Charlie Kindel, a 21-year Microsoft veteran who left the company in September 2011 to start his own company, described on Monday his views on why the smartphone operating system had failed to take the world by storm, in spite of being "superior" to Android.

Kindel, whose final role at Microsoft was to lead the design and development of the Windows Phone application platform, argues that of the four relevant stakeholders—mobile operators, hardware companies, OS vendors, and consumers—Windows Phone is giving the operators and phone builders the "middle finger," and that as a result the two parties most important to actually putting phones into end-users' hands are reluctant to support the platform.

Windows Phone's tight hardware specification prevents device builders from creating the same range of weird and wacky devices that Android enjoys; its tight software specification prevents both builders and phone companies alike from stripping out key features or bundling crapware with their devices.

Both decisions give end-users an advantage—timely, consistent updates, a uniform, high quality user experience, and a high degree of software compatibility—but remove control and the ability to differentiate from these two parties.

Android, in contrast, bends over backwards to allow manufacturers and networks to do whatever they want to the platform—even if it means removing flagship features or denying users the ability to upgrade. Companies like HTC use this flexibility to produce dozens of different Android handsets, all to fit some market niche (either real or perceived) and price level.

The focus on marketing avoids addressing what is seen by many as a bigger problem with the platform—it launched so damn late.

Apple, meanwhile, doesn't have to please hardware companies at all, since it doesn't license the operating system to anyone else. And while Apple does depend on mobile networks to some extent, it also has a strong direct sales channel, so it can ensure that its devices are well promoted and positioned no matter what.

As a result, Kindel says, it's easy for the operators and handset companies to justify marketing and promotion of Android devices. They can both make the devices "their own." This is particularly true in the US market; a handset like the Samsung Galaxy S II had three "exclusive" releases in the US, as each of Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile had their own minor variation on the same base model (in fact, AT&T has released the handset in no fewer than three different variants).

A compelling argument

Kindels' argument rings true, at least to some extent. Windows Phone 7.5 is a good smartphone platform. Its app selection still trails that of Android (Windows Phone has just hit 50,000 apps), and its hardware offerings are nowhere near as diverse as Android's—but when it comes to the actual end-user experience, most reviewers and critics would place it ahead of Google's operating system. Consumer satisfaction among those who have bought Windows Phones also appears to be sky high.

While we have been critical of the leeway given to carriers to restrict Windows Phone updates, the situation has substantially improved, with the latest Mango update rolling out universally within a few weeks of its initial availability. After some initial teething trouble, the carriers do now seem to have been effectively cut out of the loop: good for users, bad for the network operators. Microsoft's position still isn't as carrier-hostile as Apple's, but it's not far off.

When it comes to update availability, consistency and quality of the software experience, and freedom from crapware, Microsoft has indeed made decisions that alienate carriers and manufacturers. Those same decisions enrich the user experience. The trade-offs are undoubtedly good for users of the platform, but equally serve to make it a tough sell in retail channels.

The importance of the carriers

The mobile operators were enormously important to Android's success. It was arguably not until Verizon's high-profile "Droid" branding and "Droid Does" campaign that Android really started to take off. While Microsoft and, since October, Nokia have been marketing Windows Phone extensively, the platform has never had the kind of carrier push that Android received.

So what's Microsoft to do? Kindel implies that it's all about marketing. Push the carriers to promote the platform, and ensure that retail personnel have appropriate incentives to push Windows Phones. That can't hurt, but it's not necessarily easy, and unlikely to be sufficient on its own. Microsoft's relationship with the carriers is complex, because Microsoft isn't selling to the carriers directly. Though the carriers do have to deal with Redmond, for example to develop their custom pre-installed applications and co-ordinate delivery of updates, they're not actually buying from the company, and they're not selling its products: they're selling pieces of hardware that just happen to run Windows Phone.

Too little, too late?

The focus on marketing avoids addressing what is seen by many as a bigger problem with the platform—it launched so damn late, relative to iOS and Android. It came out a year after the first truly popular Android handsets (such as the Motorola Milestone, a.k.a. "Motorola Droid"), and three and a half years after the first iPhone. It wasn't until autumn 2011 that the major rough edges and gaps from the platform were fixed. That's a long time, and it's no wonder that Android and iPhone have built up substantial leads.

However, it's still early days in the "modern" (post-iPhone) smartphone market. A majority of phones sold are still feature phones, meaning that there's still an enormous number of people out there with no investment in any platform. These users are still up for grabs, especially in emerging markets where iPhone and Android are much less entrenched.

Claims that it's too late for Microsoft now lack both historical perspective (the shape of the PC market wasn't decided in four years—indeed, it's still evolving as tablets become more widespread), and geographic perspective. The iPhone may have won over the West Coast technologists, but there's a whole wide world beyond that's still up for grabs. It's not going to be easy, and failure is still a genuine possibility, but nothing is decided yet.

Keep the baby, get rid of the bathwater

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that no carrier customization has ever improved a phone.

A question for Microsoft, then, is if it can improve the situation for the two stakeholders that Windows Phone is a poor match for—operators and hardware companies—without damaging the consumer experience. Can it rival Android's biggest advantage—the enormous flexibility such that carriers and OEMs can customize it whatever way they see fit—without also inheriting Android's biggest disadvantage—the ability for those same parties to ruin it?

