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Microsoft Reportedly Launching Its Own Windows Phone Smartphone
zacharye writes "When Microsoft announced earlier this year that it will launch an own-brand tablet to compete directly with its various vendor partners working on Windows 8-based tablet PCs of their own, there was some backlash. Privately — and sometimes even publicly — long-time Microsoft partners took it as an attack on their businesses and questioned why Microsoft would be so brazen. But with nowhere else to turn thanks to Windows' overwhelming PC dominance, these vendors had no choice but to continue developing Windows 8 devices and compete directly with their software supplier. Though events may play out a bit differently in the smartphone market, where Microsoft has yet to stage the comeback it promised two years ago, BGR has learned that the Redmond, Washington-based company plans to release its own Windows Phone 8 smartphone in the coming months."
And Microsoft has always loved doing what works for Apple.
Will it run Linux?
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
I never saw that coming...
>Who is going to want a ZunePhone?
Obviously people who want to squirt you.
>They might want to first get some penetration
Doesn't everybody?
--
BMO
I do not believe it yet accepts incoming calls when the app is not open. That makes it pretty pointless.
http://www.wpcentral.com/understanding-skype%E2%80%99s-limitations-windows-phone
Microsoft says they are working to change the way skype works so they can work better with it. Which is the wrong way to solve the issue. Fix your OS not demand others to change their applications that work everywhere else.
Microsoft has had their share of unsuccessful hardware (Zune comes to mind) but they are capable of getting it right sometimes too. They make a really good mouse and keyboard for example. XBox is successful, albeit after years of losing money on it. I think they are able to build technically successful products but what kills them time and again is poor marketing and an inability to make anything perceived as "cool" by the hip generation.
The Zune was a really good MP3 player (better than the iPod in many ways) but it had that horrible brown color and MS put no marketing behind it. This is a lesson that gets lost on hard core techs sometimes - it doesn't matter that your product is technically superior if you can't sell it. This is what Apple excels at - superior marketing.
If MS hopes to be successful with their branded phone they are going to have to hire some people that know how to sell stuff. First thing I would do? I'd get rid of all of those idiots behind that series of ridiculous Seinfeld ads. Remember those? Yeah, nobody does and that's the point. Complete waste of time and money. Next thing they have to do is design something that looks cool and is easy to use and is well built. Number three - develop some features that set them apart from IOS and Android. Give people a reason to buy an MS phone instead of the default choice of Apple or Android. Otherwise why bother? Just get one of those two and call it a day.
This is Microsoft's last, best chance to get back in the mobile game. If they blow this one then they might as well throw in the towel and accept their fate as the leader in an increasing dying industry (desktop pc's).
if there's one thing I've learned, it's that BGR really can't be trusted for its exclusive leaks. SO many of them just don't pan out, it seems like like an accident one one of them actually does.
In this case, we have an unconfirmed source saying that MS is planning its own phone but it doesn't have a release timeline for them. Seems like an easy way to get page hits to me.
Depends. Is Microsoft designing and having the device manufactured entirely on their own, or are they working with an existing Windows Phone vendor on it?
All of Google's Nexus devices are prominently done by one of their OHA members (HTC, Samsung, ASUS, etc.) and that's probably one reason there's never been a whisper about the Nexus program. By contrast, with Surface Microsoft bypassed all of their OEMs and is going head to head with them.
Pretty sure they can get that for free by reading Slashdot comments.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Who is going to want a ZunePhone?
The ZunePhone. That was a joke. But Microsoft was rumored to be considering making the Zune 3 a phone.
Microsoft owns Skype. In that context your last sentence doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Google did the Google Nexus 7 and it hasn't upset Android makers as far as I can tell. But it does upset carriers who capitalize on their ablity to have devices locked down so that they can take the most advantage of consumers possible.
I think what Microsoft is doing will give the new Windows Tablets/phones the best possible opportunity for success (or failure) by setting the bar at a particular level. OEMs are free to exceed the Microsoft model, but it would upset consumers to not at least meet the standards set out there by Mocrosoft's base model. And when software/firmware updates come out for the Microsoft device, they had damn well come out for the OEM phones and tablets too. In the end, it should upset carriers more than it should upset manufacturers.
With Microsoft building Surface, it was inevitable they would branch into building other hardware too.
Microsoft's mobile future is too important to Microsoft to leave it entirely to third parities.
It'll be interesting to see how Microsoft manages to make this balance work, although Google seems to be doing fine so far with Nexus devices vs. what everyone else sells. In that regards there's not much third parties can do, since both Google and Microsoft compete against them it's a wash.
If I am a handset manufacturer, now the only game in town is Google's Android, since the Microsoft is considering moving into hardware on this front.
Has Microsoft realized that they just can't manage Phone manufacturers [1] ? Microsoft has repeatedly backstabbed it's "partners" to it's own detriment later on. Is there anyone laying down the law in Redmond? - seems like Lord of the Flies when it comes to internal discipline and ability to execute as a group.
[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/06/microsofts_masterplan_to_screw_phone/
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?"
The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drowning frog's back.
"I could not help myself. It is my nature."
yeah it's funny...
Andy Rubin starts two companies, Danger and Android.
