Microsoft corporate vice president Frank Shaw wrote in a blog post on Friday that the content of the Facebook Home presentation was ‘remarkably similar’ to the Windows Phone launch event the company had organized two years ago.
Thumbing down the competition seems to be a strategy the Redmond giant has been adapting of late. Microsoft went after Google, with its ‘Don’t get scroogled’ campaign, and now it is Android and to some extent Facebook that is on the firing line. Mr. Shaw ‘applauds Facebook’ for making a people-centric post, after explaining how Microsoft had built a people-centric first, and calls Android ‘complicated enough’ without an additional skin, as ‘Android users know’.
This is the text of Mr. Shaw’s blog post:
I tuned into the coverage of the Facebook Home event yesterday and actually had to check my calendar a few times.
Not to see if it was still April Fools Day, but to see if it was somehow still 2011.
Because the content of the presentation was remarkably similar to the launch event we did for Windows Phone two years ago.
When we sat down with a blank sheet of paper and designed Windows Phone, we put three words on the wall to guide the team: “Put People First”.
Those three words were chosen around a pretty powerful but simple insight: People are more important than apps, so phones should be designed around you and the people you care about, not the apps you might use to reach them.
So, we got to work and built a phone that asked and answered questions like these:
Instead of rows and rows of apps, why not have a screen full of the people that matter most to you, and start with them?
Instead of having to launch an app to see what’s behind that notification icon, why not just bring the content to the home screen?
Instead of having SMS and Facebook Messaging as separate chat threads, why not bring them together in one conversation?
Instead of having separate address books for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Skype, why not bring those together in one place?
Instead of having photos on your phone and photos in Facebook, why not bring those photos together in one place?
Instead of having to launch an app just to check in, why not just tap your own face and do it directly?
When you start from scratch with ideas like these, you end up with a fast, fluid and seamless experience that revolves around you, not apps.
Millions of Windows Phone owners have already discovered how great a phone can be when it’s designed this way, and they aren’t shy about telling their friends. Naturally, some of those friends have been pretty frustrated that they haven’t been able to get a “People First” experience on their devices.
So, we understand why Facebook would want to find a way to bring similar functionality to a platform that is sadly lacking it.
But as Android owners know, that platform is complicated enough without adding another skin built around another metaphor, on top of what is already a custom variant of the OS.
So, while we applaud Facebook for working to give some Android owners a taste of what a “people-centric” phone can be like, we’d humbly like to suggest that you get the real thing, and simply upgrade to a Windows Phone.
When you get your Windows Phone, simply log into your Facebook account (along with Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn and Gmail) and pin your best friends and family to your start screen, and we promise you’ll be feeling even more at “home”.
[Image: Facebook Home (left), Windows Phone (right). Courtesy: Facebook, Microsoft]
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