Microsoft's Belfiore Responds To OS Update Criticism

In an event at the MIX 2011 conference, Microsoft teased some of the features on the upcoming release of the Windows Phone 7 platform and tried to make amends for the problems related to the current version.

Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Windows Phone program management, spent most of the event previewing new features on the next release of the phone operating system. However, he did take time to try and apologize for some of the earlier struggles Windows Phone 7 users had when trying to update their OS.

People with Samsung phones running Windows Phone OS couldn't update back in February because of a glitch that made the phone unusable. A further update of the OS actually worsened the situation. Finally, Windows has an update that should fix the problem, but some are complaining it is taking too long. It was out of a lack of preparation, Belfiore said regarding the delay.

He said the phone makers themselves play more of a role than the PC manufacturers in the way phones are updated. He said phone makers add software to their phone, where as PC manufacturers don't add any updates to computers. One of the updates caused the phone to go back to factory mode.

We found issues with the way the update was getting deployed on phones because of things we hadn't anticipated. Phones are different in some significant ways that I think we've now got a handle on, Belfiore said.

Belfiore said they have been rolling out the update slowly because they want to get it right. He said whatever problems they may have had are now behind them.