It’s a great marketing trick by Microsoft, you offer people a free laptop and phone if their smartphone can do a set of pre chosen tasks quicker than a Windows phone.
In theory Microsoft can’t lose, they choose the tasks and could in theory at least pre set the Windows phone up to achieve those specific tasks quicker than would otherwise be possible but Microsoft did lose despite making sure in advance they would win.
Sahas Katta won the "Smoked by Windows phone" challenge but was told Microsoft won "just because"
Sahas Katta wrote on his blog about how he and a Microsoft employee competed to see who could get the weather for two different locations in the least amount of time. It would appear the MS employee who selected the task had naturally preset their phone for this particular challenge as unusually it just happened to have two of its live tiles set to show the weather in two different locations (that Microsoft choose the tasks in advance seems a little unfair as it gives them an advantage) but regardless of whether this was pre planned Saha and his Galaxy Nexus did indeed win and he asked to claim his prize only to be told that he had lost, in the words of the employee, “just because”.
He was then photographed in front of a sign saying his phone had been smoked by a Windows phone. A day after Saha blogged about the incident, and after many websites featured the news, Microsoft decided to offer him a phone and laptop after all with Ben Rudolph at first offering a rematch but later tweeting “I want to make things right. So I’ve got a laptop & phone (& apology) for you. Email me!”.
Rudolph went on to say that he was trying to make it right but that he didn’t see “what really went down”. No word on Sahas blog as to whether he did indeed get his apology or prize but it seems that controlling the circumstances of the test, and knowing what is required in advance, is not always enough to secure a win.
Update (27.03.2012):
Sahas picked up his prize, check out his blog for the details. Shame that Microsoft only admitted he won after much bad publicity online from leading but at the least they did come through.
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