LG to bank heavily on Windows Phone 7, says WP7 will outperform Android

Florin  By on 17 Aug 10

LG wants to be a big player in the smartphone market, but it seems to me that the company has quite confusing plans about how to accomplish that.

In early 2009, the South Koreans said they would introduce about 20 Windows Mobile smartphones that year. They didn’t. They only released a few WM devices, like the GM730 / GM750, the GW550 and the GW820 eXpo.

Then came the Android craze and, for some reason, LG didn’t bet on Google’s platform as much as Samsung, HTC, Motorola and other companies did. The only two LG Android handsets available now at a global scale are the GW620 and the GT540 Optimus. There are also the Verizon-excusive LG Ally, and some Optimus handsets launched in Korea – but I don’t think these count too much.

Not long ago, LG announced new Optimus phones and a tablet, all running Android (Froyo) and ready to hit international markets.

We’ve also heard that LG intends to ship 6 million smartphones by the end of 2010, 70% of which will be powered by Android, with the rest of them running Windows Phone 7.

So it seems that LG likes Android better than WP7, right? Well, I’m not sure of that anymore. LG has reportedly told Korean sources that “it expects WP7 to outperform the two rival smartphone operating systems” – one of these platforms is definitely Android (I’m not sure about the other platform LG is referring to; Symbian? iOS? BlackBerry?).

LG further said it’s going to be the first company to launch Windows Phone 7 devices. Apparently, the first Europe-bound LG WP7 handset (due in October) will have a 3.8 inch display. There will also be a US version with a hardware QWERTY keypad – this is probably the LG Panther (seen below).

I really don’t think WP7 will outperform Android, which became a leading smartphone platform in less than two years since launch. But as long as LG will launch both Android and WP7 handsets, I believe things can’t go wrong for the company – assuming said handsets are competitive enough.

Via WMExperts

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  • tk

    andrXXX what? that's dumbshit!

  • http://www.unwiredview.com Florin

    Huh?

  • hysonmb

    I wouldn't bet on it yet, but, the mobile market has shown itself to be up for grabs and it's not impossible that Windows Phone may outpace Android.
    One consideration is that a lot of business users who are not on Blackberry have Windows Mobile. Apple is just breaking into serious Enterprise acceptance and Andriod isn't on the radar yet in the places that I've seen. Microsoft has a chance to save themselves from a mobile knocout punch if they can get these things into customer hands before iOS can get through the NIST process. They need to advertise big time, unlike past iterations, and deliver huge (unlike past iterations).
    Andriod is a beast in the market because they are the best option widely available. They're newer than WM6.5 and on more carriers than Apple. They have a bunch of manufacturers using the OS for a variety of applications and in such a short time since they launched, Google has managed to grow a cult of developers.
    Windows Phone 7 has to dig Microsoft out of the negative light that many media outlets have put them in. I've not had nearly as horrid a time with my WM6.5 Touch Pro 2 as many would have the world believe. That's not to say that it isn't long overdue for an overhaul, but, it's more capable than a lot of the newer devices hitting the market today and that's saying a lot considering how fast it's moving forward. They've now got a new shot with what appears to be applause from the majority of the media and a large group of developers already contributing products even before the official launch. It will take time before they can get the lost mindshare back, but, it seems they've finally made some headway. If things go the way they seem to be with the pre-release information, I'd imagine that by this time next year, we'll be talking about which platform will be the one to catch Blackberry first because this is going to become a 3 way race for dominance. Apple will finally have to break out of the exclusive AT&T options as rumored, Google will have to keep improving Andriod though they've finally worked out some of the minor headaches with FroYo and Microsoft needs to deliver on the promises that have been made to this point. It's going to be an interesting time and hopefully a battle that makes all of them shine so we reap the rewards of tech wars.

  • Marcus Christopher McFann

    I say Symbian is the beast in the market, and because THEY are the best option and most widely available. S^4 will remind everyone that they invented the space, and have many technological leads over the competition.

  • http://www.unwiredview.com Florin

    hysonmb is talking about the US market (I think) where, as you know, Symbian is not among the top platforms. And it will have a hard time reaching the top – actually, that seems close to impossible to me :)

  • Marcus Christopher McFann

    Florin says:
    “I really don’t think WP7 will outperform Android, which became a leading smartphone platform in less than two years since launch. But as long as LG will launch both Android and WP7 handsets, I believe things can’t go wrong for the company – assuming said handsets are competitive enough.”

    Care to elaborate? Are you speaking merely from a sales perspective? I'd love to hear your opinion, and the basis for this analysis.

    I don't think WP7 will be the early runaway success Android has been, though I do agree with LG's assessment on performance of the platform.

