Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Reportedly Seeks To Put Windows Phone On Android Devices
quantr draws your attention to a Bloomberg report that Microsoft has reached out to HTC to see if the company would be interested in adding Windows as a second OS to its Android handsets. From the Bloomberg story: "Its willingness to add Windows as a second operating system underscores the lengths to which Microsoft will go to get manufacturers to carry its software. HTC, the first company to make both Windows and Android phones, hasn’t unveiled a new Windows-based handset since June and has no current plans to release any more, said one person. Microsoft, with 3.7 percent of the market, is finding it necessary to make concessions after agreeing to acquire Nokia Oyj’s handset unit, which competes with other smartphone makers.
[Microsoft operating systems head Terry] Myerson was planning to visit Asia this month and meet with senior executives at Taoyuan, Taiwan-based HTC to discuss his proposal, one of the people said."
Android on Lumia, that'd be an offering.
To be able to have the choice of OS on your device is a good thing, maybe you like the S3 but like windows OS. or you like the nokia lumia hardware but prefer andoid. Now its never going to be allowed to happen with iphone/iOS but choice of OS on other devices can only be a good thing
Microsoft has played games with numbers to pump its supposed Windows market share many many times. For instance, if you're a big corporation and you buy 10,000 machines with Vista installed, but backlevel them to XP, Microsoft counted those as Vista sales. This "dual boot" bullshit is almost certainly the same nonsense. HTC has a bigger market share by itself than all the Windows Phone devices in aggregate (I believe). Anyway, it's the #3 smartphone vendor behind Apple and Samsung. It's also in really dire trouble financially, or at least so the news-sphere seems to indicate. So, they're hurting for cash and might be willing to accept some cash to load Windows on their Android phones as dual boot. Practically nobody will use Windows, but Microsoft will be able to claim those dual boot handset sales as "Windows sales" and fake the numbers to make it look like Win Phone is growing in marketshare.
Oh, if only the license terms for Android FORBID dual booting, and allowing the user to make such a choice.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft/
IBM has contacted Apple to see if they want to put MVS on the iPhone, complete with a punched card interface.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
My memory is fuzzy on this, but I believe Microsoft took Toshiba to court and made them stop dual booting Linux on their laptops about 20 years ago. At the time Toshiba owned a Linux distribution so they prevented Toshiba from shipping their own code.
This is the same Microsoft that is extorting everyone over unnamed Android patent infringements.
Why would you want to work with them? Every company that works with them ends up dead or wounded.
HTC has had trouble getting traction against Samsung despite offering compelling hardware. Offering a dual-boot phone might give them a competitive advantage with some subset of buyers... although I'm guessing it'd be a fairly small number.
#DeleteChrome
If Microsoft was paying Nokia $200 per phone, for putting Windows on it, I don't think HTC will settle for a free Windows licence.
I guess a replacement for my 2009 Debian-Linux Nokia N900 is getting unlikely. I better start looking for a few second hands ones that I can use for spare parts...
So instead of OEMS only caring about Windows, designing hardware only tested for Windows, only supporting Windows, signing Windows in the hardware boot device,and even including Windows where someone has to manually go into the bios and install a second bootloader to run Linux has now changed to carriers only caring about linux, designing phones just for linux/Android, only supporting Linux, and even signing linux to run Android on top, now has to listen to an angry MS who feels its soo unfair that no one will even stock their products on the shelf nor care and are begging just for the opportunity to dual boot! ... No cost too as well according to NEOwin!
Wow. Couldnt happen to a nicer company. It is amazing how fast this happened. Windows CE was gearing up for a monopoly and beating blackberry just a few years ago to. ... well this?
http://saveie6.com/
Windows on mobile has been a failure for years now. It's be nice if they'd realize this and just go away.
"Its willingness to add Windows as a second operating system underscores the lengths to which Microsoft will go to get manufacturers to carry its software.
Now that they have underscored lengths, will that... er... um... what?
willingness to add... underscores... to which ... will go... to get ... to carry
For the advanced student: Parse this into the canonical <subj><verb><predicate> form. 10 points.
HTC, the first company to make both Windows and Android phones, hasn’t unveiled a new Windows-based handset since June and has no current plans to release any more, said one person.
Which person is that?
Microsoft, with 3.7 percent of the market, is finding it necessary to make concessions after agreeing to acquire Nokia Oyj’s handset unit, which competes with other smartphone makers.
Apropos of nothing, which of these is the main verb?
Myerson was planning to visit Asia this month and meet with senior executives at Taoyuan, Taiwan-based HTC to discuss his proposal, one of the people said."
This is Bloomberg, right? Are they supposed to be good at writing?
This is the why it is supposed to be. People should be free to install whatever operating system they want on their phones like they do their PCs.
Sooner all this proprietary / OS imaging for specific devices garbage ends the better for everyone.
