Availability Matrix Shows Limits of the Microsoft Media Ecosystem

As a french wp7 user I am used to feel frustrated (if not something else) when I read articles about features I will never see here.
WP7 stands for "wait permit" on this side of the Atlantic.
France has always be a strategic country for MS business products, but MS does not seem to take care about french BYOD money. Qu'à cela ne tienne, nous irons voir ailleurs.

If you really want to feel left out in Australia, you should try Amazon.

I have a kindle and I can buy books for it online. I have Amazon cloudplayer, but it is only available on my PC's. I have an iphone 4 (Lumia 920 preordered) and I can't have a cloudplayer app for it, let alone for a Windows phone.

I also can't have a Kindle fire, and often I can't have audible books once I log in, because they are only available in the US.

Apple are pretty good, but I have to then put up with their inability to write any software that a thinking person could stand using.

All things considered I don't think Microsoft are that bad for us "second class" citizens of the world ... shame about 3rd class !

Thanks to Andrew for the updated matrices. Frustrating reading.

Thanks Paul for highlighting this issue, which has been going on forever.

As much as I would prefer to stick with Windows and Windows based devices the lack of focus on international customers effectively forces me towards the closed and expensive ecosystem of Apple.

I have many grievances with Apple but I can't complain about their focus on non-US customers.

I just don't understand how Microsoft can overlook the impact of appropriately supporting international customers and then be surprised with the lack of support. I am so heavily into the Apple ecosystem now that it would be hard for me to make the move even if Microsoft gets their act together.

I have no facts to back this up, but I think that in Sweden iPhone has a higher market share than globally. I so want WP8 and W8 to be successful, but I understand why people frown. There are a lot of functionality that you cannot use. Why launch something that is kept for the majority of users? I have no idea. I don't think that the general populace in Sweden who are interested in phones have a clue what WP is. I have not seen one piece of advertisement for either W8 or WP. It's like it's not there. Apple bombards us with ads and in all ads for mobiles, the iPhone is displayed as if it is the natural first choice for everyone. MSFT has no clue how this is ruining their business outside of US. I have always been a Media Center fan, but half of the stuff in MC is not available to us. Sucks big time.

I don't know how they get away with this in the EU. The EU treaties that established the single market are supposed to provide citizens in all member states with the same (or very similar) access to goods and services at similar prices. How people in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK can be second class citizens while those of us in the rest of the EU member states are basically ignored is a mystery to me. Maybe MS just likes providing the European Commission with reasons to start proceedings against them?

As a citizen of a 3rd class country (Romania), I've had to be pretty creative about getting my Microsoft stuff to work. My primary Microsoft account is a US one and until Paypal came along I used to buy stuff on XBox using MS Points card codes bought off eBay...then the wise minds at Windows Phone decided that both these methods were too easy and abolished them, leaving only a US-address CC as a working means of payment. However, upon heavy research before buying a Windows Phone, I discovered that there is a loophole to the CC madness: if you have an AMEX card issued in your country, they only check your zip code, not the full address! And thankfully, most banks seem to be pretty uninterested in you providing a valid zipcode, so I actually found a Romanian one that exists in the US as well...thus, I am now in MS's view a citizen of the only 1st world country :D

I am from South Africa the biggest economy in Africa by far. Microsoft is big in South Africa but the services you get from Microsoft is way behind Google and Apple. Music, movies on the Xbox is not existent, BING services = 0. I just think for Microsoft to compete in the consumer market they will need to provide more services to consumers in so called 2nd and 3rd countries. Take the Surface release only in the US, how can they compete with Google (android) and Apple who sells tablets and phones worldwide?? I am a keen Microsoft follower, got the new Nokia Lumia 920 which is great but we lack the full power of Microsoft services worldwide.

Am not the least bit surprised. They have done such a poor job of rolling out Bing services to other countries, I had zero expectations of them in something which involves the media companies.
Though Google is in the same ditch with its play store availability (beyond apps) in India, at least their online services are top notch and customized for the local market.

I'm not that upset at Microsoft because of the lack of content in my country because I now that the main culprit are the content owners, Hollywood and music labels that strangle the digital rights across the worlds. Sure Microsoft can work harder like Apple and make more content deals but I would prefer that the way content is licensed across the world simply changed for the better.

Now a very legit complaint is to call an complete idiots to the team that manages the podcasts content on WP, because podcasts are not restricted they have an worldwide audience and Microsoft can offer the content worldwide whiteout any problem, and the idiot in charge of that doesn't understand and has closed view of the market.

