Also, how does webshop push you to another phone then the one you are searching for?
That's easy. The WP7 phones are presented with Silverlight.
I sold audio equipment for a couple of years and one of the first things I got to learn was to always give the customer TWO options. Unless the customer seemed unhappy with both choices, introducing a third option would only make the buying decision harder often resulting in a "need to go home and think about it"-response. This of course combined with lazy salespersons who doesn't feel they need to learn anything more than they absolutely need to close a deal.
This isn't exactly news to people in sales. Anyone trying to enter as a "third option" will have an extemely tough time trying to break through in the market, even if their product is better in many aspects.
(And as with any golden "rule of thumb" within sales, there is of course a shitload of exceptions, but I doubt the smartphone market is one of them)
I agree on this. About a year ago I quit my job to try my luck as an independent web developer. Pretty naively I assumed that all I had to do was make sure I was visible online and people would find me. Nobody did. I started browsing various sites that offered contracts on a freelance-basis but just like the original poster, I was shocked to see pretty complex projects being sold for 1/10th of what I would have offered without even trying to make a profit! Would I have made a better job than them? Probably. Did they care? No. So what to do?
After a couple of months I gave up on trying to outbid the competition and started calling some local companies. Turns out a lot of them needed help either with web related projects or IT in general, such as networking, small office servers, etc. While web development was what I was going for when I started, I've noticed I really like the variation in the tasks I'm assigned now. And I still get to do web development.
So yeah, going local is good advice.
Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. -- Mt.