I got my new works phone today. It's a HTC 8X windows 8 phone. I have to say on initial 'first half hour' terms I'm quite impressed. The hardware is very nice and the camera is decent. Windows 8 phone operates very smoothly and you can get rid of all the HTC/service provider junk off the start screen easily enough. Setting up my Exchange account was more of a faff than necessary (it see ed to try to use my work email address as an outlook live login rather than doing proper autodetect on it) and the way to jump between folders in your email account is a bit fiddly but for keeping up to speed with stuff in your inbox it's fine.

Haven't loaded any media onto it yet nor really played with the app store much. So far I'd say the foundations seem solid, let's see what kind of building we can put up on top of it.

Actually, that would be Windows Phone 8 </geek-voice>

WP8 is very underrated. I find it much better than iOS and almost on a par with Android. If our support could sort themselves out and configure our Exchange Server correctly, I'd use WP8 instead of Android. But they can't and WP refuses to talk to it, as the certificate is insecure.

From what I have seen of the Windows Phone it is a good design and different from what else is out there, so no copyright battles. Though for most people who do not have a mail server how easy is it to configure to your home email. That is what will sell it to the masses. The lack of apps might be a problem but that should be resolved over time. As long as Microsoft is clear in that they will support it then it should not be a problem.

For Hotmail it's dead easy, in fact it kind of assumes you want to do that. For Gmail... not so much. I think you'd have to use IMAP if you wanted to use the inbuilt mail app. I haven't checked if there's a Gmail app in the app store.

When you say "appstore", do you mean your corporate one or the windows one that anybody can use?

No, we haven't got a corp one, so it's just the standard windows phone app store.

I've been playing around with it today and I'm still rather impressed with it. It doesn't have quite the polish of iOS (there are still more times when I think 'OK how do I do this..') but it's generally on a par with iOS 6 and Android 4.1 IMO. It just needs to catch up with depth in the app store and it needs to get some of the 'most usefuls' in there e.g. there's no iPlayer app yet for example.

Would I recommend it to someone.... probably not. yet. Would I try and dissuade someone who told me they were buying it? Not at all.

I don't think Windows Phone 8's lack of success is due to it being a bad design, but because of the human condition. People are naturally conservative. Many like to stick with what they know and like rather than risk trying something new. When smartphones came out, you had to try something new. But now people have gotten used to Android and iOS. MS simply missed the boat. It';s only the tech savvy that are really going to try it.
I think I'm guilty of that myself. When I got a new phone last month, I didn't even consider a Windows 8 phone. I just went straight for Android as that's what I've been using for the last three years, and I like it.
I actually hope Windows Phone does succeed. Competition and choice are always good things.

With regards to setting up email. I've found that the problems are with my ISP rather than with the phones. They require different settings if you're not connecting from their network, and the settings they give on their website don't seem to work for my phone or laptop.

Smart phones have been around for more than a decade, they were not that smart though. The arrival of the iPhone was only five years ago and that changed everything. Android was playing catchup until recently, yet only started to overtake iPhone this last year or so. So the Windows phone has to be supported for a good few years, though gradually likewise hope it succeeds. Though I suspect that Apple will dominate the profits for a good few years yet.

Lest we forget, Windows for Mobiles has been around in one form or other since about 1995. "Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphone" came out in, err, about 2003.

However, only a few geeks and business men used them. The iPhone popularised smart phones to the masses partly by being a lot more practical, but largely through clever advertising. They'd actually been around for a long time already.

So how do you protect your corporate data on that phone if you are allowed to download any app you want?

Define 'protect' and define 'corporate data'.

I see Foxtons have rolled out over 900 Nokia Lumia 820 WP8 phones to their staff.

I see a lot of people using it as their first smartphone. I think, as L3v1ck says, it is a bit of a jarring change for those that are already used to iOS or Android. That said, I've used all 3 and I prefer WP, if only our mail server was properly configured!

Considering the variety of topics you have an opinion and comment on one would think you know everything about everything so I don't understand what you are playing at here.

But ok, let me re-phrase:
What safeguards are in place so your latest Fart app doesn't upload your company's data to servers in China?

Answer on the post card pls.

I don't really feel the need to answer a question phrased in such a way, to be honest with you.

I would say that the iPhone succeeded because of the ease of using apps and the safe way to buy them. I did not know how to buy them for my Sony. The marketing was beneficial but not the killer feature. The iPhone had plenty of apps to start with but developers were able to sell easily via the app store without having to worry about that aspect.