It’s be a year since you launched Windows Phone. Where we at, Microsoft?
Horace Dediu tells us:

Windows Phone is in limbo. The company acknowledged that it has performed below expectations. During the last quarter for which we have data (ending June) I have an estimate that Windows Phone sold only 1.4 million units (Gartner’s sell-through analysis suggests 1.7 million). That gives Microsoft a 1.3% share of units sold (Gartner 1.6%), a new low.

John Gruber gives us a nice translation of these numbers:

In other words, for that entire quarter, they sold about as many total Windows Phones in that quarter as Apple sold iPhone 4S preorders last weekend.

My first thought when reading this was how Microsoft has never been in this position before. They’ve never had to fight for the title of “Most Popular Operating System”. This is a company still making most it’s profits from Windows and their Office suite of applications. This is software they created decades ago and they’ve managed to ride the wave into the 21st century.
Back in the 80’s and 90’s it didn’t matter if their software was shitty or great, they had a monopoly on it and because of this, had the muscle to squeeze out any scrappy, innovative underdogs.
Now Microsoft has to prove it’s worth. Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android continue to gain momentum in the marketplace. People are voting with their wallets and so far, not many are voting for Windows Phone. On the other side of the OS, developers aren’t voting for it either, unless of course Microsoft offers to pay them to develop.
Microsoft has never had to sell their products to people.
Remember, Windows was designed for businesses, not people.
For the first time in their history, they have to step into the ring and fight.

RIM has worldwide outages the days leading up to and on the day Apple launches it’s new mobile operating system and cloud-based backup service.
It’s poetic, really.
Remember though, RIM has two, count them, TWO CEOs. I’m sure they have this under control.

Created by 19-year-old Jonathan Mak Long.

BlackBerry users revolt against RIM as disruption spreads

Smartphone maker Research In Motion (RIM) is facing a user revolt after tens of millions of users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa suffered a second day without services such as BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), as the company struggled with problems at its hub in Slough, Berkshire.

The company also revealed that the areas affected now include South America, with users in Brazil, Chile and Argentina suffering loss of service.

Horace Dediu points out RIM is currently losing half a million users per month, and with only 16 million left in the US, they could all be gone by the end of the year.
While this outage didn’t specifically affect the US, it’s not going to help stop this downward spiral either.
UPDATE: Scratch that last sentence.

So Josh Luke and Steve Lambert are lending their typography skills to Occupy Wall Street (via PSFK).

While I think their actions are commendable, I wonder if there’s not some emotion lost in these ‘professional’ signs.
I wonder if a more James Victore-ish approach would be better suited to the urgency and emotion in the protests.

This is not to say many of the protest signs I’ve seen couldn’t stand for an upgrade.

I work right across the street from where the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been setting up shop (spoiler: they’re not occupying Wall Street, but Zucotti Park).
While I haven’ been observing much of what’s been happening on the street (I’ve been busy working 45 floors up), they seem to be a fairly chill group, although I’m sure things get fired up and emotions run high at times.
I’m amazed at just how many more people are occupying Zucotti Park now, then when it started.
Here’s a few shots I took before work today:





That is a lot of sleeping bags.

Word.

via Yimmy’s Yayo

I feel like this more often than I should.

via @tim_nolan

My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.

• Steve Jobs, on his demanding reputation, CNN Money, 2008
  via @johnmaeda

A page full of title screens from old 8- & 16-bit games (via kottke).

Over at Fotune, Philip Elmer-DeWitt tells us iOS’s Internet market share hits a record 54.65%.
He writes:

You would think that with nearly 50% of the global market for smartphones that Google’s (GOOG) Android would also dominate the Web.

So how does the competition stack up?

Android, with 16.26%, is still trailing Java ME’s 18.52%. Nokia’s (NOK) discontinued Symbian, at 6.12%, is fading fast and Research in Motion’s (RIMM) is holding steady at a negligible 3.29%.

Elmer-DeWitt points out the fact that Apple has an advantage with iPhones and iPads and iPod Touches. This is true, but I think there’s another piece to this equation.
If you’ve opened a Best Buy flyer/insert in the last year, you’ll usually see a 2-page spread of Android phones. They range from $199 to $99 to free with no recognizable differences to the average, non-techie user.
Now with over 50% of the phone share, Android is clearly kicking ass in raw numbers, but if you happen to have used some of the phones in the in range featured at Best Buy, you’ll know some of them offer horrible Human Experiences.
Chuggy, choppy, buggy, crashy.
So my theory on why Android has over 50% market share but only 16.26% Internet market share is: People are getting suckered into buying these Android phones (“hey, they look slick like the iPhone”), not understanding there’s a huge difference in quality between models. Then they start to use their phone, only to realize it sucks. People don’t like their Android phones, so they stop using them.
I was in the car with a good friend of mine recently and I handed him my iPhone 4 to help me navigate to our other friend’s house. He started flicking around the Google Map, and said “Oh my god, this interface is so smooth.” He happened to have an Android phone on the lower end of the quality spectrum and was only now coming to understand what he had bought.
Quality and quantity are mutually exclusive characteristics.