Get a group of geeks together right now, and the topic of conversation is sure to turn to the reasons why Windows Phone 7 is failing, with opinions ranging from “It’s too late”, to “The Microsoft Windows brand is too damaged”, to “The carriers and manufacturers love to customise their Android phones, but can’t with WP7”.

But I wonder if Windows Phone really is failing? Sure, the sales figures are pretty poor, and the Microsoft brand is rubbish outside of “Enterprise” organisations these days, and almost every Android phone is customised in some way before sale, but are they reasons for failure?

Sales Figures

This is perhaps the hardest argument to defeat, as the sales figures are bad, but I’m getting a lot more non-technical people asking me about WP7 than I did 3 or 4 months ago, and they aren’t asking “Why is it failing?”. The marketing message is taking time, but I think it is getting through. If Microsoft and Nokia keep spending, they will make a dent.

Branding

It really doesn’t matter whether the Microsoft brand is awful or not, you barely see it on the Nokia Lumia 800 phone, or on the Samsung WP7 devices, or on any other manufacturer. It’s the manufacturer who’s brand is being relied on to sell the device. If Microsoft does buy Nokia as many have speculated, I strongly believe they will retain the Nokia brand for all the mobile devices they sell.

 Customisation

The manufacturers and carriers like customising their phones, but do their customers like paying for the customisations? I don’t believe so. I don’t think TouchWiz, MotoBlur, HTC Sense, or any pre-installed unremovable apps are worth a penny to most mobile phone users, and they’re unhappy putting up with the delays and problems that they customisations cause.

The Future

I suppose the real question about WP7 isn’t “Is it failing?”, but “Will it fail?”, and that comes down to just how much money Microsoft are willing to pay to remain relevant to mobile computing.

For the answer to that, you can look at XBox ($4 billion lost in the first 4 years), Bing, and Internet Explorer, and I think the answer is “An awful lot”. Now that they have decided mobile is a strategic target, Microsoft are going to spend billions of dollars, and keep spending them year after year.

If they can outspend Google and Apple on software and hardware development, then they can succeed where RIM and Nokia themselves failed, in building a sustainable mobile platform that can compete with (and maybe beat) Apple and Google.