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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.
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.
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/
Collaborating with Microsoft has historically been the kiss of death, however. I just don't see anything helpful coming out of that--there's certainly no consumer interest in WP and any capital injection would be a short term band-aid. HTC needs to narrowly focus their product line, not target every market segment like Samsung, and build brand recognition. Their hardware is good and their software support has greatly improved. They just need their name and logo out there more, and in a way that people associate with smartphones.
http://neo900.org/
...)
Smooth upgrade. Finally!
The Neo900 project aims to provide a Fremantle (Maemo 5) compatible successor of N900, with faster CPU, more RAM and LTE modem, basing efforts on an already existing, mature and stable free platform - the OpenPhoenux GTA04.
We'll provide both complete, ready to use devices in N900 case, and motherboard replacements for your current device. Neo900 will also support all operating systems available for GTA04 (QtMoko, SHR, Debian, Replicant,
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
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.
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
I just don't see anything helpful coming out of that-
For a site dedicated to nerds, there's an utter dearth of imagination...and memory.
See kids, back in the day, HTC made this little phone called the HD2. It shipped with Windows Mobile 6.5 and was intended to ship with Windows 7, but Microsoft told them "no can do" for the sole reason that it has an inconsistent hardware button configuration with the rest of the Windows Phone 7 handsets. However, because of the intended dual-OS compatibility, HTC released a phone that was impressively consistent and relatively easy to flash. This lead to the development of MAGLDR and CLK, which were alternative bootloaders that enabled users to flash Windows Phone 7 (unofficially, though completely functionally if you can get MS to give you a product key), Android (more versions of Android than any other handset; everything from Froyo to Jellybean and I think some of the earlier versions were available, too), Meego, Ubuntu, FirefoxOS, and proof-of-concept compatibility with WP8 and WinRT. To this day, it has one of the most active communities on XDA, certainly moreso than any other phone that was sold during the same time period.
When HTC builds a phone to boot a pair of OSes, especially ones as different as Windows Phone and Android, odds are better than ever that HTC will end up shipping a phone that's more mod-friendly than most of the phones that ship with just one OS, even a Nexus. Don't you think that there's something "helpful" about a phone that is sufficiently hackable that it can have its software kept current long past its EOL date according to the carrier? I do.
While we're at it, I know that hating Microsoft is cool around here and all, and yes, I do walk around with an Android phone because a phone without a user-exposed file system is a dealbreaker for me, but are we seriously going to sit here and say that it's better for Google/Samsung and Apple to each have ~50% of the market rather than having Google/Samsung/HTC, Microsoft/Nokia/HTC, and Apple all having ~33% of the market a piece? I always thought competition was a positive situation, and even if HTC gets screwed over by Microsoft somehow (like they did by not being able to officially software upgrade the HD2), it still means more mod-friendly phones for everyone - something I thought that a group of people who like installing Linux on everything with a processor would appreciate.
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".
> HTC has had trouble getting traction against Samsung despite offering compelling hardware.
Interestingly, HTC's plummeting market share coincided almost EXACTLY with their elimination of removable batteries and microSD cards. It's not rocket science. Two years ago, HTC was neck in neck with Samsung. Then, they eliminated microSD and removable batteries, everybody who viewed that as intolerable & used to have a HTC phone bought Samsung phones when it was time for their next upgrade, and HTC went from being "a little behind Samsung" to "WAY behind Samsung".
Suggestion to HTC: give us a new phone like the Evo3D (but with GSM+LTE capabilities compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile as well) that has microSD and a removable battery (or at least a 6,000mAH battery if it MUST be non-removable) and an unlocked (or trivially-unlockable) bootloader, and watch your market share climb again. I know people (like my brother) who literally paid a small fortune to buy a USED Evo 3D long after it was officially EOL'ed because their original one got destroyed and they liked the 3D features so much. My brother STILL resists buying a new phone, because he doesn't want to give up the 3D camera and display.
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.