Joe Belfiore, who runs the team that designs Microsoft's Windows Phone platform, shared his excitement about the Nokia Lumia 620 over the weekend by sharing a link to a review of the device. He quoted a portion of the review, and said, "I just brought one back from Espoo!"
The only problem is, he shared the link on Twitter from a device running Google's Android platform. He was betrayed by the header info that is often attached to Tweets. The backlash was pretty swift, with a lot of people accusing Joe of, well, you can imagine.
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Joe apparently thought nothing of the original Tweet and went about enjoying his weekend, unaware of the nasty comments being left him by the lovely people on Twitter. When he checked back in, he was forced to respond.
"Yikes...im off twitter for 24hrs and I miss #robotgate! I take no offense at some of the comments...surprised it surprised u so much!," he wrote. "Since u asked...ive been carrying a [Samsung] GS3 for about a month. Got to know the competition. I have a Mac & ipad too.I think u WANT me using em!"
In other words, he's doing what anyone else in the industry should be doing: using competitors' devices and operating systems to understand what they're doing and what Microsoft is up against. Was it careless of him to Tweet from a competitor's product? Probably, but it shouldn't really surprise anyone. Do you think Google's Eric Schmidt has never used a BlackBerry, or Apple's Phil Schiller has never used a Windows Phone, or BlackBerry's Thorsten Heins has never used an Android? If they haven't, they're not doing their jobs right.
"Btw, my #wp trained hands REALLY MISS the wordflow kbd when im on gs3," continued Joe. "Wheres all the corrections!? I should tweet and leave the b's in. :) Oh.. and I usuallybstill have a wp in the other pocket. :)"
For the record, I regularly (as in every single day) use smartphones and tablets running Android, iOS, Windows Phone and now BlackBerry 10.
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