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Ballmer: Microsoft Mobile Should Focus On Android Apps Not Universal Apps (theverge.com)
UnknowingFool writes: Former CEO Steve Ballmer had some strong opinions about the direction of Microsoft's mobile strategy. As reported last month, Microsoft's Project Astoria has not been received well and is not going well. The strategy is to help build Windows 10 apps by making universal apps via easy porting from Android. Ballmer questions its effectiveness. "That won't work," he said. Instead he suggested that Windows phones should "run Android apps." This is a dramatic departure from the Microsoft-only focus that Ballmer championed during his tenure as CEO.
As an ex-Windows Phone user, I said many times I would have stayed on the platform if I could (reliably and safely) run Android Apps (I'm aware of the work over at XDADevs to make this happen but I don't want to have to get my app APKs from Russia - I want them from the Play Store). I actually quite liked the OS of Windows Phone - it was quite powerful, smooth and frankly, feature rich (mainly because it had to be, because there were no damn apps for it). If I could have Android apps - and they worked well and safely (you know... for Android) I'd call that best of both worlds and come back.
I think that your words will be ignored. Sorry Pal, you had a shot at the big chair and blew it. Well, some of us never were given the chance. Enjoy your cash.
Some of us were hit by the shot of the short chair!
I think Microsoft should focus on restoring Nokia to its former glory , apologizing to the people for screwing it and focusing on the crappy operating systems they make.
When Ballmer was at MS, he championed Microsoft-only because that was the way to keep people locked into Microsoft. MS had a dominant position already, and keeping things MS-only made sure any competition didn't have enough applications to be attractive. But now MS is going into a market where they don't have a dominant position, so MS-only just insures MS won't have enough to be attractive. The only option will be what MS did with IE back when Netscape ruled the Web: offer compatibility to lure users and especially businesses over, then slowly break compatibility to force a Hobson's choice.
MS should really consider keeping him on as a consultant. They could pay him hundreds of millions of dollars a year to talk about anything that crosses his mind, and they'd turn a huge profit so long as they do the exact opposite of whatever he says.
This guy blew it up at MS and the board scrambled to relieve him out of his chair ASAP. That didn't go well with him so now he is busy giving his "wisdom" retrospectively. Where were your statements when project Astoria started? Remember, MS is your screw-up.
What if... Windows 10 would also run Android apps? Perhaps without the Google frame work and with a different store, but essentially the same apps?
I spent part of the last 3 years (about 20% of it) developing and maintaining an iOS app (hybrid web app - UIWebView + a GWT/Java server side). It predated Swift. I come from a Pascal/C/C++/Java/C# background, and I hated every day of Objective C. I recently got a taste of Swift, but... why the hell can't Apple use a language with more typical syntaxes?
We did iOS first, because among our particular customers, they had better than 80% market share.
The business case recently came up to need to port it to Windows Embedded 8.1 Handheld to support a couple of particular devices. WHAT A JOY. I had this app up and running on two real devices in four hours. C#, Visual Studio Community 2015... no Xcode developer profile / provisioning profile / whatever issues. I can debug the app and use the barcode scanner at the same time because, unlike iThings, the device will debug and let you use a wired peripheral AT THE SAME TIME (haven't been able to do that since Lightning).
The sad truth, though, is that Microsoft is late to the party. It was already too late when Steve started chanting "developers". They were already gone.
Microsoft is going to have to do something very wine-esque to just get apps on their platform. They have single-digit market share.
Considering the level of spying going on in Windows 10, I don't think Redmond has that credibility.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This reminds me of the efforts of the Wine project. As most of you may know, Wine works poorly for a lot of applications. One of the reasons desktop Linux has suffered is not because it's inferior, but because a lot of people rely on various applications only available on Windows. Security issues aside, imagine if Linux users could run any and everything Windows could, seamlessly.
Unless Microsoft does it right, they will fail spectacularly. It will be perceived by the public that Windows mobile is buggier than Android for Android apps (and the public won't know why, and won't care). If they do get it right, then Android users will have one less reason to stay.
Now whether they deserve the market share or not... that's the question. They're in the same place Linux has been for a long time, so maybe it's just karma. :)
"Trust me, it wont work, I know from experience!" - Ballmer
Obligatory XKCD reference: https://xkcd.com/323/
Three words: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
This is admitting three things: 1) Microsoft can't gain users to make Windows phone dominant (and profitable); 2) Windows phone is an inadequate selling proposition; 3) An adequate selling proposition requires Android (or iOS) compatibility.
This is about Microsoft refusing to leave a growing market for portable devices. They may even have a plan to increase the appeal of Windows phone at a future time.
That means they're probably not interested in your unsolicited strategic advice.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How the mighty have fallen !
If I'm mostly going to run Android apps, why would I want to do that inside a Windows phone? All I get is extra overhead from emulation and incompatibilities. Before worrying about phones and Android, Microsoft really needs to worry about Windows store, because it looks to me like few of the traditional Windows software vendors are making their software available through the Windows store. I don't know whether that is because Microsoft charges too much money or because the store requirements are too strict, but the end effect for the user is that on Windows, I still have to deal with manual software installation and upgrades, while also having that useless Windows store thing sitting around.
Android apps start fast and have a low memory footprint because they use shared memory to share code with the software that runs the phone. You can't do that unless the phone uses java for it's internal functionality, which Windows phones would not, so app's startup time and memory footprint would be much worse than on real Android.
