Smoked by Android: Microsoft coughs up free laptop An Android user who reckons he beat Microsoft's speed challenge fair and square will be getting his free laptop and phone after Microsoft's PCGuy stepped into the fray. Sahas Katta admits he won the promotional race, which pitches a staff member wielding a Windows handset against challengers in a test of speed, by sheer luck …
pretty fair my foot.......every one of these competitions are stacked in WP favour
He's far from alone, read about the blackberry owner, his challenge was to send a email to 5 people, the MS guy had a 5 contact group already set up in his phone so only had to pick one "contact" while BB owner had to pick 5.....
Thy *really* are desperate and their market share has been #smokedbybada
Ben might be looking for a new job soon.......
If Microsoft ran a 100m dash to show they were fastest, they would:
1) Tell all other competitors to show up at 13:00, when the race was to start at 12:00
2) Microsoft would start out at the 99m line....
3) ...In a Ferrari...
4) ...at 200km/h
5) The competitors would be visited the night before by Bruno and "Bent-Nose" Mike, who would introduce the competitor's kneecaps to a tire-iron.
And in the unlikely event that the competitors still finished the race ahead of Microsoft, Microsoft would still claim to have "beaten" them (with the tire-iron, of course).
True, once caught, Microsoft "apologized" and made good, but, if you look at the Reddit version of this story, several other people have identified other malfeasance such as forcing the competitors to use the store's WiFi, which curiously enough seems to be throttling non-WinPhone devices.
"Smoked by Windows Phone" indeed - as in, a bunch of smoke blown up your nether orifice by Microsoft.
A couple of reasons. First, because the wifi chipset in WP7 handset is not unique to WP7 phones. As far as the router is concerned, it's a wifi radio and the router does not care what it's attached to. Could an Android phone use this chipset? Yes. Many of them actually do.
Second, it's a Microsoft store, not a phone shop so they're selling other hardware. This means that even if routers were smart enough to recognize the OS of the wifi radio they're establishing a connection with (and they're not) then all Windows devices must be able to connect. I doubt if Microsoft want embarrassing headlines like "Smoked by Windows Mobile 6.5".
Edit bandwidth rules to allow blazing fast for MAC addresses assigned to store demo phones, slow for anything else.
Chipset matters not, I can program any PHY with a MAC from any other PHY (as long as I have access to the EEPROM or whatever other method is used to store it)
@AC: Granted, that would work.
However....
Anyone wandering into the store with a WP7 phone would very quickly be able to spot the cheating. Such visible cheating would hardly be an effective marketing tool.
I really think anyone suspecting networking foul-play is clutching at straws to try to back up a belief that either a) anything Microsoft must be bad or that b) their dual-core OS is efficient.
Bizarre behaviour, either way.
"Such visible cheating would hardly be an effective marketing tool.Such visible cheating would hardly be an effective marketing tool."
But...having someone beat the staff within the rules and then hustling them out of the door claiming they broke a newly made up rule, isn't visible cheating and is an effective marketing tool?
Interesting!
Given that The local wifi must offer non-throttled access to all Windows devices, including PCs, XBoxen, Win8 slates (they have those for demo purposes, apparently) and all OEM versions of WP7 hardware
and that
MS employees and customers will be connected to the same wifi network (it's a part of the T&Cs)
and that
The majority of WP7 functions do not send a browser user agent as they are baked in and we can confidently state that many apps on other platforms also do not send user agents
Exactly how would you go about it, if it's "not actually very difficult"?
> we can confidently state that many apps on other platforms also do not send user agents
We can confidently state that most browsers on most non-Winpho platforms will send a UA string that is not Windows[1]. I know this because I own several such devices, and my web servers see hits from many more.
Thus we have a very simple task of intercepting the first HTTP GET and associating the MAC address with a non-Windows client. This can then be tarproxied. It's easy stuff.
And that assumes that the challenge is between two random devices. If the store staff get to use known devices, they've already got the MAC addresses that need to be "assisted". Everyone else gets the tarpit.
See? Two methods of doing what you said can't be done.
Vic.
[1] There are all sorts of other heuristics you can grab as well. The ARP traffic from certain flavours of Android is particularly identifiable.
Um, could you tell us where in the T's and C's it says that customers and staff will be on the "same wi-fi network" ?
Those 3 words don't appear in the T's and C's at all, individually, let alone in that precise combination. Nor can I see any other combination of words that would have the same meaning.
Clutching at straws is one thing. Making sh*t up - that's just pathetic.
<- You do understand the subject, don't you?
There is of course no way that the in-store phones are all fixed-IP, and on a separate subnet with full QoS, while every other phone has to use DHCP to gain access to a shaped-traffic subnet, with all HTTP/HTTPS traffic bandwidth limited. That would be unfair!
When your device connects over WiFi it will send a DHCP request for an IP address.
This request will contain details about your phone's model and OS. As an example, when my phone requests an IP address it tells the server it is a Touch Diamond running Microsoft Windows CE (yes, I know it is old and out of date).
