Co-authored with G. Forbes

Summary: Windows phones have serious bugs in them and even Microsoft's biggest cheerleaders are complaining

"It's stupid," says Microsoft's booster Paul Thurrott about Vista 7 for tablet computing, claims Fab from the Linux Outlaws show. Is this a moment of honesty from this Microsoft marketing dunce? Let us hope so. As we pointed out the other day, even longtime boosters of Microsoft are withdrawing their votes of confidence.

Paul Thurrott has also been complaining about how Vista Phony 7 [sic] has a transmission bug which ends up being very costly for users. His rant has been discussed on Slashdot and is summarised thusly:

Microsoft commentator and Windows Phone 7 Expert Paul Thurrott has reported a serious bug that indicates Windows Phone 7 is uploading up to 50 MB of unidentified data every day. The phone operating system apparently ignores Wi-Fi connections for sending this data, leading some Windows Phone 7 owners hitting their 2 GB plan data limit while doing little more than checking email and social networking sites.

OpenBytes has commented about it as well (Windows Phone 7 gorges on your data limit?) and came to the following conclusion:

Just like the real WP7 sales figures, Microsoft is yet to comment. I’d suggest to Microsoft that if this allegation is true then they better start to find more Android phones to skim some profit from, if the WP7 has this type of issue now, it could be the final nail in the coffin for the phone and with it, Microsoft’s hopes of ever cracking the Smartphone market.

MSBBC has released Microsoft's response:

Microsoft has told BBC News that it is investigating why some handsets running its Windows Phone 7 software are sending and receiving "phantom data".

Several net forums detail complaints from people that say their phones are automatically eating into their monthly data plans without their knowledge.

Some have complained that their phone sends "between 30 and 50MB of data" every day; an amount that would eat into a 1GB allowance in 20 days.

It is a rarity to see the MSBBC actually use the word "Windows" in relation to any sort of Windows-related issue. Fortunately, Microsoft doesn't have any sort of monopoly on smartphones, so they cannot distort the public media with a "a Windows problem is a PC problem"-style routine. They would look rather silly if they actually tried to.

This is a subject which we discussed in Episode 24 of TechBytes as well. ⬆