If we can point to one thing that has held back any serious adoption of Windows Phone, it would have to be the utter lack of marketing cooperation from both the smartphone manufacturers and the carriers.

Tie that in with retail staff that are either totally ignorant about Windows Phone or intentionally steering consumers away from the phone, and you have the perfect recipe for failure as documented by Manan from the Being Manan blog.

All outlets I’ve been to in the US have steered me and my friends away from WP7. Best Buy’s Windows Phone display unit in Syracuse’s Carousel mall has no lights and the phone’s dead. The AT&T store has little to no WP7 marketing—it is depressing. Microsoft has a great product that they aren’t doing a good job of telling people and at the same time relying on people who don’t care to promote the product.

Well, it seems that Microsoft is very cognizant of these problems and finally doing something to correct them. In a recent interview, Andy Lees, president of Microsoft’s mobile business unit, has said that both Samsung and HTC have stepped up their Windows Phone marketing.

Both Samsung and HTC Corp. have committed to increasing marketing budgets for the phones, said Andy Lees, president of Microsoft’s mobile unit, in an interview. While manufacturers will determine how the money is spent, some of it will probably go toward spurring retail staff to tout Windows Phone models, he said.

via Bloomberg

Here’s hoping that both manufacturers and carriers will finally get on the Windows Phone bandwagon and start puling their weight when it comes to promoting Windows Phone and giving their customers a viable alternative.

[Cross-posted at Winextra]