Dealing with international media content is a nightmare, and it's due to nationalistic laws.

This is generally how it works:

A media creator creates a piece of work. They may publish in their homeland easily. Maybe they already have a publisher, or maybe they're owned by a publisher. In any case, there aren't many laws that restrict home-grown media publishing. When that same media creator wants to publish in foreign territory, if the publisher doesn't already have a presence there, then it gets difficult. First off, the publisher could pay a lot of money to open up business there, but that doesn't always happen. National laws can prevent competition from outside bodies if there is already a publishing market there, so often the media creator will go to publisher that already exists there. Here's where it gets bad: almost every publisher will require exclusive distribution rights within that foreign territory to prevent competition from both, other publishers, as well as to always make a profit from related sales, advertising, or whathaveyou. This means that the media creator loses all control of publishing within that foreign territory. They aren't allowed to, say, take their work to a company for web publishing, because that would compete against the contract with the original publisher, even if it's in a different media (this is especially true with TV and web publishing, where web video watching is eroding conventional TV). Now, the publisher has control. If the publisher wants to limit how they publish the work, that's their prerogative, but the content creator can't often change that, even if their fans demand it. They have to come to an agreement with the publisher on how the work is published, but once the content is bought up by the publisher, the content creator loses a lot of control. What's worse is that the publisher basically owns that content in that territory, so more often than not, the creator themselves can't self-republish - even in another form - because exclusivity agreements usually include non-compete paragraphs. Some content creators are now just looking at self-publishing outright to alleviate these issues. Others are looking at more of a usage license scenario with publishers rather than selling off their rights with the work.

Now, in regards to the topic at hand, Microsoft and Apple both have to do a lot of leg work to get content from territories where it didn't originate from. Let's use a real world example: FOX TV makes the show American Idol (just an example - but everybody should know this). FOX publishes the show themselves in the US. FOX only really has a presence in the US, but they don't have their own TV channel in Canada. They don't want to get into the legal issues with having to open a TV channel in Canada. One of the requirements of TV channels in Canada is that they have to have a certain percentage of Canadian content (I forget what the percentage is, as it changes frequently). FOX would rather just sell the show to a Canadian TV network, and they do: to CTV. CTV buys it up with certain rights, one of which is exclusive broadcast rights in Canada, so that other Canadian networks can't broadcast it. Here's where it gets interesting too: Canadian TV providers (cable and satellite co's) buy up programming from the networks, but because CTV has the exclusive broadcast rights, most providers will just broadcast the Canadian channel - even if a customer tunes in to the US channel on their set-top box. All of the major Canadian networks are owned by the providers, so this maximises their ad revenues. CTV basically owns American Idol in Canada at this point, and they can pretty much do whatever they want with it. If they want to publish the web they can, but they don't have to, but if they don't, still nobody else can either - UNLESS they pay CTV (not FOX) for American Idol for web publishing rights or online streaming. This is what Microsoft and Apple et al have to contend with. They can get the program from the US easily, but they have to re-buy it from the rights holder outside of the US too, and that rights holder can charge whatever they like, because the value they place on the TV show is based on the ad revenue that they would normally collect on it if they were broadcasting it themselves (+ whatever markup they want to make on top).

Media creators need to know their rights when signing with any publisher in any given market. Internet publishing makes it difficult because it can cross international borders, and using regional restrictions (like not being able to watch American Idol on the FOX webpage outside of the US) just pisses off your fans. Self-publishing doesn't often get you the coverage that you'd get with a good publisher, so it's difficult to find the right option. Before you sign a publishers contract, make sure to request certain republishing rights, should you want them.

@ op:go closer!try Bing USA ,then try Bing Canada !ya lot of uber is missing in Canadian version!imagine the operating system lol!

So it sounds like it's safe to say that Microsoft haven't learned a hell of a lot since releasing the Zune hardware. Now there was a solid device with decent on-board software and services.. probably one of the few devices that had any remote chance of going head to head with the Apple iPod back when it was released. Yet for some ridiculous reason, MS only sold it to one market. People worldwide were begging for it for years, to the point of getting them grey imported, yet no one at Microsoft saw the value/ business case for global sales and distribution. Now that Apple have effectively eradicated all competition in the music player market, MS want to give it another crack - yet still with this and with other services like Bing and Xbox, they clearly haven't remembered their mistake from last time. The comments here and the table in the article highlight how little support is offered to anyone outside of the USA. This siloed country approach will be their undoing.

Aren't the governments totally an accomplice when it comes to international availability? =/

I would think there are all these hoops that MS gotta jump through just to have stuff approved...