Has Microsoft Burned Itself?

More and more stories are breaking out that Microsoft is not upholding their end of the bargain when it comes to its smoke your phone competition. For those that are unaware of this contest of cellular wizardry, let me break it down for you. In an effort to promote Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 (WP7) platform the Microsoft retail stores are giving individuals the chance to win a "Hunger Games PC" laptop.

The rules are you must bring in a competitors phone to match up against the WP7 to see which is faster at accessing different types of information such as the Facebook stream and local places to eat. The first device to display the data is the winner. If the individual happens to lose then the loser gets a windows phone without being locked in a contract.

This sounds like a great idea but what happens when people actually start winning and Microsoft says no prize to those that do win? Just today there was a report that an individual went into the store, took the challenge, and won, not once, not twice, but three times! Still he was told that he could not have the prize and this was not the only case that the retail store said, "no prize for you" to a winner. Take a look at the story on CNET for the whole story on this.

So the question that comes to mind is why? Is Microsoft trying to anger customers? Obviously not, and perhaps more than obvious is that they do not want to lose. By losing they lose everything, the pride of their phone's speed, a $1,000 laptop, and any good press they would have received from beating out their competition. Either way this is not a good deal for a platform that is trying to gain some traction in the cellular market. Hopefully this doesn't hurt WP7 too much.