Microsoft To Offer Incentives to Sell Phones
If this strategy was on the table, why didn’t Microsoft start this a year ago?
If it was Apple, which makes hundreds of dollars per phone sold, then a $15/phone incentive would not be a desperate gamble. Microsoft only sells the OS, though, and if a quick Google search is right, that’s about the price Microsoft is charging manufacturers to license their OS. Though the app market on Windows also generates Microsoft some revenue, it’s probable that they’re gambling away the majority of their revenue to gain marketshare.
All Windows Phones - including pre-7 ones - have less than 2 percent of all smartphones sold as of September. Desperate moves like this are a good sign that Microsoft doesn’t think that will go up very much without some help1.
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This is where I could say “Why does Microsoft even bother? The money’s obviously in the hardware.” However, IBM said that to Microsoft once and that didn’t end up being very accurate. ↩
