Microsoft goes Willy Wonka for Windows Phone 7 giveaways at TechEd Australia 2010

At TechEd Australia 2010 this week, Microsoft is handing out 250 blocks of chocolate with Windows Phone 7-branded packaging at various sessions and activities for correctly answering quizzes.

Although they might look like nothing more than ordinary gifts, but for a few lucky people, chocolate is not all you will find inside.

For five lucky people (pretty good odds), inside the wrapper they will also discover a golden ticket which in true Willy Wonka style can be redeemed for a free Windows Mobile 6.5 device today and a Windows Phone 7 device when it comes out. Pretty sweet deal, if you get what I mean.

17 insightful thoughts

  1. I love how Microsoft always overhypes every single one of their up and coming products. No wonder people are so disappointed once they finally hold the real product in their hands.

  2. Hater? Hardly… just questioning why it is that they always build up so much anticipation but rarely deliver anything that matches.

    Remember Vista? I was really excited about that OS. And what did we get?
    Windows Mobile 6.5 anyone? That was supposed to be oh so revolutionary…
    Silverlight for mobile? Oops, I guess that one never even made it out of the door…
    Surface Table: Never even seen one in the field other than those they always show at the Microsoft booth during conferences.
    Windows 7 multi touch: Have you actually used that? It’s a joke…
    Xbox/ Xbox 360? yeah, granted that was / is an awesome and still kicks the the PS3s ass. Although that fact that I had to send my 360 off to repair several times for what totals almost 3 months wasn’t fun.

    So my point is… perhaps sometimes companies might be better off undercooking their marketing until they actually have a product to show that is some serious competition.

  3. @Tom

    Vista was amazing never had a issue I claim user error.
    WinMo6.5 was more about simplifying the UI which it has on my TD2.
    Silverlight is coming to WinPho7 so you’re wrong there again.
    Surface is currently used in a lot of the highend Hotels like the ones most people cannot afford plus military and museums use them though I guess you know less about the latter. Also the cost 10k-min so of course you’re not going to see one “around”.
    Windows7 MT works fine I don’t get your point here. You can use multiple touches at once. Multitouch…I really do not understand that one?
    Yes 360 is amazing. Never ever ever had a single issue with it. Though they do exist.

    Yeah let’s not hype stuff that will get it in the media. Good thing you do not run marketing for anything.

    1. @Travis,

      “Vista was amazing”… yeah, the entire world made up those errors or was simply to stupid to use their computers.

      “TD2”? Huh, I though HTC fixed the interface on that by building a custom front end… or maybe it was a different HTC.

      “Silverlight is coming…” enough said, heard it before, will believe it when I see it.

      “Surface is currently used in highend Hotels”… and those would be? None of the high end hotels I stayed at in the past 12 months had any, same goes for any museums I know off. Got any examples?

      “Windows 7 MT works fine…” Have you actually used a smart touch HP? Well I have, all I can say is that the experience is less than satisfactory. Not sure if it’s the hardware or software… but in the end I don’t really care.

      “360 … never had a single issue…” You should count yourself lucky. Every single person that I know has had faults with theirs.

      You obviously didn’t get my point about not building hype your products can’t ultimately live up to… it’s like the old joke between marketing vs engineering. Marketing is telling customers they will get a red bullet train that can fly to the moon. Engineering delivers what they can… a train that runs on tracks from a to b… nothing more … nothing less.

  4. Tom, this a free give away of chocolate and five free handsets, nothing wrong with that. Afterall, they’re not calling it “super”, “mighty”, “magical” or “epic”. As for your bullet points, Travis hopefully has enlighted the issues a bit but I’d just like to point out I have a coworker with one of those Asus desktop touch PCs with Windows 7 and she’s always raving about it. Personally I wouldn’t like to keep touching my own hard-earned monitor with greasy fingers, etc. but a company’s? Sure.

    Anyway, it’s free chocolate!

    1. Vista

      vista errors? I don’t think so. Vista performance issues? yes.

      the problem is with generational operating system upgrades that people who had old hardware that could (in some cases barely) run xp expected to get better performance with vista – an operating system that had much higher hardware requirements.

      I guess i could argue the point that osx 10.4 was badly received, and had errors in it, because it ran much worse on my macbook pro than 10.3 did.

      surface

      my friend’s bar restaurant is using surface – http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/03/inamo-restauran/ i’m sure there’re many more around now, considering that was 18months ago.

      xbox

      i’ve had three xboxes (as in i’ve bought three). each has had RRODs (as in each one purchased, not subsequent failures on already ‘fixed’ boxes). But in contrast, each has been fixed quickly, the last was turned around in 3 days. Pretty shitty that they died, but i can’t see anyone else resolving such issues so quickly on broken hardware, especially not sony or nintendo.

