Microsoft to Windows Phone owners: ‘We can’t guarantee anything’

Prior to the release of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft made a lot of noises about things like updates that sounded to many like guarantees. Noises such as Microsoft would be handling the updates and not carriers, and that users would be getting a regular drip feed of updates and improvements. How times change when a product is released.

In an attempt to offer up some degree of transparency over the update fiasco that the Redmond giant has created for itself with Windows Phone, the company posted up charts outlining when WP owners in the US and internationally would be seeing their updates. The charts are somewhat vague and while not offering a timeline measured in geological terms, it does use the phrase ’several weeks’ at one point. But still, it’s something that should give WP handset owners hope. Right?

Maybe not.

Ars Technica’s Peter Bright asked Microsoft Windows Phone support a simple question via Twitter:

“Is there any guarantee that the carriers will authorize the update before the next one is released?”

Simple question, to which Bright got a simple answer:

“We can’t guarantee anything.”

There you have it folks. Microsoft didn’t sell you the handset (someone else did), and it’s not making you any promises beyond what you’ve already got. Microsoft’s not calling the shots with either the handset partners or carriers. Microsoft made the OS, sold an OEM license to manufacturers.

In other words, you get the updates if/when you get it.

End of story.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.