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Microsoft Exec Responds To the Google-Motorola Deal
adeelarshad82 writes "In a statement released yesterday, Microsoft's Windows Phone Division President Andy Lees said 'Investing in a broad and truly open mobile ecosystem is important for the industry and consumers alike, and Windows Phone is now the only platform that does so with equal opportunity for all partners.' What's interesting is that even though some analysts are actually expecting OEMs to switch their focus to Windows Phone 7, past sales figures (especially for Samsung) show that the decision to do so might not come easily."
I mean, android is what 47% of smartphones, and Microsoft Windows 7 around 2%.
Keep on wishing bitches!
Nothing Microsoft says about fair competition, "open ecosystems" or the like can be taken serious. That name is forever stained. I sincerely hope that company and the tragic people who work for them rot in hell. Those greedy assholes have made my life much worse than it could have been.
And Microsoft is lecturing the tech world about being open and free with software. I'm pretty sure that's one of the signs of apocalypse.
So when Microsoft says this:
Windows Phone is now the only platform that does so with equal opportunity for all partners.'
Does that mean that everyone gets billions of dollars from MS?
http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/04/21/nokia-and-microsoft-deal-official-definitive-agreement-signed/
As a result of the deal, Nokia will pay Microsoft royalties for the Windows Phone platform, starting only when the Finnish company launches its first Windows Phone devices. Microsoft has also agreed to make payments to Nokia “measured in the billions of dollars” for services but also intellectual property royalties.
Or are we supposed to believe that MS would have paid for Nokia's IP even if Nokia hadn't switched to Windows Phone?
Funny how MS always puts an openness spin on all their activities.
I love how it's assumed that somehow the acquisition of Moto will make Android less open to the Android alliance members... I guess that's the normal tactic. Spread FUD.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
2012 is gonna be the Year of the Microsoft Smartphone.
Given how in bed MS and nokia are, I can't see the 3rd party manufacturers all that happy. This now means that the lead, and pure platform for Android will probably be a motorolo product, and google didn't just spend 12 billion dollars to only make prototypes. The Nexus one, nexus S and presumably now Nexus M will follow with the Nexus M2 or whatever.
The MS nokia hookup is equally troublesome. Not that MS can't afford to lose what it has put into Nokia, but as Nokia continues to falter until there's a big new WP7 push it may fall to MS to open the wallet and keep them afloat. That puts other manufacturers in a bind. They don't want to put out something NokiaSoft* is going to obsolete in a heartbeat, and they don't want to find that Nokia sinks and MS abandons the WP7 platform.
*I'm referring to the sub $1000 phone market. The > $1000/phone market is a whole other ball game. I doubt anyone else is going to jump headlong into the 20k/unit smartphone market the way nokia had been, but who knows.
Once they ran Palm into the dirt, they basically ignored Windows Mobile developers. Now that new competitors have arisen, they act like they care about the mobile segment. You can't poop on developers and expect them to put any faith in your platform again.
That and Windows Mobile sucks as a mobile or embedded platform. My cable box is WM based and it sucks too!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
M$ is simply waiting for Nokia to tank further. When the price is right they to will own a phone maker.
Wasn't part of the Nokia/MS announcement that Nokia would be the only OEM allowed to change the WinPhone UI in any significant way? Hardly equal is it. I can't see partners jumping ship, and if they do certainly not to WinPhone.
Let compare:
Android - free, dominant market position, highly customisable, allowing own branding or even own UI (like Sense)
WinPhone - non-free, next to zero market penetration, no customisation allowed, and MS have had epic fail after epic fail in the mobile space
From what I've heard Mango is a great OS, but as an OEM would you want to pay for it, knowing it has next to no market presence and is from a company that had failed to gain significant market presence with any mobile product it has ever produced, and who will almost certainly give Nokia preferential treatment to you, and might revisit the Kin strategy at a later date, putting you in a worse situation than you are now with Google.
By " Windows Phone is now the only platform that does so with equal opportunity for all partners." he means "Well, except for Nokia, who is our pet OEM, with whom we have a cozy special alliance..."
