Charlie Kindel gets just about everything wrong on why nobody is buying Windows Phone.

Give the folks who used to work at Microsoft some credit. They think they are the shit and can't fathom why you just aren't smart enough to acknowledge this.

Today's example, Charlie Kindel, a longtime Microsoftie -- and still a believer -- who was a guiding force behind Windows Phones and who left earlier this year to, er, spend more time with his family.

And start a new venture.

It's the day after Christmas, there isn't enough wine in this house to deaden the ringing in my brain caused by my dear wife's parents, and I'm bored silly. Good ol' Charlie Kindel makes it Christmas all over again, with a post on his site titled, very Ballmer-esque-like: "Windows Phone is superior. Why hasn't it taken off?

I think we all know the answer to this question: because you, dear customer, are stupid.

Right?

Though to be fair here, for years, decades, actually, Apple believers continued to say their product was superior and how come no one believes us! We should give Mr Kindel the benefit of the doubt.

Or not. His post is below, along with my thoughts...

But first! Know that I have been using the Samsung Focus S for the past few days. I am confident that your thoughts on this device wil exactly, word for word, thought for thought, emotion for emotion, match mine:

1. It's not an iPhone
2. Meh
3. Why should I buy this instead of the Samsung [fill in blank] Android they keep advertising?
4. Where are all the apps! (This is not just that iPhone and Android have all the apps but that they are "app phones" -- where the app is a discernable, stand-alone icon-wrapper-function that supports a tremendous variety of content, activities, games, data and more, and which, for inexplicable reasons, exist in a sort of other-worldly fashion on Windows Phone)
5. It's not an iPhone

Now for Mr Kindel:

People ask me all the time why, if I think Windows Phone is such an excellent product, sales appear so lackluster.  

One sentence in and already completely wrong. Sales do not "appear" lackluster, they are shit. Aint no one buying Windows Phone. Appearance has nothing to do with it.

My belief is Microsoft’s approach with WP7 has a impedance mismatch with the carriers & device manufacturers while Google’s approach reduces friction with carriers & device manufacturers at the expense of end users.

Is this how Microsofties actually talk? Impedence mismatch? Reduces friction? And they wonder why their consumer efforts seem always to fail? Really?

Pretty sure what Mr Kindel is trying to tell us is that Google sold its "we are open" "we are neutral" "we are good" soul and got in bed with the carriers. Who are Google's customers. Not actual users. In this, Mr Kindel is exactly right. Not that this is doing Windows Phone any good. Is Windows Phone even picking off just 1% of existing Android users? 

There's your mismatch, boys and girls. Between Windows Phone phones and users. Google and carriers, be damned.

 The question is: will end-user dissatisfaction with Android’s inconsistencies and fragmentation be strong enough to allow the better product to succeed.

Still waiting for Mr Kindel to offer a *single piece of evidence* as to why he so confidently believes Windows Phone is better. Just one. 

NOTE: This post was inspired by a comment I posted on Hacker News in response to Ed Bott’s article on the Android ICS update fiasco.

The fact that Windows Phone has, thus far, avoided fragmentation (almost every WP7 device from every manufacturer & carrier automatically got updated to WP7.5 “Mango” this fall) actually points to one of the core reasons:

That sales have been too negligible to result in any fragmentation?

The device manufacturers, mobile operators, OS providers, and end users operate in an overly complex virtuous cycle.

There's that Microsoft-ian language again. Which I used to think was an artifact of working for a giant public corporation. Now I think it's a way of seeking cover for failure. Already, I can tell we are being set up. Windows Phone phone sales are in the toilet due to some multi-player, multi-market overly complex thingamabob that, oh, didn't seem to stop iPhone from sucking up billions in profits, now did it?

A virtuous cycle is one where each side of the market both gives and receives positive value from the other sides. So much positive value is exchanged, with low friction, that the cycle grows and grows, like a snowball rolling down hill. The more sides to the market that exist, the more complex the system and the harder it is for the cycle to happen. 

The wind up...

In the mobile device space the four primary sides of the market are not actually aligned very well. In fact, there is such deep misalignment that there is great instability. Android has succeeded (in raw unit numbers at least) by capitalizing on that misalignment. Apple has attempted to change the game by cutting out one of the sides of the market. Windows Phone is attempting a different strategy…

and the pitch!

Somehow, Google is able to successfully use its old world PC monopoly profits to dominate the smartphone market and Apple is able to, I don't know, through magic, dominate smartphone profits but the inexplicably labelled "superior" Windows Phone inexplicably -- and stubbornly -- clings to its "different strategy" despite *the same results!* Sort of a Bizarro version of Einstein's maxium of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. 

The four primary sides of the mobile device market:

WILL ANY OF THIS EXPLAIN WHY NO ONE IS BUYING WINDOWS PHONE!?!

Carriers: Own the customer. Own billing. Own Sales. Own the physical pipe. They also own the marketing money. They hate being just a fat dumb pipe, but their capex structure means they will never be anything but a fat dumb pipe.

And so Microsoft calls its most critical smartphone partners -- fat dumb pipes? And suggests the carriers, not Microsoft "own the marketing money?" Off-topic: anyone see that awesome iPhone Siri Santa Claus ad? Yeah, that one. The one Apple ran like 1000 times!

Device Manufacturers: Own the hardware. Own the industrial design. They hate not owning the customer. But their HW bias (and manufacturing capex structure) prevent them from breaking out of this.

And yet Google just spent $12 billion plus to maybe be a "biased" hardware company? 

Mr Kindel is proving my view that no one must hear more bullshit on a daily basis that Big Company CEOs.

