frustrated over microsoft's ignorence and marginalization of other nations

here is a short rant that i have been keeping to myself, and recently seeing an application i really want to buy, i cannot take it anymore..

i am extremely dissapointed, being unable to purchase ANY apps from the market place on my wp7 in malaysia. This is something i do not understand. I can make credit card purchases online, via mastercard or visa almost everywhere.. why cant i make app purchase online just because my country is not supported? why do you need to support malaysia in the first place? Amazon does not support due to shipping reasons (amazon does not ship to malaysia), its not like microsoft is going to ship their applications to malaysia.. so what is the problem with Malaysians (and a lot other 'non-supported nations').

Best thing is, i see from tech forums around the world saying apps developers is unhappy to the low sales of their applications.. WELL, the sales could have been MUCH better if WE COULD PAY for them, rather than relying on trial versions..

first, the delays in updates. This i do not understand, because my phone is not branded, not locked.. and my network operator doesnt even test it unlike many other operators.. so the delays, are solely microsoft.. WHY THE DELAYS?! i would have received NODO update only 2 weeks ago if i didnt use the canadian gateway method to update my phone.

Now this.. I am stuck with free apps (i am lucky to be using LG, due to their large amount of free apps for LG phones) and trials. I cannot even enjoy a decent game! for example, PES, NFS.. i love those games.. and would love to buy them.. but i cant. for some reason, when trying to enter my credit card details, the billing address field for 'country' is locked to singapore!! since my card is malaysian, it is obvious why my card failed its authentication.

emails to microsoft fell on deaf ears.. even postings in their forum produced no help, except 'Microsoft's marketplace team is hard at work to bring support to more countries'.. can they be more specific? How long has wp7 been out? I personally have been using since last Christmas.. do i have to wait for the next Christmas? or the one after this?

by this Christmas, if they do not fix the marketplace app, i'll b selling off this phone.. no point in keeping it if i cant even purchase proper apps. I love this phone, but the inability to purchase apps is killing me. Android & iphones has no problems with their payment gateway.. why only microsoft? HACK, i am able to purchase windows 7 home premium online from microsoft malaysia's website.. why cant i purchase wp7 apps?

and support for customized ringtone comes in 3rd party jailbreak & hacks.. this is nonsense.. unable to play video's sound via BT headsets.. this is another major issue that should have been address in NODO.. not sure if its even IN mango update..

this is the REAL reason app developers cant get decent sales of their app.. most parts of the world cant buy their apps.. if microsoft dont solve it soon, developers might just stop developing for wp7 and concentrate on android & iphone instead.. and that will be very bad indeed..

i know some american citizens (NOT ALL, some..) think they are above the rest of the world and acting like the world police.. well, i would expect this from the politicians, but not a global corporate giant such as microsoft.. they seem to think the main buying power lies in their selected countries which is supported.. in south east asia region, they selected singapore.

I am sorry to say, microsoft, you are mistaken. you should have looked at your checkbooks and find malaysia having more than 3 times windows xp/vista/7 license sold compared to singapore..

I really do not understand, how difficult it would be to implement purchase gateways if the user is using a mastercard/visa card that is accepted worldwide?

i totally agree with you.. except for the localizing apps etc.. we see the same market place as everyone else, except we cannot pay for the app..

and best thing is, paypal is available here in malaysia too..

oh well.. will just have to wait until they sort out the mess..

i feel cheated though..