Obviously, the biggest potential downside of the Google/Motorola acquisition is the effect on other current Android device producers, so MS can reasonably be expected to say something like that; but come on. It was not so very long ago that Microsoft and Nokia were shamelessly leveraging one another's dynamic synergies, right there in public, and now they want us to believe that Windows Phone is all equal opportunity for everyone and fuzzy kittens?
Can Microsoft really say they provide a truly open mobile ecosystem? There are a lot of closed doors in the WP7 platform, starting with its source code NOT being available, which is all that's really open about Android.
Did I wake up in an alternate universe this morning? The Windows Phone 7 platform is not only closed source but also a walled garden just like iOS and others. I knew I shouldn't accepted that drink from that gray goblin last night. Everyone knows you can only trust green goblins.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That's not true.
Google is firmly committed to a vendor neutral policy with Android and the Motorola Mobility subsidiary will be firewalled off from Google and independently managed to ensure that stays true.
In fact, Google would be happy to see their own investments obliterated by their handset competitors... eh, I mean partners... and their own handset division becoming a bottomless cash sink, as long as it helps advance the Android platform.
So, Microsoft really needs to stop with the FUD and accept that Google really is an altruistic and idealistic organization that truly cares only about making life better for everyone.
Straight from their own mouth
* Nokia will help drive and define the future of Windows Phone.
* Nokia and Microsoft will closely collaborate on development, joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap
They are both in bed with a hardware manufacturer now, have both claimed it won't affect other licenses of the OS, and both have something to loose if they alienate the other OEMs.
Nice try, and I suppose they had to, but there are two premier platforms in the mobile world in iOS and Android and one is demonstrably closed and the other mostly open and free for manufacturers to put on their devices despite the Motorola takeover which I suspect has more to do with other reasons than Google wanting to make phones. Two platforms are more than enough, and there were even question marks for a while as to whether Android would gain traction and have the developer base of iOS. I just don't see what Windows brings. It's neither one thing nor the other.
"Windows Phone is now the only platform that does so with equal opportunity for all partners."
*cough*Nokia*cough*
No matter what happens, Windows mobile still and always will suck. That is until phones and pcs start to share an architecture and Microsoft bases its mobile platform off its desktop. In which Windows mobile would win be default do to the large amount of applications and development support.
Poor Nokia suffered the Osborne Effect, whereby sales of current available products plummet after the announcement of un-available 'future' products.
Things have changed a lot! In my little world, Microsoft is of no consequence, and that's a good thing. I will not touch Microsoft products (including NOKIA), as a matter of principal.
So I can root and build my windows phone without all the cruft I don't want?
yep, LOL is appropriate for this.
wp7 is open equally to everyone - that is it's equally closed to everyone not picked by random chance of circumstances. it's miles more closed than windows ce. and don't get me started on 3rd party devs- basically for symbian, android and even palms there were(are) 3rd party products which simply will not be possible on wp without getting first party involved if you were to port them over to windows phone. and that's not open, that's opposite of open. and open platform is where you can just go ahead and change/hack whatever you want to achieve some new functionality - not so on wp.
just the minimum hw requirements on wp7 say that it's not open - if it were, there wouldn't be those restrictions(which are bendable of course, if you somehow manage to manage the ms managers to allow it).
which 3rd parties are then happy about this new development? well those which manage to bag coding deals to clone more features into wp, as they get to bill MS for them dearly and that group of companies is a very limited party(too bad temptation of VM only 3rd party apps was so big when they lined up the current windows phone - sure, the windows mobile wince phones sucked, but they had ample possibilities for 3rd party developers besides coding solitaire and minesweeper for the 45th time).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Has any phone ever cost more than $1000? I've always seen the really top end hardware debut around $700 but rapidly fall to $500.
M$ hasn't always treated their strategic partners very well. Palm, SGI, etc. M$ might well end up ultimately strangling Nokia, even if Nokia gets paid for distributing WP7, hosing any other WP7 distributor. M$ can definitely screw everyone.
Only Windows Phone 7 has the kind of Quality, Stability, Security, Reliability and Robustness that you have come to expect from the Microsoft name.