    Android is successful for sales because of its hardware price diversity. WP7 can't initially offer that, since the entry point for minimum hardware is set so high. So WP7 will follow an iPhone market curve, only addressing the upper end, which has strong competition from all players, something Apple didn't have in its inception.

    As for device performance, look at the architecture of Android. Its native platform is still under development, while WP7 will likely have one at its launch. So when comparing the two ecosystems, Android developers will most likely use the Dalvik VM for application development. WP7 applications will more likely be using XNA, .NET, and Silverlight, along with possibly C++. So the performance of these tools will be what decides how well they perform.

    Now Dalvik VM is a turbocharged Java Virtual Machine. However optimized, Java won't compare to the .NET, XNA, and Silverlight tools for WP7. Java is just too resource hungry, which is why low powered Android devices aren't the best in terms of snappiness.

    So LG's perfromance claims aren't hard to believe at all, and totally within line of what most developers also will surmise.

  • hysonmb

    I was speaking more to the way that Andriod has come in and grown at such an impressive rate but there is no doubt that Symbian is still tops right now. And you are correct, they are more widely available than Andriod.

    Plus, like Florin said, I was thinking US market as oppsed to the bigger picture.

  • Marcus Christopher McFann

    Symbian can do exactly what Android did in its three years, as long as carriers start carrying Symbian devices. S^4 should do that, and I totally expect Symbian to be a top two OS in the US if at&t and TMobile continue slowly accepting them now.

    Android was almost all HTC in the beginning. Symbian will have Nokia, Samsung, and SE, as well as possibly others. They'll also have an app store and developer community in place, tons of apps, and multiple devices.

    Now if Android made it with its meager start, why can't Symbian?

  • http://www.staska.net Staska

    Yeah, well, the keyword here is “Symbian can do…” The problem – Symbian
    started 3 years ago, at a much better place then Android.

    And they could have been great, but left UI to owners, when it turned out
    that UI was the most important thing. They were getting back with screenplay
    and that other stuff. But then Nokia bought them.

    Symbian had Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and LG as partners. After Nokia bought
    them – well, Moto and LG were gone immediately, Samsung lingered with Omnia
    HD for a while, but now gone. SE tried Idou/Satio, then Vivaz. But Nokia
    even managed to screw up with SE. Or, do you think those supposedly free
    almost open Symbian improvements that made it to N97 Mini were just rejected
    by SE?

    And, about Samsung – the biggest, most devoted S60 licensee at the time (up
    to early 2009)? Heh, we have a super duper Symbian flagship – i8910 Omnia
    HD. Great Samsung is hooked we have this now we'll have something better
    next time. And we have N97 with WRT and all that other stuff we won't make
    available because it's not ready. We'll just have Sammy to make flagships to
    carry that open source Symbian flag, supposedly not ours. And we'll just
    concentrate on cheaper versions of 5800XM, while Samsung carries the flag
    does Symbian flagships, and forgets it's bottom line which we'll take
    because they don't have a choice or clue.

    Sorry. Samsung noticed. And they dropped Symbian last year in favor of
    Windows Mobile (!), when they cancelled Symbian equivalent of Samsung Jet,
    but went through with WM Omnias. THen they took on to make bada and found
    Android. Chanses of them returning to Symbian are slim to none. Except as
    just to keep a toe in, with no serious promotion. And even that is
    unlikely.

    SE is also almost gone, switched to Android. The last phone was Vivaz and
    that's about it.

    So, getting back to your Q, why can't Symbian make a start similar to
    Android? Well, because:

    -it's not a start for Symbian. It's a re-start at best and it has very
    little to show for it. (yes, I know, technically superior..
    Bla..bla…bla… If I could get a penny for technically superior products
    that are now in the graveyard… )

    -It's a Nokia owned OS. They can dress it up all they want. But Nokia has
    already shown, that as long as it suits their competitive interests, they
    will use their factual control of Symbian code to their advantage. Who can
    prefer Symbian over alternatives in this case?

    Well, except fujitsu?

  • http://twitter.com/_brendand_ Brendan Donegan

    I do think those free, open Symbian improvements were rejected by SE – because they were in the Symbian^3 codebase and the effort to integrate them for the projected reward was not seen to be worth it. The Satio has only had ~2 firmware updates since release, both of them HEAVILY based around stability (which they had problems with at the beginning) and I'm not sure did the Vivaz get any. Free in terms of money isn't the same as free in terms of effort. Anyway SEMC are a conservative company (maybe it's the Japanese part), which is why they used Android 1.6 for the X10 (they considered it more stable).

    No need to start cooking up conspiracy theories when there's perfectly normal business reasons why they wouldn't do this…

  • http://twitter.com/visitken KenHong@LG

    Florin,

    The world “outperform” is never even mentioned in the original article. In which story did you see this word?

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