This can then be used to tell your phone the IP address, routing and even what proxies your phone should use. It would be simple enough for the shop to force all of your requests through a proxy that deliberately delays the response, whilst their phone does not have any delays.
"Not actually possible. Good FUD though, I can see you getting a free Apple t-shirt sometime soon."
Eh, I can think of two ways of doing it without putting any effort into it.
1) Throttling by MAC address range
2) Using request headers on HTTP traffic, especially the user agent (granted that one only works on HTTP traffic, but it still works).
Both are easily done on enterprise grade networking equipment. Heck, you can even do MAC address throttling on some high end consumer grade equipment.
> campaign got started at the trade conference MWC, where WP won 90% of the contests.
And you really think that Microsoft would take the chance that they had to give 10% of challengers a free laptop? You would have people queueing up around the block to take part.
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Preparation is the foundation of success and it seems as if Sahas Katta was better prepared than the Microsoft chap!
I reckon all Windows mobiles issued to Microsoft PCGuys will now have the screen lock disabled and the weather widgets preloaded.. after all defeat is often part of the learning curve
Kudos to MS for keeping to their side of the deal, albeit through some justified protest by the winner..
As for the screen lock disabled, that is customization of the phone, and WindowsPhone frowns upon customization.
But as for the widgets, check the original story, the store guys already had the phone configured with two weather tiles (while by default it has none), that is one of the reasons why they didn't believe that they had lost, after all they had rigged the competition...
MS basically cheated by setting their phone so that all they had to do was turn it on. In other "contests" where they upload a photo to facebook, what's the betting that the guy who decides on the challenge has his camera set to the lowest picture size and has a facebook tile right where his thumb ends up when he finishes sliding the unlock? The "smoked" android phone, on the other hand, is just some guy who turns up.
I think the deal is that you get some kind of discount for trading in your phone (and agreeing to be photographed, which is a condition).
But if the challenge is to find the weather in two cities and the Microsoft guy does it in 2 second because he has the apps pre-loaded, is that actually going to impress anybody? If anything it would make me suspicious that if they had to pull stunts like that their phone probably isn't that fast.
That said, with my phone (10 quid Asda special) if I wanted to know the weather I would have to phone my wife and ask her to check on her laptop.
It seemed to have gone over everyone's head that the Microsoft guy was willing to make things correct as long as the guy gave up his Android phone and took the laptop AND the Windows Phone phone.
well, almost everyone. ;-)
Now I wonder if he'll take the deal and trade the new phone for some other Android phone. And besides, we know Microsoft, Nokia and AT&T are basically paying people to take the Windows Phone phones to gain market share. Aren't they still below 2% after a year of Windows Phone 7 being on the market? Not good and with Windows Phone 8 in the pipeline it's not going to be an easy message to get across.
Windows phone hasn't really been "marketed" for a year. Verizon in the US still has exactly ONE handset for sale and it's not being promoted by Verizon. It's a long road to gain market share when the carriers are all promoting something else. Slowly but surely, Windows phone will gather steam in the marketplace. Hero handsets are appearing. The future is bright!
I've had my very simple HTC Trophy for over a year now and I have not had a single lockup. I can't say that about any prior cell phone I've owned. Even after a year I continue to garner new appreciation for the ergonomic feature set. I really can get in and get out quickly with all the information I need. The People Hub is brilliant in it's simplicity and depth.
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/rdgtz/i_won_the_windows_phone_challenge_but_lost_just/
I find it interesting that this is no longer on the main page over there....
So I'll put the link here so it can be found.
As for "throttling non-Windows phones": There's lots of ways to achieve that:
Look at the OUI part of the MAC and throttle any non-Nokia devices.
Look at the browser ID on the first HTTP transaction.
Throttle everybody, have Windows phone on different WLAN.
I thought that, but apparently not. You can make separate city tiles from the inbuilt weather app, which is a part of the OS. So they tell me.
(disclaimer - my HD7 would require dicking about the HTC Hub, which is definitely a preloaded app because you can uninstall it).
They don't come loaded on the homescreen when you buy the phone - he configured it that way for the competition. I have a weather widget which came with my HTC phone so I'd have to touch the widget and swipe upwards. You don't get much faster than that but I'd have "lost".
I own a Windows Phone myself since a couple of days (Samsung Omnia W which replaces my Samsung Jet) and because of that I've been following the news around the Windows Phone very critically during the past months. When it comes to stuff like this I don't decide on impulse but on thorough research. Especially since I plan to use this phone for the next 4 - 6 years (my next subscription period is going to be "SIM only" which will save me quite some cash).
Alas; I've came across these (IMO silly) commercials too and I noticed that MS is also happily admitting defeat. Better yet: they are not afraid to publish this on the official Winphone page as well. See here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/cmpn/smoked-by-windows-phone.aspx
Last video, around 2:10, the guy on the left "smoked" the Windows phone. And there are more examples in those videos where someone else actually won. Can't point 'm all out because I never watched all the movies (I don't think its /that/ funny). But honestly; MS also admits defeat and aren't afraid to show it in public either.
