discussing specific sales numbers but claimed Microsoft has sold millions of phones since it launched the new OS.
Despite his comic admission that Windows Phone 7 has failed to set the world alight so far, Ballmer attempted to gee up the crowd by promising big things from the Nokia Windows Phone 7 deal: “[It] had a choice this year…to bet on Android or to bet on Windows Phone…they believe.”
Nokia may believe but Ballmer and Microsoft clearly have a long way to go to get the consumers onside. Hit the comments and let us know: do you think Windows Phone 7 will break out of that “very small” niche its resting in right now? Or are Microsoft’s mobile dreams set to be dashed again?
Out now | £varies | Microsoft