This includes Apple as well.
if you are going to run Windows Phone, you damn well better accept that MS and the NSA will have full access to everything on your phone and will set it to record all your conversations.
this used to be tinfoil hat area but now it's a probability.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Will I get a longer battery life from using Android or using Windows Phone?
seems like something worth knowing.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Windows Mobile is the Zune of wireless technology. Who would want to junk up perfectly good storage space on a mobile device with windows?
Quit trying to make Windows Mobile happen, it's not happening.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I'm trying here...so I'll give you partial credit. You're definitely begging the question, but it is important to acknowledge that other companies make similar mistakes as M$ (though they are not as bad).
Apple's design flaws are just as annoying as any other design flaw.
The question is, what about Apple's process allowed them to do right what M$ did wrong?
As others have pointed out, Apple is the exact opposite of M$: a successful and popular company. There is no debate on that point worth having.
So what about Apple kept them from screwing up as bad as M$?
> Was it Steve Job's megolomania combined with good design choices and lucky market conditions? Any CEO can pound their fist and force their way, but just by law of averages, when JOb's did it, it had marginally better results in the end product, perhaps?
> Is the answer in the engineering department? like where they actually write the software...,did they quietly refuse to do things like Internet Explorer tried to do in the 90s?
> Lack of the government contracts forcing them to innovate at Apple? See, M$ only exists b/c IBM needed a lackey to put stripped down PC boxes on every government office desk...M$ was the operating system....credit Gates for profiting by leveraging his govt contracts into forcing users to use his product...but...that didnt' really encourage R&D. Apple had to fight to survive
Thank you Dave Raggett
If you could share all data between the two OSs without any extra work: pictures, movies, contacts, calendar, etc... If all of that synced between the two that might be interesting. If that is not possible, then I don't see how the proposition makes the slightest bit of sense for an end user. Assuming both would be used on occasion, it would be a confusing mess.
It might be interesting, but not for me. A friend of mine works for a carrier so I get to demo and thoroughly play with all the phones and I can confirm - mostly unbiased that Windows phone offers an inferior experience, but that's another post for another article.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
A free "Windows Phone App"
I would like that.
Any other thing (Dual-Boot, Choice at start-up, something else messe up, additional cost): Dont like that
Exactly. Somebody with a US Galaxy S3 should be able to go to qualcomm.com, navigate to Support -> Downloads -> Firmware -> MSM8960. Then, navigate to Radio Modems -> [AT&T | T-Mobile | Sprint | Verizon | US Cellular | Rogers | Telus | Fido | Whomever], download the latest radio modem for our carrier, back up, then navigate to SoC Support -> Android -> {kernel-version}. From there, we'd be able to download individual kernel modules (some with buildable source) as we saw fit. Or, for the Windows-inclined, go to SoC Support -> Windows -> {version}.
This is on top of being able to go to samsungusa.com and download their more user-friendly monolithic installer for Android or Windows Phone. It would be just like buying a laptop... you could download the official drivers from the manufacturer, or if the manufacturer was an asshole, go straight to the chipset vendor and get the raw reference drivers to tweak yourself.
There's absolutely NO technical reason why it can't be this way. There's nothing holy or sacred about ARM that makes it impossible. It's just that we, as consumers, allowed phone manufacturers to get away with a level of locked-down proprietary-ness that would have been considered utterly intolerable in the PC realm. All we can really do is wait for Intel to get its act together, and make it possible for somebody to cobble together an x86-architecture PC with radio modem drivers that work and aren't crippled with respect to LTE (plain GSM isn't good enough), then "help" a manufacturer or two in Shenzhen to mass-produce 2GHz(*) quadcore circuit boards that can do HSPA+ and LTE on international, Canadian, AT&T, and T-Mobile bands(**), then make them available to smaller companies who'll assemble them in various ways into actual phones for sale.
(*) a 2-GHz quadcore Intel-architecture CPU on par with an i3, let alone an i5 or i7, would absolutely SMOKE and DESTROY a 2GHz ARM performance-wise. ARM might be frugal, but comparing an i7 to an ARM Cortex A15 is kind of like comparing a Lexus LFA to a Hyundai Elantra (or a Tesla Roadster to a Chevy Volt). If you want a basic phone, go with ARM. If you want realtime-raytraced translucent-glass eyecandy and glasses-free 3D (like the HTC Evo3D had), i7 (with 6,000+mAH battery) all the way. ;-)
(**) Maybe Verizon, if they can be bullied into allowing it. Sprint isn't even worth bothering with.
Desperation, I think.
The king of "You must sell windows with every device, you may not offer other options" is now begging, with its tail between its legs, to an "other option" on a device.
"No thanks".
This ties in well with the rumour that Microsoft is interested in buying the Barnes and Noble Nook business.