Giving carriers more freedom to play with hardware specifications and software comes at an enormous cost. It might help Microsoft win more customers, but at the expense of making those customers' experiences much worse, and diminishing the reason to even use Windows Phone in the first place.

Microsoft could relax its software and hardware restrictions, but this would be a difficult decision to make. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that no carrier customization has ever improved a phone. The multitudinous handset variations found on US carriers does precisely nothing to enrich the user experience.

The opposite is true, if anything; rather than just having, say, one Galaxy S II that offers the "full" specification, US buyers are forced to choose between a 4", 4.3", or 4.52" screen, forced to choose whether NFC is enabled, forced to pick between three different processors, forced to switch networks if they want a hardware keyboard. To top it all off, the Galaxy S II variants weren't released in the US until September-November (depending on version), compared to a May release across most of Europe.

Likewise, there's no end-user benefit to Verizon's removal of Google Wallet. There's literally no upside to the decision for buyers of the affected devices. It's just Verizon making the platform worse because it can.

Android's hardware and software variation is taken to an extreme, and consumers lose out.

But carefully considered updates to the hardware specification, to enable faster processors and GPUs, and certain optional hardware such as NFC, would probably pose fewer problems, and give manufacturers greater room to vary their lineups. Even there, there are difficult issues; Windows Phone's fixed 800×480 screen resolution is helpful to application developers, but it's starting to compare badly with high-end Android handsets. The fixed resolution is particularly problematic on the large-screen handsets that are currently en vogue.

Even a relaxed specification isn't likely to give vendors the same kind of freedom that Android offers. Dual screens and 3D, for example, are unlikely to ever be a feature that Windows Phone supports (or at least, unlikely until such a point as every phone can be 3D). They just fragment the hardware platform and it's not clear that this kind of differentiation is actually wanted by consumers. But it might be enough to at least allow Windows Phone to appear to keep pace with Android so that people checking spec lists aren't put off by the relatively conservative hardware.

More diverse hardware is on the cards, but a leaked roadmap suggests that Microsoft is aiming low-end before it's aiming high-end. The Tango release, in the first half of next year, will enable cheaper devices so that Microsoft can push into emerging markets. It won't be until Apollo, in the second half of 2012, that "superphones"—presumably meaning high-spec handsets—will be enabled.

Success in these markets is also unlikely to shift popular perceptions of the operating system in the developed world, and as such it's unlikely to do anything good for Microsoft's share price. Microsoft needs Windows Phone to be visibly successful, which means it needs, among other things, high-end flagship handsets sooner rather than later.

Can Nokia win it?

Microsoft has been counting on Nokia to make the difference. In Europe, the Finns have been marketing the Lumia range far more vigorously than any of the other Windows Phone manufacturers, though the sales impact still remains unclear. The first Nokia Windows Phone handsets will launch in the US at the start of 2012, though little is know about what will follow on from T-Mobile's release of the low-end Lumia 710. Announcements of high-end flagship devices are conspicuous by their absence. This omission is expected to be remedied at CES in January.

With Nokia, Microsoft has a hardware vendor that's categorically on its side, and one that's willing to promote Windows Phone above all others—something that couldn't be said for Samsung, HTC, et al. The Nokia partnership goes a long way toward satisfying one of stakeholder problems that Kindel described, putting Microsoft in a position much closer to Apple.

Redmond could go further still. Instead of trying to keep a bunch of hardware companies on-side and water down its hardware requirements to allow them to differentiate, cut the hardware firms loose and make Nokia the exclusive hardware partner. Make the hardware specification broader to allow both lower- and higher- end products, but make the actual hardware selection narrower. Have no more than maybe four or five models (for example, aimed at $0, $50, $100, $150, $200 on-contract pricing, with maybe an extra model or two with a hardware keyboard), make sure the models actually get better as you pay more (rather than better in some ways, worse in others), and give them all a common branding.

This would give users more genuine, meaningful hardware variety (instead of a range of basically overlapping handsets that force unrelated features to be traded off against each other), while still keeping the range of different specifications limited and easy to manage for developers.

While such a move would be a logical way forward—Apple builds its own hardware, and Google will do so once the Motorola purchase is finalized—it's not something that can be rushed into. It will anger the current hardware partners, and Microsoft depends on some of these companies, especially Samsung, for more than just phones—they're also going to be important for selling Windows 8 tablets. Making such a decision before learning how the current Nokia partnership works out would also be rash, as it might turn out that such an extreme move is unnecessary.

If Windows 8's Metro-style interface captures consumers' hearts, it might also have something of a halo effect, stimulating interest in the Metro-style phone. The impact this has won't be apparent for a year or more, so would again tend to promote a cautious approach.

Even Nokia exclusivity and massive marketing might not be enough. Windows Phone, in spite of being a better platform than Android for most people, may never take off. Microsoft has created products that have succeeded through a combination of force of will and deep pockets—the Xbox 360 is chief among those—and it's trying to do the same with Windows Phone. Being better has never guaranteed being successful, and Windows Phone might turn out to be one of those products that just never makes it.