I’m not a Windows Phone user myself, but I’ve reviewed just about every single Windows Phone 7 handset that’s been released in the last year, including the lesser spotted Dell Venue Pro. And I like it: it’s cheery and easy to use, and with the upcoming Mango update, will just about achieve feature parity with its competitors, iOS and Android.
I’m always keen on more choice and competition when it comes to tech however, so though you wouldn’t catch an Android dork like me dead with an LG Optimus 7, I’ve been following Windows Phone’s first year of existence anxiously, hoping Microsoft can pull it off. Which is why reports this weekend that Samsung could be pulling out of Windows Phone altogether fill me with fear for both Redmond and Nokia’s future.
The news comes from Samsung news site SamFirmware, which tweeted on Saturday that “Samsung will support Windows phone till end 2012″, suggesting that the South Korean giant will produce just one more Windows Phone handset before giving up on the nascent smartphone OS.
It’s not confirmed by any means, but it certainly makes sense: Samsung has made in-roads with Android in the last year and a half with its Galaxy line-up of handsets. It also clearly has aspirations to produce its own operating system, in the way Apple has done with iOS for the iPhone: it’s continuing to ram Samsung bada down our throats with Wave handset after Wave handset, even though it’s quite clear by now that developers want nothing to do with it.
It would however be a crying shame. Samsung’s Omnia 7 is by far the best Windows Phone handset still readily available (You’d have more luck picking up some of those limited edition Nike Back To The Future trainers than a Dell Venue Pro right now), largely due to its stunning Super AMOLED display. It sounds trivial, but we need Samsung to keep pushing on this front: just about every other manufacturer seems to have given up on improving screen technology (LG, HTC, Sony Ericsson), so we need it to keep reminding customers that they should expect – and deserve – more for their money.
Samsung pulling out of Windows Phone could also be a huge blow for Nokia, currently gearing up to enter the race with its first Microsoft smartphone before Christmas. Now, you could argue it gives Nokia more space to call its own, but I disagree: Windows Phone needs Samsung to remind people it’s still there.
According the latest IDC figures, Samsung is the world’s second largest smartphone manufacturer after Apple – Nokia meanwhile has slipped a huge 16.3 percent in global marketshare in a year to a third. Samsung is the company with the scale and the straight up cash to plonk its phones on the shelves of every phone shop in every developed country.
That gets Windows Phone – and thus Nokia – mindshare that it otherwise simply wouldn’t have. People walk in asking after a Samsung phone in the way they used to walk in asking for a Nokia. It’s here that Nokia can make a sale, wowing potential customers by improving on Samsung’s offerings with superior software – Nokia Maps for Windows Phone, say.
But more importantly, Windows Phone needs to be seen to be pushing the boundaries of tech in just the same way Android is, or die.
Of course horsepower isn’t everything, but it’s a start, and if you’re a smartphone platform that’s not keeping up with the Joneses (like say, RIM), you’ll eventually suffer the consequences (Case in point: those IDC stats showed a huge BlackBerry decline down 5.8 percent globally) to fourth. Without Samsung and its frankly unparalleled Super AMOLED Plus screens, insane dual-core processors and ludicrously thin smartphone cases, that ceases to be the case.
At Nokia’s Damascene conversion to Windows Phone in London in February, both Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop insisted that the collaboration wouldn’t affect other OEMs using Windows Phone. If this move turns out to be true, Microsoft might want to double check that.