The problem with having a dual boot phone is that phones typically have limited storage space. If you want to dual boot a PC with Linux and Windows, you can stick in another hard drive to add a terabyte or two more storage. Phones, on the other hand, only have a small amount of space. My phone (a Droid Bionic) has 16GB of storage. It's a bit old, though. Newer phones come with at least 32GB of storage. Of this, some is allocated for the OS.
If you want to have two operating systems on the same phone you have two options:
1) Have the user storage area (for apps, photos, videos, etc) be smaller. Some people will buy your phone because "it runs Windows AND Android" but word will quickly spread about the fact that this means you can't install as many apps or take as many photos as a normal Android only phone (or Windows only phone for that matter).
2) Add more memory to the phone. This will allow you to compensate for the second operating system, but it will also raise the price of the phone. Users will need to decide whether the increased cost is really worth it.
Yes, you can use MicroSD cards to increase the space, but that's an added cost to the user. Telling the user that they just bought this more expensive dual-boot phone and now they need to buy another card to get the same user-storage space as that person who bought the cheaper single-OS phone is a losing proposition.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Fixed that for you. My tin foil hat is a steel Spartan helmet, lined with aluminum of course...
BlameBillCosby.com
Why would MS have any interest in a dual booting phone? I find it more likely that MS is begging HTC to still make Windows phones and are trying to make this more attractive by suspending demand for the mandatory 17 Windows buttons or whatever they usually demand to certify the hardware.
That way HTC can use exactly the same hardware for both their Android and Windows version, thereby reducing their development costs.
MS probably have to sweetening the deal by making their OS free for HTC to use too.
It is difficult to understand why any phone company would still want to make windows phones now that MS now are competing directly against them with their own large ex-Nokia production line. Yes, for sure, MS is no longer a software only company.
Nokia already sold their Windows phones with a hefty loss, so now MS either have to raise prices as to not out-compete other Windows phone makers (not going to happen), or compete for market share by dumping prices, thereby out-competing other Windows phone makers like HTC, or dump prices and compensate anyone desperate enough to still make Windows phones.
You can read about it here:
www.sprysoftware.com
It's a better solution because
- You DON'T need a Windows license
- It's smaller: You can run more apps with less memory
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I have an original HTC Desire and have taken it apart and put it back together. It's fairly easy to repair. I've not had the same luck with Samsung S2s which I think need someone more professional than I to fix them
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
As someone who has owned both Windows Phone and Android, bad idea for HTC. Yeah, WP looks cool, but that is about where it stops. I can customize the hell out of my Android, different launchers, different lockers, different dialers, different SMS apps, different search applications, etc. I can make my Android look and act like WP, I can make my Android look and act like iOS, I can make my Android look and act like Ubuntu Touch, I can even install a complete linux distribution inside my Android phone. There really isn't a whole lot you can do on a WP. Change a few tiles around, change their color, but that is about it. The apps suck for WP, I tried looking for a different web browser and you are pretty much stuck with IE or some other browser based off of IE. My work uses google talk/hangouts. I tried searching for that, there were two or three apps that supported this eBuddy and IM+. I don't use social media so the Twitter and Facebook integration in WP is useless to me. Don't want to use Bing as the default search provider? You are going to have to install a custom WP Rom for that. I can get my Android to do everything I want it to do, but I can't get my WP to do anything close.
Yes indeed, the only good thing with a Lumia currently is the camera. Put Android on that hardware and you'd have a fairly compelling package.
Man, if there is a consistent theme with MS it is this: 1) Partner with established successful player in a space new to Microsoft 2) Learn the space and what makes it tick 3) Stab partner from step #1 in the back Quite honestly if HTC goes for Windows on its phones, I'd give HTC 5 to 7 years max before they're gone.
This one is from the customer experience perspective. Customers, who purchased Windows phones from any headset manufacturer since Q2 2011, reported much higher satisfaction rates than customers of any other smartphone platform. Here is the link to some research http://blog.amplifiedanalytics.com/2013/09/correlation-of-customer-experience-trends-can-predict-shifts-in-market-share/. HTC makes good quality phones, judging by Social NPS (Net Promoter Scores), for both Windows and Android platforms, but lucks differentiation from the marketing perspective. Their Android phones are very generic, unlike Samsung Galaxy efforts. I think the availability of both platforms on the single headset, may give them some edge however short-lived.
They are doing fine: http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5016f5926bb3f74e3c000002-618-/chart-of-the-day-microsofts-revenue-by-segment-july-2012.jpg
I'd love to have dual booting cell phone. And I think this is a smart move on Microsoft's part.
When I tried three different phones, I have to admit that the Windows phone was very intuitive to use. Much much more so than the Android phones I tried. That said, I was worried about app availability.
I'd definitely be open to the option to dual boot.
Screw the 3d camera and display. I want a modern phone with the old HTC snap-spring keyboard.
The lack of battery and MicroSD suck, but if they can fix that and revive the hardware keyboard I'll buy.