Balmer understands markets, but he doesn't understand tech, or design. His reign at Microsoft showed a complete squandering of technical talent in a series of boondoggles that someone with better knowledge of the underlying technology would have foreseen, and this took Microsoft from a dominant position to near collapse. Satya Nadella has had little to praise or criticise, but so far I feel his steps have been more strategically sound. Balmer needs to remain silent, because all he's accomplishing now is removing all doubt.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
Perhaps this is a very telling lesson in group think. Note that even someone as headstrong as Balmer can become captured in the group think of a large company and as soon as they leave be willing to start challenging the core belief of the company. What does this say about large organizations? How do you turn such a big ship or even see danger ahead?
Blackberry pursued this model and failed to retain any real resemblance of market share. That's because Android is really more Android Apps + Google Services. If Microsoft were to go down this path it would require making concessions to Google to get access to their Play services. If Microsoft did that, they might as well just become an Android distribution, because no one is going to write apps for Windows Mobile if Android apps work just fine. The problem lies in that there's no compelling reason to switch off of Android for Microsoft. Especially since Microsoft has now released a ton of their apps for Android. I don't see how Microsoft will win the mobile game at this point.
I had a Lumia 520. Loved it - it had almost all the things I needed. Maps, calculator, email client, messaging, OneNote, et al (OneNote really made it shine). Sure, it didn't have as fantastic games as the iPhone, but then again, it was very useful as a work phone. Any employer who wants to issue office phones to employees and not have them jack it w/ bizarre apps from the stores would do well to consider Windows Phones just b'cos they don't have all that, but do have the things office users generally need.
I disagree w/ Ballmer - his suggestion sounds like the one IBM had w/ OS/2 when they were trying to steal the thunder from Windows 3.1. If one remembers, OS/2 ran win16 apps as well, but that didn't encourage PC users to get OS/2 on their computers. Part of the reason was the pricing, and the other part was that if all OS/2 was gonna run was win16 apps, why not just stick to win16? It's a similar case here - if Windows Phones start running Android apps, why would anyone prefer them to either Galaxies, or even other Android phones from Google, Motorola/Lenovo, Sony, LG, HTC, Blu or even Blackberry?
Since Microsoft is doing what it can to make Windows 10 successful, they need to do what they can to get Windows Phone apps on the Universal Windows platform. Like for instance, one can download FanDango, Yelp! or a whole host of other similar apps on Windows Phone, but those ain't available on Windows 8.1 OR Windows 10. Conversely, there are a lot of Windows 10 apps not there on Windows Phone. I'd love there for Universal apps to appear, so that not only would Windows 10 Mobile get apps developed originally for Windows 7, but also, one could use on a Windows tablet apps like Yelp! or Fandango which don't really need a phone.
Also, while Microsoft claims that they've had a number of vendors design their apps for their platform, they really need to get serious about that. My Lumia died by accident, and when it did, I switched to a Moto X b'cos I was missing some important apps that I use - like RetailMeNot, Vonage and Lyft. If one is a Uber or Lyft driver, neither Uber Partner nor Lyft run on the platform. In another city that I lived where cellular signals were suppressed due to my living near a government facility, I would use Vonage to make cellular calls outside, something I could do w/ the iPhone but not w/ the Lumia. Microsoft doesn't have to get the greatest games to Windows Phone - Xbox support is good - but it does have to look at the apps that people use for day to day work, and get them supported on the universal app. Only rarely have I seen companies advertize their apps being on iOS, Android or Windows Phone - like Delta Airlines. I'd like to see more of them
But Windows Phone/Mobile does not currently run Android apps. What remains to be seen is whether on the desktop, we see more of Windows 8/10 apps being developed, which can then be ported to Windows Mobile
I see an opportunity to seize the Android device market here, a much needed Google free, privacy focussed handset.
You can have Google-free Android right now for a spyless experience. It's not even that hard.
The current Nadella "universal apps" strategy is working. Microsoft Surface has gained a significant amount of both mindshare and market share. the Xbox one is also in that paradigm, and I expect sales this Christmas to be robust. The phone market is a problem, and mostly a problem with the fact they use ARM processors. Microsoft has a very confusing implementation of their "universal apps"--they aren't universal at all. They must be compiled for each hardware platform. Microsoft used to have a universal app system in .NET, but they ditched it* for this strange RT strategy which is supposed to be universal, but isn't. If Nadella really wants this to be a "universal app" paradigm, where everything runs on anything else, they need to do 2 things on the phone platform: 1. Either bring back something like .NET to mobile or make sure their phones run the new low power Intel processors (the later option is easier and preferable in many ways). 2. Find a way to be able to automatically run desktop compiled apps so that they can run in a metro environment (that may already be happening, I'm not sure.. I'll know more when I get my Windows tablet). I think they are probably already planning on implementing something similar for the future.
When everything really becomes "universal", they can really capitalize on that by selling the same experience across every platform you use and own. Ballmer's idea may seem good at first, but it really holds no consumer appeal in the long run. The history of OS/2 and Blackberry running Android proves it. The idea that you can run the same thing on your Xbox, Surface, PC, and Phone is something you can really sell and get customers to buy. Capitulating to Google doesn't do very much other than admit defeat.
*Yes, I know that .NET still exists and is robust on the desktop business environment, but Microsoft ditched it for mobile a few years ago for RT... which they also ditched recently at least on the tablet side.
Just to followup with a summary... If they want to compete in mobile, they need to make a Surface phone, not this Current Windows RT phone that can't really run much of anything at the moment. A "Surface" phone has a good chance of selling, since the tablets are popular.
I actually agree w/ you here. ARM based phones, while otherwise standard, bring nothing to the table as far as Microsoft goes. They should get Intel's lowest power Atoms, and build a Lumia based on that. And then load it up w/ the Universal UI