If you recall the last traditional weddings you might have been invited to, you will certainly remember the bride arriving to the ceremony. And if you squeeze a bit your brain, you might as well remember that she probably was late a reasonable time for. It is actually expected from her to be late on purpose, in order to increase expectation around her. But not too much. Arriving later than a reasonable timing is as worse as not arriving late at all. Like many other things in life, too much is as bad as too little, and finding the right balance becomes almost a form of art, not really at the reach of many people.
There is still a second wave, a second wow effect, which spins around the scenery and the atrezzo around the bride. People will pay a lot of attention to any details of her costume, hairdo or make up.
All this wow thing is only justified for the uniqueness brides have around them during the wedding day. It is her guests want specifically to see, to talk to, or to get a nice picture with.
Being too late will, therefore, be a terrible sin for a bride on her wedding day… But still guests are likely to be a little tolerant and magnanimous as they are predisposed in favor of her. (Please note we are prudently avoiding to mention the classical guest, normally being the mother-in-law of some guest that justifies its mere existence with a lot of venomous critic they really enjoy spitting on the bride, the ceremony, the banquet and specifically on any guest younger then themselves). Being in this tolerant mood, should the sin occur, it might be forgiven if (and this is a big “if”) the bride avoids the second (and unforgivable) one, which is not looking magnificent form the top of her head to the end of her toes. If she doesn’t, there will be not a well-equipped enough toilet nor closet in miles around to fix a very bad first impression.
Should the bride have the slightest stain in her dress, the most unperceivable scratch in her make up, or simply one single hair out of its place, then the “someone’s-mother-in-law” effect will be unleashed as a thunderbolt throughout the guests and relatives, and something that was planned to be the most wonderful day in her life will turn into the worst, slowest and longest possible nightmare for both mortal sins, eventually leading to psychological issues for the bride and potential divorce in record time.
We have no idea about the social life or family setup of the guys responsible for the Windows Phone 7 launch at Microsoft. No idea either about their education nor manners.
But we seriously suspect the so-long-planned wedding between the market and WP7 operating system may not end like fairy tales. No matter if the bride’s father (ultimately a certain Steve Ballmer) is planning to throw in $400 million to ensure the most wonderful celebration. It could very well be ten times as much, result will more than probably remain unchanged.
First Sin: The bride has arrives real late. Too much even for the most unconditional fans and supporters of Microsoft, who, by the way, had not had too good experiences with previous girlfriends (ie Windows Mobile different versions), and while waiting for the bride, have been exposed to very nice-looking, well-educated and good-mannered alternative ladies (ie RIMM, IOS4, Android –yes, yes, we admit “Android” is not what you would call a nice-looking lady precisely). Even another late arrival as WebOS or an old-fashioned veteran like Symbian might be better considered than WP7 at this point.
Second Sin: Despite expectations, and knowing before-hand what the other ladies had been doing around for a lot of time, WP7 came handicapped: No matter how “Pure and Virginal” (Microsoft claims it was built brand new from scratch, breaking a historical family tradition of patching and patching it once and again, Service Pack 1 to Service Pack n), Apps are (very) limited, in the scale of 1 to 300 compared to IOS4, for instance; as well, App Developers are seriously restricted (no access to camera, for example) and basic features like “cut&paste” or flash capabilities simply do not exist. WP7 alone, conveniently hosted and supported by Microsoft, of course, threw away all the majesty that a proper bride needs for her wedding day.
If this were not enough, there is yet more…
In the classical marketing approach that Microsoft has accustomed all of us for years, once more they are overdoing themselves. Not happy with deserving eternal damnation without relief (those of you who have read some of the Bible know what we are talking about), they have already announced (vaguely, but they have) future upgrades and improvements that sound as scary as Service Pack Release Notes.
So Microsoft is planning to get the dollars from the customer and give him in return a limited product with limited development possibilities (already declined by some of the top guys there, like Layar or Fring), and a promise of having to travel though the desert for an unspecified period of time to eventually get to the end state they are supposed to have paid for. Simply fantastic… but only for making the script for a Hollywood B-series moviestarred by Barbra Streisand, Diane Keaton or Meryl Streep, so sad a romance this sounds like.
Whoever ends up willingly with the knot tied must really love this bride…
…what probably is a sacrifice Apple, HP, Nokia, HTC and others may be willing to assume.