OS providers: Own the core of the customer experience. Own most real innovation. They hate not owning the customer. Their core business models (search, desktop/server OS, office, …), as well as the fact they can’t build HW, means they are always at the mercy of some middleman between them and the customer.

Yet doesn't Blackberry still have 5X the number of users than Windows Phone? Probably more? Oh, and have I asked yet:

WILL ANY OF THIS EXPLAIN WHY NO ONE IS BUYING WINDOWS PHONE!?!

Users: Own the disposable income. They don’t know what they hate. All they know is they buy phone service from mobile carriers and/or buy a phone from a carrier. They love speeds & feeds and will generally buy anything they are told to by television ads and RSPs (Retail Sales Professionals).

Those stupid users. "They don't know what they hate." Guess that explains 20 years of Windows dominance. 

Oh, snap!

They "will generally buy anything they are told to..." so why doesn't Microsoft uses its *tens of billions* of cash on hand to tell these dumb, frustrated users to buy Windows Phone? 

Honestly, my hand to God, I started this thinking I would find fault but this is the worst piece of shit defense by anyone involved in any of the 'major' smartphone platforms that I have ever read.

IT'S EVERYONE ELSE'S FUCKING FAULT AND THEY ARE FAT, DUMB, HATE AND STUPID.

I’ve left off app developers. They are another side of this market, but for this discussion I believe they are mostly irrelevant.

Indeed, Windows Phone. 

In some alternate universe, Nobel Prizes are given out for the most unintentionally poetic statements made and this is certainly one of them. The Windows Phone guy is leaving off app developers cause they are "mostly irrelevant."

Too fucking perfect. No -- so fucking perfect that I am going to break one of my cardinal rules and write a period after each word:

Too. Fucking. Perfect.

As noted above, Apple has been successful (at least in terms of generating revenue)

and profits!

 in this space by cutting the device manufacturer out.  They have then used that fact to force the carriers into being even more of a fat dumb pipe. A topic for another day, but my belief is over time this strategy will start to deteriorate for Apple.

How many years, exactly, do you think Kindel told Ballmer he needed for Android's strategy to collapse and Apple's strategy to collapse? Wouldn't you have loved to have listened in to that conversation?

Trust me, Steve. In another, oh, 8 years, we'll be sitting pretty!

Google has been wildly successful with Android (at least in terms of units) because Android was built to reduce friction between all sides of the market. It ‘bows down’ to the device manufactures AND the carriers. It enabled device manufactures to do what they do best (build lots of devices). It enabled carriers to do what they do best (market lots of devices). It enabled users tons of choice. My hypothesis is that it also enables too much fragmentation that will eventually drive end users nuts.

What is worth more? A live Android user on, say, Gingerbread, or a mythical Windows Phone user on Mango?

With Windows Phone Microsoft has taken a different approach. WP raises it’s middle finger at both the device manufacturers and mobile carriers. WP says “here’s the hardware spec you shalt use” (to the device manufacturers). And it says “Here’s how it will be updated” (to the carriers).

No one buying your device and no one paying attention to your product do not mean you are a rebel. 

Thus both of those sides of the market are reluctant.

Reluctant?

 Especially the carriers, but also the device manufacturers. Remember that end users just do what they are told (by advertising and RSPs). Carriers own the marketing money and spend billions a year. The money is provided by the other sides of the market: OS providers & device manufactures, but the carriers get to spend it; they are the aggregation point where the money actually gets spent. The carriers choose what devices get featured on those TV ads.  They also choose what devices to train their RSP (retail sales professionals) to push. They choose to incent the RSPs to push one device over another.

Except, none of this addresses the very real issue that Apple is taking all the profits from these giant, entrenched, billion-dollar-rich companies. Nor that Google has spent billions to buy a device manufacturer. 

Oh, and still NOT A SINGLE FUCKING WORD on how Windows Phone is "superior".

This is why, despite being a superior PRODUCT to Android, Windows Phone has not sold as well.  Spending marketing dollars on advertising Android devices is and easy decision for the carriers. Pushing RSPs to push Android is easy. Spending marketing dollars advertising WP7 requires Microsoft to push hard on the carriers. Getting RSPs to push WP7 requires Microsoft to push hard on the carriers to incent their RSPs correctly.

Microsoft has bullied and incented giant companies and government institutions for more than a generation now, Mr Kindel. So why the failure now?

I would like to believe that at the end of the day the superior end to end experience for the end user matters more than anything. 

How'd that work for Mac in the 90s?

The question in my mind is whether Microsoft’s continued investment in WP and close partnership with device manufactures such as Nokia will eventually enable a breakthrough here. I know that MS can be very persistent & patient; it’s been so in the past. We will see.

Or, maybe it isn't persistence? Maybe it's the fact that you are intimately involved in Windows Phone and have repeatedly stated it is superior but have yet to give a single reason. A SINGLE REASON! 

Okay, you have mentioned that the hundreds of millions of Android devices out there are "fragmented" -- sort of like all the Windows PCs out there, right? 

When did Windows fragmentation tip in favor of the new (late) market entrant?

Oh, wait. Never.

In the meantime Android devices will continue to sell like hotcakes and fragmentation will continue to get worse and worse.

Again with the whole "fragmentation" angle. Look, I'm not a Android user. I think fragmentation sucks and it limits users for many reasons -- including ability to use the latest apps, improved user controls, better overall experience, etc. 

But, let's not fool ourselves here. As I suggest above, a user on Android Gingerbread means one less theoretical Windows Phone user. 

You have failed to explain why this user would be better off ditching his 'fragemented' device for a Windows Phone. Other than labelling them as effectively stupid and who simply does as advertised to. 

Is that really all you have to hang Windows Phone's hopes on?