So this isn't about MS IMO, but a moronic shop keeper who probably feared losing customers or something. Dumb move.
Fair enough but I do sense that the dickhead in the shop genuinely believed they'd rigged this one so well it couldn't be lost without cheating. It's so obviously rigged its hard to believe anyone at MSFT HQ approved it.
Start with a rare and unusual task, preload a configuration that less than one in 10,000 might have on their phone by chance and you'd have to feel safe. A shop serf might even notice the stock Android News&Weather app has global settings and cannot display 2 cities at once and think they'd found something Android can only do with 3rd party addons.
Of course the fragmentary world of Android means few phones come without extra widgets... sometimes 3 weather widget alone! All of them better at showing weather than the stock version ;)
Ok, I'll bite: "Only shills keep praising them"
Everyone who has used my WP7 phone has said that they didn't like the look of the interface to start with, but it's actually very well designed. Several said that they will seriously consider getting a WP7 based phone as their next phone. My partner (an Android user) said that she is definitely getting one.
Of course, that makes me an MS shill, it's certain that you're not a Google or Apple Shill, isn't it?
Everyone who has used my WP7 phone say that the interface seems nice and fluid, even if very garish and childish. Only after some time people start to ask about the wasted stripe of screen just to show an arrow on top; asking how to organize apps into folders, or at least by functionality, instead of the stupid alphabetic list on the second page; on how to re-size the tiles to show more information or waste less space; how to configure the search button, or why it doesn't work in the email or the market and always launches bing; etc.
My SO used the phone for a week, since it has a better screen and camera than her blade. After that week, she gave it back to me and asked for the blade. She doesn't want another WP7 phone for sure.
Me, I use it as my "emergency" phone, with a second SIM for another country where I used to live. It only makes and receives calls, as all the smartphone functionality and flexibility on my two years old Nexus One beats it hands down. I know, I could have got a cheap featurephone instead - but this WP7 was a gift.
Does this make me a Google shill? Probably yes, in your eyes, if you're so passionate about your WP7 phone...
Dear troll central aka El Reg... (see above posts for details)
....let's just ban all smart phones because they're turning people into complete twats.
I was filling up my truck on Sunday, on another pump this lass was filling up her Corsa. I paid and came back out. She was sitting in her car and I thought she was about to do a bilkin. There was a queue of 5 cars behind her .....and what was she doing, yup twatting away on her phone.
Then there's the people who try to walk and twat and listen to music and who don't have the mental capacity to do one of those tasks let alone try 3 at the same time.
It can only be a matter of time before there is a special catagory in the Darwin awards for dying mid twat. I hope at least.
I leave my phone in the house now, it has a feature called voice mail and I find the need to do a quick Google minimal, especially as women's clothes have begun to shrink in the hot weather.
The whole "smoked by" campaign was always going to be dangerous, but - nothing ventured, nothing gained. Given how MS want to break into the market, they needed to go out on a limb and gamble.
Fair play to the 'droid guy for winning - although there was a certain amount of luck involved. I mean come on, what percentage of the android market is actually running Ice Cream Sandwich? Would a previous OS version - as is common in the fragmented world of android - have fared so well?
Yes, I've got a Lumia. It's a joy to develop for, and very comfortable to use. But for my personal use, I've still got my trusty Nokia 1100 - makes call, sends text, battery life approx 10 days. And until someone can smoke it for battery life, I'm sticking to it :)
All this has done is drawn even more attention to the sorry truth, i.e. that nobody's buying Windows Phones - with the added fillip that it looks like MS can't now even work out how to give them away without making themselves look stupid.
MS have backtracked now and Katta has got his laptop and phone. He has immediately put both up for auction, and will be giving all the proceeds to charity. Good on him.
So the winphone might do something a little faster than a non winphone. Is that really it Microsoft? Is the only thing you can do to try to persuade me to buy your phone are stupid little gimmicks? I don't actually care how long it takes to look up the weather in 2 cities, or how long it takes me to get round to uploading a photo to FB (as its usually the crap 2g connection I have that is the deciding factor).
Tell me in terms of reliability, default festures, ease of use, battery life etc why winphone pisses on other mobile phone platforms.
My daughter, and her friends from high school, don't really talk about speed issues. It's the apps that Apple offers and the cool factor, which MS lost back somewhere in the 00s.
Not sure to whom MS is talking on this one, but it isn't the legions of buyers of they need to make their phones a success.
Well said. Who are they selling too? Apple gets virtually everyone but the geeks which have Android to play with. The rare biz types that haven't whined their way to an iPhone already use RIM. Being late to the party is only recoverable if all the beer isn't gone already.
Is it just me, or does it sound like Pentagoon is really this idiot PC guy who is trying to spin this so he looks like slightly less of a moron? He's clearly a liar for coming up with this scheme... now that he's been busted, whats microsoft going to do about it?
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