Dilbert creator, Scott Adams and CNET’s Molly Wood accepts challenge: Try Windows Phone, if unhappy – $1000 to charity.

for Cod3rror

A few days ago, Brandon Watson, Director at Windows Phone responsible for its development, left a comment at Scott Adams’ (creator of Dilbert) blog where Scott was complaining about the new fangled smartphones that isn’t helping him get things done. Core things, make a phone call, let you write on it properly, send out a text message, have a browser  that wont spaz and possibly a decent battery life. After trying out all platforms (except Symbian lol) Scott was left simply frustrated.

In comes Brandon Watson with a challenge. Try Windows Phone. He’ll provide on of the Mango handsets reserved for developers for Scott to play with. If he’s not happy with it, Brandon will give $1000 to charity (incentive there already not to). Androids dreaming of iSheep hahaha.

“Scott – My name is Brandon Watson and I am responsible for the developer platform on Windows Phone. Since your readership has a high probability of cross over with our developer base, how about I make you a deal with one of the phones we reserve for developers.

Take Windows Phone for a spin. I’ll send you a developer phone with the new Mango OS on it. Give it an honest run, and if you don’t love it more than either of your iPhone or Android experiences, I’ll make a $1000 donation to the charity of your choice. You can’t really lose on this deal.

Do we have 500K apps? No. Do we have 25K, growing as fast as iPhone did, and 2x as fast as Android? Yes. Do developers love the dev environment? Uh huh. Do we have the only phone that puts people and communications first? You bet.

If Androids dream of electronic iSheep, people dream about people – and that’s what you will get with Windows Phone. Keep in constant contact with those most important to you with Live Tiles, groups, messaging threads, and native Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. And no special instructions on how to hold the phone to make calls. Oh, and the battery lasts a long time. I can be reached at ThePhone [at] microsoft. You can call me if you want – 425-985-5568. Windows Phone devs will tell you that’s the right contact info, because it’s shared with every one of them. I hope you take me up on this one…there’s no reason to hate your phone.”

Response? Game on. http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/windows_phone_challenge/

Scott warns that he makes his living criticizing things (in a witty matter), but says Windows Phone just has to “make phone calls, handle email, have battery life that lasts half a day, do a little web browsing without locking up and it will win.”

You can watch animated dilbert episodes on YouTube (season one airing all the way back in 1999 :o): http://www.youtube.com/show?p=SykhnvSXWB8&tracker=show_av

MollyWood – video host at CNET was also given the same challenge and accepted.

This challenge is open to other ‘Android-Celebs’ unhappy with their devices. “We got @mollywood & Dilbert accepted too! #wp7dev coming soon to an unhappy Android-user internet celebrity near you. Anyone other takers?” tweets @BrandonWatson.

If you want a FREE windows phone, Brandon says you can get one too – if you’re a developer, contact @benlower if you’re willing to make apps. If not, you may be able to o other things. Brandon said:

“@MissDestructo @NikitaP My phones are for developers – are you building apps? If not, what are you willing to do for a Windows Phone? :)”

Cheers for the tip, Matt.

Category: Windows Phone