Danger is acquired by Microsoft. Microsoft massively botches the release of Danger's product and it dies a quick, horrific death.
Android is acquired by Google. Google releases Android to massive acclaim and goes on to widely displace the then dominant leader, Apple's iPhone.
Interesting contrast isn't it?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
They didn't buy Nokia yet, but soon.
Saying that "microsoft" killed the phone is true in a sense, but you also have to understand the company culture at MS. It is built on a lot of teams. Not one single united company where everyone shares ideas and works together nicely. You should read the history of what happened to Danger and you will see a major factor to its demise was the infighting that took place, nothing technical really. Apple/Google I think have a lot less of this kind of stuff so it was easier to let it bloom.
Mod parent up.
N.B.: I'm not sure that would work, and I'm dubious about not requiring the CEO to at least live in Finland, if not Helsinki, but generally that's an excellent list.
FWIW, Elop was a lousy choice, and something they should have KNOWN was a lousy choice before they hired him. They would have done much better to hire from within, but they'd likely to have done better to pick someone off the street at random. At least that person wouldn't likely have been *intending* to sabotage them, which is the way Elop's actions look to me. And they should have known that if they hired an MS VP, that they needed to expect that he would make decisions that favored MS, and (at best) ignore what was beneficial to Noika (except, of course, for plausibility & PR purposes).
Perhaps I'm being overly harsh towards him, but I doubt it. This phone announcement was probably contemplated (by MS) before he was hired (by Noika). OTOH, he may well not have known about it. (Need to know principle.) Just known what he was supposed (by MS) to do.
Am I cynical? Yes. But MS has a long history, and this wouldn't be the most unscrupulous thing they've done.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
That's not the Microsoft way. The Microsoft way is to fail, then fail again, then double down on the double failure, then start to get some traction, then fail some more, then double down again financially, and then get some more traction, etc.
Microsoft wins by outspending the competition. The problem with the Microsoft of today, is that they can't outspend Google or Apple anymore.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Microsoft is reportedly launching it's own windows phone smartphone.. It's expected to land somewhere in the pacific..
We've been here before already:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin
As a civilization, we have extremely short memory sometimes...
Did you miss that Google has already moved into the hardware with their purchase of Motorola Mobility?
Apparently you missed that Android is open sourced. That means that there are at least three major competitive ecosystems (Amazon ; Barnes and Nobel and the major Chinese app market places) as well as innumerable minor ones (e.g. CyanogenMod and all the small independent market places). Any or all of those would welcome a major manufacturer as a partner.
Google has to compete for favour from Mobile manufacturers. Microsoft is setting its self up to completely mess them over. Probably, it will buy one of the more successful ones with a Windows phone (HTC? LG?) once it has driven Nokia and co bankrupt whilst stealing their ideas.
Remember the strategy; Embrace and cooperate (Burn the platforms memo) Extend (provide Windows 8 with Nokia and other people's functions and ideas) Exterminate (Windows 9 / 10 has special "Microsoft only" features; Windows 11 barely works on partners phones).
Even if Android from Google went closed source tomorrow, there is enough weight of developers outside Google to overtake it within two releases.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
You can do anything you like - as long as Google approves, or else you have to fork as Amazon has done.
What's your point? From the moment you start to do anything different you have effectively "forked". Having long running independent forks is a clear fear for Google. What this means is that any handset manufacturer can threaten a fork and that's all they need to ensure that Google stays onside.
Probably, it will buy one of the more successful ones with a Windows phone (HTC? LG?)
Why not Nokia itself? That has made the most sense all along.
Nokia no longer has the level of smartphone sales to be useful; they have destroyed most of their manufacturing base and closed their most important factories. They also seem to be in an agreement where they have to give their Windows Phone improvements back to Microsoft in any case. Microsoft has nothing to gain from bringing them on board. They have plenty to lose from the cultural clash it would cause. Even the stupidest of Nokia employees is realising that they have been totally taken to the cleaners by Microsoft.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
I'll be getting one, either the 920 or maybe an htc, not sure yet.
This is one thing I can't see MS copying properly from Apple. Apple based both OS-X and iOS on FBSD/XNU, and so portability is not much of an issue for them - something they've fine-tuned from the NEXTSTEP days and then had porting experiences first from Motorola 68k to PPC, then PPC to x86 and finally x86 to ARM. In fact, Apple could stage a coup by doing one more leap from x86 to ARM, using either a Radeon or an NVIDEA GPU for any compute heavy loads that they need. The fact that ARM is still 32-bit won't matter - they can make it a muticore w/ several localized memory attachments of 2MB each to build up whatever is needed by the system.
But w/ MS, since Android has the mainstream phone market and Apple the glamor phone market, MS's only hope is to leverage the Wintel advantage, and include some way of running PC apps on phones. So that people who want to install the software they bought & are using w/ PCs on their phones have at least that rationale for buying a Windows phone, be it from MS or from Nokia. As Google has shown, if they can sell a Razr and a Xoom and yet be fair to the likes of Samsung, HTC, Sony, et al, there is no reason that MS can't do the same w/ Nokia, Dell, HP and others. But they have to define that strategy right. If they just slap Windows RT on an ARM phone, it'll be simply another disaster waiting to happen.