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First Phone Out of Microsoft-Nokia -- and It's an Android
An anonymous reader writes BBC reports that the first phone resulting from the Microsoft-Nokia merger has been announced: the Nokia X2. And foiling everybody's ability to guess what OS it would run on, the answer is Android. But this being Microsoft, do expect some embrace-and-extend — the user interface is similar to the Windows phone. And it is being offered as a way to hook users into its cloud-based services, several of which come pre-installed as apps. Is this the first Linux product being offered by Microsoft? Can we upgrade Microsoft's social rating from CCC to CCC+?
Use the best tool for the job.
Buying an android phone from Microsoft? Isn't that a little like buying a firearm from the Brady Campaign?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I can remember just a couple of months ago, when Microsoft hosted a tournament for Killer Instinct on the Xbox One. There was a bit of an uproar from the competitors and from the various streaming websites covering the event because Microsoft banned non-Windows phones at the competition venue (and, of course, gave out Windows phones to all of the competitors so they could have product placement on the streaming sites). As far as I know, that ban was never lifted and the tournament went on that way.
The idea that MS would then turn around and release an Android phone after pushing their Windows phones that hard seems like a complete turnaround.
Is this something from Marxist dictionary, comrades?
Nearly, but try the next volume to the left on your shelf, the Marketing dictionary.
I wouldn't say MS is a "major" kernel contributor. They've submitted a number of patches so that their Hyper-V VM so that Linux servers can run Windows in VM. But even with contributions they ranked in 2012 as #17. I don't see them actually contributing anything more than that.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Is it because Windows is to slow on the low end hardware that they need to offer an Android phone?
The phone don't have access to Play store, so it can't be due to the many Android Apps they are doing it.
Their standard strategy is actually to create something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the best tool for the job.
I fully expect that Microsoft's contribution to the Android ecosystem will end up like Ebola's contribution to human society.
Hopefully the carnage will remain confined to few localities and not spread significantly.
Can we upgrade Microsoft's social rating from CCC to CCC+?
For the benefit of those, such as myself, who did not get the reference, CCC is a low bond credit rating.
Also, a couple of things to keep in mind here about the history of MS corporate strategy. First, MS has a record of adopting (e. g. Kerberos) or imposing (e.g. OpenXML) open standards for the purpose of corrupting or abusing those standards. A record of unscrupulous behavior breeds distrust and it would be reasonable to suspect that MS could have something similar on mind for the Android platform. Good summary of the Kerberos episode here:
Secondly, and more innocuously, someone at MS might have wised up and realized that profits from their Android patent licensing would be better than losses from another round of failed MS OS phone investment.
and their goal is to make money. Given the lack of popularity of Microsoft's mobile platform, it makes far more sense to ship Android devices with their products layered on top than it does to ship a fully Microsoft phone that will likely have limited uptake.
According to the most recent contributions, MS doesn't even show up. So MS only contributed enough to Linux to make sure that their product would work. I still don't consider that a major contribution.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This phone isn't running true Android, it's a port of Android, but using Xenix as the base OS.
For those of you on Slashdot who are not old farts like myself, google "Xenix" to find out what it is. It's part of Microsoft's "Embrace and Extend" policy to use something they own to create a whole new version of an existing popular phone/tablet OS....
And if anyone believe what I'm saying, even for a second, you need to find a BBS for the less naive....
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Microsoft has a long and interesting Linux/FOSS history.
I remember in the late 90s, Microsoft actually released a Front Page Server Extensions module for Apache on Linux, so people using FP could publish sites to Linux servers.
During the early 2000s, MS shipped a bunch of GPL'd stuff via the Interix/SFU product.
Currently, System Center (enterprise management tool) can also monitor and manage Linux machines along side windows (and Mac) machines.
As noted elsewhere, Microsoft has made Linux a 1st class scenario for Hyper-V on-premise and Azure hosted uses.
Microsoft has opened some its internal projects to the external community, with acceptable licenses, and Microsoft has also contributed to existing FOSS projects where it has made sense. Internally, "should we use existing FOSS" or "should we open source this?" are questions that are coming up now where in the past, they never did, and asking them would get you some funny looks.
In the future, you're going to see Microsoft doing a better job of meeting customers in mixed/heterogenous settings. We've got a new CEO that has provided this guidance to the entire company. The market changes have certainly become too large to ignore, but the bottom line is that we're adapting.
On the business side, getting some of a customer's business is better than getting none of their business.
As always, we partner with everybody and we compete against everybody. For example, I sit in a building where most of the developers here work on Microsoft's own ERP products, yet I worked on features that let Visual Studio talk to SAP.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I don't feel creaky. I don't want to go on the cart.
We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.