      I’m gonna throw zune out there, because it gets a lot of bad rep. comparing it to iphone / ipod touch. Gotta say, purely on a media playback playing field… the zune experience is genuinely a lot nicer than ipod/itunes experience. So much so i don’t use ipod functionality on my ipad, and only use itunes when i absolutely have to.

      Microsoft do get some things right, but i think there are a lot of haters who still have their clouds in windows ME mentality… OMG BSOD!! .. etc. etc. etc. things have kinda moved on..

    2. @jrb,

      “the problem is with generational operating system upgrades that people who had old hardware that could (in some cases barely) run xp expected to get better performance with vista…”

      Well I ran Vista on a brand new machine that said made for Vista on it. My biggest problems where:
      – file copy: sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, sometimes it did but took 10x longer than it should
      – network settings management: this is so ultra convoluted it’s a joke (still is with Windows 7), anyone suggesting it’s not I’d suggest they have a look at the way the solved this in Mac OSX very easy and intuitive.
      In the end I went back to Windows XP… well actually I bought a MacLaptop where I can run both my Windows apps and use some stuff that I think is better on the Mac platform… in other words the best of both worlds… so no I am not a Windows hater/ or Mac fanboy. Just trying to get my work done quickly.

      “I’m gonna throw zune out there…”
      Can’t comment on that as Microsoft has decided not to sell it outside of the US.

      “… the last was turned around in 3 days”
      Again, that must be specific to the US. My last fault was turned around in 3 weeks.

    3. the networking & file management is based on xp pro’s management features. i admit i had an issue with vista’s file permissions but in the end since i had to back up data using a desktop because laptop died because it was part of that massive nvidia recall it didnt matter. as for hardware being ready for vista certified most of the 1st batch of pc’s were only capable of running xp(designed for xp then repourposed for vista then resent in for certifcation) example my laptops chipset/igp was based on an anchent nvidia desktop chipset for xp but was givien certifcation for premium

    1. that feature list reads a lot like a list of features missing from iphone for years. remember how reluctant apple were at giving access to many such features, and many things that aren’t on that list – like the ability to run third-party apps?

      I guess the take-home message is, as an end-user, of those things, what will i genuinely miss? Bearing in mind I’m currently an android phone user, a zune user, and an ipad user i like to think i probably have a good understanding of what each platforms give me. Out of those features i’ll miss most top of the list will be copy/cut/paste, and an application switcher. I know i definitely miss the later on my ipad.

    2. @jrb,

      to application switch or not that is the question… to be honest I don’t think the way Apple has implemented app switching is that much different to the way Window Mobile has done it in the past. The only difference is that they have apps in the background in some sort of sleep mode that doesn’t chew up processing power and more importantly battery life. You still end up with a giant list of “open apps” in the app switcher. Why they haven’t implemented a feature where I can opt out applications from “running in the background” is beyond me.

      I am guessing a lot of the features in Windows 7 were left out because they
      a) didn’t have enough time
      b) need to cross check everything they want to do because almost everything in technology these days is patented (my second pet peeve… patents stifle innovation)

    3. i can see why they want to block memory cards, external apps its all because of games for windows phone live that were losing the right to choose where to buy apps, where to store apps. sure they could readd memory card support eventually like they did with xbox 360’s usb storage.

      as for 3rd party multitasking & copy & pasting i think i will really miss copy paste. multitasking on the other hand i have had much of a need so if it makes thing faster go ahead.

      hopefully they fixed the a2dp bluetooth support

  5. rest my case…. just tried to turn on my Xbox 360 for a bit of gaming fun only to be greeted with the ring of death and a message to call customer support for the 5th time now.

    I am starting to wonder if Microsoft is capable of producing anything at all that doesn’t break down all the time.

  6. “Pretty good odds” ????

    That’s ONE IN FIFTY if I count it correctly. I’m not sure what planet you’re on, but after getting a question right in a session (with competition from 200 other nerds), anyone’s chances of winning a windows 7 phone was practically impossible. Compared with every single delegate getting a HP netbook.. pretty disappointing.

    1. True, it’s not as good as 1:1 but I thought for a giveaway it was pretty good odds. 🙂

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