(I'll pause for a moment so you can stop laughing.)
Remember Windows Mobile?
Sidekick / Danger?
Windows Kin Phone?
Remember Microsoft and Sendo? (You can google for it. I said google, not bing.)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
No matter what Microsoft says, it is obvious why Google bought Motorola.
Patents.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
For the fair and even handed way it treats third parties with which it supplies its crufty "solutions" and the people who have the misfortune to purchase the resulting products.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Considering MS is second only to Apple in outright denials of things they're actively pursuing and ready to pull the trigger on, how long until Microsoft just outright buys Nokia?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
This type of "analysis" is what you expect from Gardiner. It's nonsense. You're bang on. The fact of the matter is that there's consumer demand for Android, and there isn't for Windows Phone.
The handset makers will go where the sales are and expecting them to pay Microsoft for a platform that people don't want over a free one that people do want is lunacy. It's not happening. This only changes if Microsoft can drum up some demand for WP7 hardware. Maybe Nokia can do that.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Prostitutes is closer to the mark. The referenced article contains this doozy:
"How would they know for sure that they're getting all the same OS updates as quickly as Motorola?"
Could the same FUD not be directed at the MS/Nokia love-in?
The sad part is that Motorola Mobile should now be on death watch.
The most popular rap artist is white. The tallest man in the NBA is Chinese. Microsoft is lecturing people on fairness.
I believe I know why it is so hot in Texas. I'll know for sure if Perry and Buchanan win.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I think its right to raise concerns about what happens to Android but it's laughable for any analyst to pretend Microsoft is any better.
Actually, Meego is arguably the only "neutral" mobile OS these days, since Nokia dropped it there's only really Intel pushing it, and they don't make phones.
Windows may or may not have a special deal with Nokia...
Also, Google haven't even completed the purchase of Motorola yet, and who's to tell what their strategy will be once they have?
They might have bought Motorola purely for the patents, and shut down their (unprofitable) phone design and manufacture business, which would actually benefit rather than harm the other Android OEMs.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Coiffin, meet nail. He just blew the m$ mobile plan B: extortion through litigation, since plan A - a quality mobile OS - is clearly dead in the water.
Which is a pretty reasonable assumption, since it is the Open Handset Alliance -- not Google -- that actually owns Android. When Google bought Android, they only held on to it until the OHA was formed, at which point it was transferred to the OHA.
I'm pretty sure the OHA would have to know of anything that transferred ownership of Android back to Google from the OHA.
Windows Phone is now the only platform that does so with equal opportunity for all partners - of microsoft
-> until microsoft tries to screw its partners over, that is.
Read radical news here
.. who just hired Cyanogen is sooo going to look at going the WM7 focus.....
And it's only in the US.
Worldwide it's much grimmer for MS, but in the US it's pretty bad.
I'm sure that he meant open surface
Google+ is half way sticking it to Facebook and its partnership with MS for $200M investment. With 17K patents and 7.5+ more to come, Google can easily stick it to MS.
Has any phone ever cost more than $1000? I've always seen the really top end hardware debut around $700 but rapidly fall to $500.
There are various "luxury" manufacturers, like a Nokia subsidiary called Vertu, who will happily sell you a phone for £8600. If Wikipedia is to be believed, it runs the might power of Symbian, that most prestigious, high end powerhorse of phone OSs (well, actually EPOC32 was nice back in the day...).
There seem to be a few more specialised "luxury" companies, like Goldvish and Mobiado, as well as ones branded as Dior, Tag Heuer etc. They all seem to be what would be considered feature phones (or perhaps low end smartphones in some cases) in stupidly expensive cases. But it's hard to tell, as the actual phone software and specs doesn't seem to be the main focus with these phones for some reason...
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
Microsoft developed this wonderful, vendor-independent system for supporting DRM of audio files in Windows, and many manufacturers adopted it in their mp3 player hardware and their on-line stores. What happened next?
