Microsoft smoked in Microsoft ‘Smoked by Windows Phone’ contest

Remember “Show us your Wow”? Remember “It’s time for a phone to save us from our phones“? Remember the Bill Gates butt wiggle?

All of these marketing gimmicks were foisted upon the world by the geniuses at 1 Microsoft Way. By “geniuses” I mean able to walk and chew gum at the same time, depending on the flavor of the gum, but I’d recommend giving them a wide berth just in case they’re carrying something sharp.

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Well, they’ve done it again. Microsoft’s latest brilliant idea is the “Smoked by Windows Phone” contest, which launched last Thursday and runs for one week. It’s yet another attempt to say, “Our smartphones are faster at doing basic stuff than your iPhone 4x/Android ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’/whatever, even if we control only 0.0327 percent of the market.”

To prove it, they set up five challenges. Per Microsoft:

The object of this Contest is for You to come into the Microsoft Store and try to beat the Microsoft Windows Phone in a series of five (5) “Smoked by Windows Phone” challenge scenarios selected by Microsoft at its sole discretion including: (1) Pocket-to-Picture-to-Post, (2) Real-Time Information with Live Tiles, (3) Using the People Hub to Stay in Touch with the People You Care About Most, (4) Updating Your Status Across Multiple Social Networks, and (5) Local Scout (“Challenge”).

Winners get to walk away with a free HP “Hunger Games” laptop worth more than $1,000. Losers get to trade in their existing smartphone for a new Windows model, then go home and ponder what kind of pathetic dweeb would consider entering this contest in the first place.

However, it didn’t take long for Microsoft itself to get smoked. As SlashGears’ Chris Davies reports, yesterday blogger Sahas Katta visited a Microsoft store in Santa Clara, got in line, and took challenge no. 2: displaying real-time information (in this case, bringing up the weather forecast for two different cities) on his Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Unbeknownst to the poor Microsoft Store employee, Katta already had two weather widgets on his home screen, and he had disabled the Galaxy Nexus lock screen. He writes:

After a three-second count down, I hit the power button on my phone and said, “DONE!” out loud. … I didn’t even need to touch the screen, since the two weather widgets were already there.

My opponent finished a split-second later. She had two live tiles on her home screen displaying the weather of two different cities as well. Why does it take longer on Windows Phone? She had to perform two actions. First, she hit the power button to turn on the screen. Second, she had to swipe away the lock screen.

Katta snagged himself a brand-new HP laptop, right? Wrong. The Microsoft Store employees told him he hadn’t won. Why?

… another Microsoft Store employee (possibly a manager) came by … [and] quickly gave a ridiculous out-of-thin-air reason that I need to display the weather of different cities in different states and that “my phone could not do that.”

To be fair, Katta gamed the rules a bit. But to be equally fair, Microsoft clearly didn’t put a whole lot of thought into the rules of said contest and how one might easily skirt them.

Microsoft also saw how this result was playing out on the InterWebs and quickly resolved the issue by awarding Katta a new laptop and a new smartphone. That was a smart move. The whole “smoked” contest? Not so much.

Granted, I have had nothing but love notes and daffodils for Windows Phone 7 since I started using one — so much so that even I am starting to worry about my own mental state. It really is fast; I can get a weather report on my phone in about 1.5 seconds, if I want one.

But most people don’t stand there holding stopwatches next to their smartphones. They aren’t carrying around an iPhone or a Nexus because they’re 22 percent faster at posting social media status updates or finding the nearest churros stand. They’re not plugging test results into spreadsheets and making some kind of analytically driven decision about what to carry in their pockets. They’re carrying around an iPhone or a Nexus because those things are cool and Windows Phones aren’t.

Windows Phones aren’t cool because they’re designed by Microsoft: the company that brought you 347 failed marketing campaigns before this one, the company that thought it could make Bill Gates seem hip by pairing him with Jerry Seinfeld. Microsoft’s problem isn’t WinPho or the iPhone’s iOS or Android. Microsoft’s problem is Microsoft. And no multi-million-dollar marketing campaign or silly in-store promotion can change that.

Are you planning to take the WinPho challenge? Post the results below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “Microsoft smoked in Microsoft ‘Smoked by Windows Phone’ contest,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.