Nathan Ingraham for The Verge:

Microsoft’s working quickly to counter backlash it’s receiving after denying a user who won a Windows Phone challenge his just reward. Yesterday, Sahas Katta won a “Smoked by Windows Phone” challenge when his Galaxy Nexus displayed the weather of two different cities faster than the Windows Phone he was up against, but the Microsoft store claimed that he had to show weather from two different states. Microsoft has been roundly bashed for this technicality since then, so Windows Phone evangelist Ben Rudolph has just taken to Twitter to apologize and offer Katta a new laptop and Windows Phone, as well as an apology.

I’m unclear why the idiots at the Microsoft Store thought they could or should have gotten away with this on a technicality; the “Smoked by a Windows Phone” campaign is there simply to draw attention to the devices to encourage people to try them. But Microsoft’s ways are often indecipherable to me, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.