The Zune. Which introduced an entirely new and incompatible system, and, oh, by the way, Microsoft at the same time largely ended support for "PlaysForSure". How convenient. While Microsoft may not have done something similar *yet* for Windows Phone 7 (give them time with Nokia), it's a little rich for Microsoft to suggest Google is eventually going to do the same thing that Microsoft already did for music players.
It's an odd market. Hence the caveat.
Rich guy phones seem to have things like multi-sim options, world phones, maybe even satellite, tracking etc. And the expensive part is the special call centre which will find you the nearest 5 star anything and a chauffeur so you don't have to risk being exposed to people who make less than 500k/year.
This reminds me of the craziest idea Ballmer has ever heard
Seriously, who cares what anyone at Microsoft has to say about anything in the mobile world? They entered last, they're running dead last, and offer nothing new at all to the entirety of the mobile industry. In other words, they are far from being experts on anything in the mobile field, and should not be sought for comments on it.
How about you offer equal opportunity for all developers instead of giving your rich game companies special priviledges and treating indie devs like third class citizens in the marketplace.
Good luck getting devs to create more apps for your phone when they can't sell what they've created.
Windows Phone 7 wasn't the first release of Microsoft's smartphone OS. Yeah, WP7 is newer than the iPhone, but the first smartphone-specific WinCE-based OS was Windows Smartphone 2002, which was 5 years before the iPhone. Now, Windows Smartphone 200x and Windows Mobile (after the PocketPC and Smartphone lines got a common branding) never were as popular as iPhone/iOS devices became as soon as the latter were available, but it has got nothing to do with "first mover" advantage, it has to do with customer perception of value, which Apple managed to generate where Microsoft hadn't (and still, for the most part, hasn't.)
That would explain a slowly degrading Android marketshare driven by upgrades with new users not particularly attracted to Android, it doesn't explain the reality of Android, and to a lesser extent iOS, continuing to have growing smartphone marketshare while RIM, Microsoft, and Symbian continue to lose ground. Those trends are explained by Android and iOS continuing to lead in the battle for customer-perceived value, not merely hanging on to users they already have because it is a pain to leave.
In the bad old days of computing you needed to put code into escrow if you lic'd it to insure that you had access to it in the event of a bankruptcy or the company just closing down, etc. With commercial products that also release to an open source project like Android there isn't as great a need, perhaps no need.
I think the bottom line here is that in the short, med and prob. long term it's not in Google's interests to play favorites and if they do Samsung and HTC (among others) have the resources to Fork Android continue on that path free from Google. They can do this at any time.. and I think that puts reasonable pressure on Google to behave
In terms of MSFT and Mango and future releases one has to not only consider the quality of the OS but also the cost of any licensing fees as well as it's popularity in the market place, it's performance, etc. Then even if MS doesn't buy Nokia there is certainly a tight relationship there and MSFT can certainly play favorites perhaps more easily than Google can.
http://www.hawknest.com/
I don't want my phone to be like Windows 7. As silly as it may sound that's the subconscious association people will make, so I say to Microsoft: Charge! Bring your inevitable downfall that much closer by investing in yet another product line consumers will love to hate.
You wish.
The base source code is available for OS X
Only the (BSD-based) kernel and its microkernel are available.
You can't take that code and compile a usable copy out of it. The whole userspace stuff (like even an user interface) is lacking.
You need to combine it with GNUstep or Cocotron (and some GNU or BSD command line tools), before even getting close to be able to re-compile a couple of basic test-case software that work on Mac OS X or iOS.
Note that just the base code for Android is available as well, not the high end goodness that really makes it shine.
Nope. You're misinformed.
The Linux kernel is available with a GPL license. Yes.
But in addition to that, absolutely everything else, except for a few binary driver, is available with an Apache Public License. (Just not the latest version, for now. Google promised that Icecream will be released)
That means that you can take the Android source and compile your very own full android stack. That's in fact what projects like Cyanogen are doing.
The only thing you'll miss is a couple of proprietary binary apps that come packaged with your phone. Mostly Google Apps, or whatever your carrier installed instead (Bing, whatever else...)
Cyanogen, for exemple, provide a separate download package which contains the default set of Google Apps.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]