Microsoft's #DroidRage Twitter campaign backfires, leads to #WindowsRage

Microsoft Windows Phone team kicked off a #DroidRage campaign on Twitter earlier this week encouraging users to share their stories related to malware on their Android smartphones. In return, Microsoft promised "get-well presents" to the best/ worst stories.

"Do you have an Android malware horror story? Reply with #DroidRage with your best/worst story and we may have a get-well present for you."
-- Windows Phone (@windowsphone) December 5, 2012

While the campaign received some genuine responses, it wasn't long before it backfired on Microsoft, as people started sharing their horror stories related to Windows Phone, tagging them with #WindowsRage. Here are a couple:

"I once thought about writing malware for a @windowsphone but then I thought, aren't they suffering enough? #DroidRage #WindowsRage"
-- Mohammad Tarakiyee (@Tarakiyee) December 5, 2012

"You'll never get Malware from our Windows Store. You'll never find any third-party support either! #WindowsRage"
-- Ollie Reardon (@ojdon) December 6, 2012

This is not the first time Microsoft has targeted Google, though this is likely the first time things have gone wrong so spectacularly for Redmond. Microsoft held the #DroidRage campaign last year as well, with not-so-embarrassing results.

More recently, Microsoft attacked Google in a series of TV ads, describing the dominant search engine as a lousy holiday shopping guide in its latest attempt to divert more traffic to its Bing search engine. To punctuate its point, Microsoft warned consumers that they risk getting "scroogled" if they rely on Google's shopping search service.

Earlier, Microsoft launched a campaign called "Bing It On", trying to show web users the quality of its Bing search engine is better than Google's. The software company unveiled the site "bingiton.com" where users input five search queries and the unbranded search results of Bing and Google were shown in two columns. For each query, users were asked to choose a winner (or a draw) and the test showed which search engine come on top in the end.

 

Report : Microsoft Working on Apollo Plus Update for Windows Phone 8, Coming Early 2013

There’s no mistaking the fact that, despite Windows Phone 8′s extensive feature set and countless improvements over its predecessor, there were a few notable omissions in the final Windows product.

Microsoft admitted that it ran out of time to bring a new notification centre to the OS, and basic enterprise features like VPN support were also omitted at launch.

To that end, the company plans to introduce a software update for Windows Phone 8, currently dubbed “Apollo+”, early next year, likely during Mobile World Congress in February.

Also expected to make an appearance in the update, which may be the first to use Microsoft’s new over-the-air infrastructure, will be fixes for WiFi disconnecting when the screen is turned off, corrections for audio glitches, and the possibility of notification improvements.

Last but not least, it’s said that Microsoft plans to test the ability to receive Windows Phone 8 updates via OTA (over the air), but it’s not yet decided whether this change will be introduced with Apollo Plus update.