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Windows Phone Free-Fall May Force Microsoft To Push Harder On Windows 10 (pcworld.com)
tripleevenfall quotes a report from PCWorld: Microsoft sold a minuscule 2.3 million Lumia phones last quarter, down from 8.6 million a year ago. Phone revenue declines will only "steepen" during the current quarter, chief financial officer Amy Hood warned during a conference call. That's dragged down Microsoft's results as a company, too. As the company's mobile device strategy continues to disintegrate, Microsoft may feel compelled to push harder on Windows 10 adoption and paid services to prove it can survive without a viable smartphone. CEO Satya Nadella's strategy is simple enough: grow Microsoft's revenues by convincing customers to adopt its paid subscription services.
I'd consider paying for Microsoft Linux. Basically it would be desktop/workstation Linux, but without a lot of the stupidity we've seen lately. It wouldn't have systemd. It wouldn't have Unity or GNOME 3. It wouldn't have PulseAudio and NetworkManager.
They could use new technology, like Mir, but couple it with a sensible init system (it doesn't have to be sysvinit; just not systemd!), and maybe an updated version of Xfce ported to Qt (since Qt is way better than GTK+). It would use Linux and open source software that works, without using a lot of the newer shit that doesn't work.
Most important of all, I'd want them to port Edge to this Microsoft Linux distro. I've used Edge on Windows, and it's much nicer than Firefox or Chrome. If it was available for Linux, I'd be very happy! It's fast, it's sleek, and it's standards-compliant.
In some sense it would be a return to their Xenix days.
I am eagerly looking forward to reading about how amazing the Windows phone is and how everyone should own one. Every time there is a Windows phone article there end up being more positive comments about the windows phone than there are real life window phone users.
How would they do it?! It already installs itself on any >win6 box if you miss a mandatory "nooooooooooo, fuck off"-click every hour!
I'll never subscribe to any piece of software. Ever.
Seriously... Harder?
I doubt Microsoft can push Windows 10 any harder than they have.
But I'm afraid to find out that I'm wrong.
In related links at the bottom of the page is a story "10 killed at Umpqua Community College" from October. Related how? Did they use Windows phones?
But here's the LINK
Microsoft may feel compelled to push harder on Windows 10 adoption and paid services to prove it can survive without a viable smartphone.
Which makes me wonder: why did MS think it needs a viable smartphone (smartphone OS?) just to survive, and why do other people think this as well forcing MS to prove the opposite?
Maybe they should have a good look at OS-X, Mint and Ubuntu, get some good ideas on how to design a proper modern OS (ssh out of the box would be awesome, both command prompt and a way to easily connect to sftp servers which only Windows fails at nowadays), and make Windows desirable again. They for sure have the money and manpower available to pull that off. No need for their own smart phone. It may even work well on tablets. Just make sure it can connect again with the rest of the world!
As the company's mobile device strategy continues to disintegrate, Microsoft may feel compelled to push harder on Windows 10 adoption and paid services to prove it can survive without a viable smartphone.
Microsoft throughout its history has never been profitable in regard to selling its own smartphones. To the contrary, its smartphone division has always been a money drain and it looks like they will stop bleeding soon by killing off Windows 10 Mobile. And since the number of smartphones running Windows 10 Mobile is about to become zero in the nearest future, I don't understand why Microsoft will have to push Windows 10 harder.
Well, I'm not obsessed with the 1990s-era hatred for Microsoft like some people here are. I also realize that the Microsoft today consists of many people who weren't there in the 1990s, and many of the people who were around in the 1990s no longer are. The name may be the same, but the people who make up the organization are markedly different. After all, the 1990s were around 20 years ago now! If there's one thing I've learned in my many years, it's that things change over time.
I look at Microsoft's actions today, because those are what matter. I've seen them create what's perhaps the best general purpose programming language in C#. I've seen them create what's perhaps the best general purpose computing platform in .NET. They've open sourced both and are porting them to the other major platforms. They stumbled with Windows 8, but Windows 10 is getting them back on track. Edge is a superb browser that's much, much better than Firefox, and better than Chrome. Recently they announced that SQL Server, which is perhaps their best product of them all, is coming to Linux.
It's time for you to grow up, and get with the times. You're two decades behind! Microsoft was the past, and after a brief rough patch we've seen them turn things around, and now Microsoft will be the future.
...CEO Satya Nadella's strategy is simple enough: grow Microsoft's revenues by convincing customers to adopt its paid subscription services....
Microsoft has already stated that they intend to make Windows 10 a service.
.
Now Microsoft is saying that they want to move away from the "buy once" revenue model.
So how long before there is a monthly fee to use Windows?
Perhaps the enormous data harvesting is only the first of many egregious aspects of Windows 10.
In Microsoft's heyday, people would anxiously await the opportunity to pay $120 to upgrade to the new version. New bells, whistles, and blue screens.
Now many people are trying hard to avoid Microsoft's "upgrade" to Windows 10. More and more people go through the trouble of removing the Windows install that came with their computer, to replace it with a less troublesome OS. They want to get rid of Windows.
Microsoft's last-ditch solution is to try to get their few remaining hostages and fanboys to not only pay for MS software, but to keep paying again and again every month. I feel for anyone who's either stuck in a position where they have to keep paying every month for software most people don't even want for free, or who simply doesn't know any better, they're probably still paying $25/month for AOL too.
And Microsoft's effort to push people to Windows 10 will be just as successful.
While I could never recommend a Windows phone to anyone over its lack of apps, I am perfectly content with my Windows phone. I just mainly prefer Live Tiles to a grid of icons. I wonder, if all else fails, if they could create an Android-based phone, replacing the UI with their Modern UI and including Microsoft services on the device; then they would have their own unique phones that could leverage Android's library of apps. But I guess if they didn't have their own mobile store to generate money from, it'd probably just be better to pay other phone makers to put its apps and services on their phones.
So I assume there's a happy ending where Nadella is badly burned and THEN falls to his death, right?
1.) radically change window 10
a.) make cloud/spy "features" optional and opt-in
b.) make the XP & 7 GUI availible (the GUI is not the fucking OS)
2.) offer WinXP & Vista Keys an Upgrade
3.) don't force users by circumventing the window update blocklist by changing the "update date" on the installer.
The children will come!
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
h.t. Midnight Oil.
"Apple's core customer base is interested in fashion accessories and status symbols". Not really, I work in science and we're filthy with Macs and iPhone and iPads, this is not status conscious community. They use the devices because they need to get work done. I recall one fellow finally making the switch from Winders to Mac, his comment to me was, "I feel like I own my computer again". I'm not entirely sure what MS is doing to their clientele, but that sentiment seems rife among scientists.
Wrong. What you're taking about is what every tech company has been trying to do for almost a decade. Even if being "cool" wasn't arbitrary and near impossible to secure, that area of the market has already been defined and saturated. Microsoft's entire problem is they are scrambling for the crumbs of the consumer pie, not that they just aren't just doing it right.
There is a big area of the industry no one is paying attention to: the enterprise. It was determined long ago that the consumer was the new frontier because that market is now larger, but this is a typical short sighted business-guy approach. Apple and Google have the consumer, let it go. Stop developing Microsoft office for OSX, whoever's idea that was should be fired. MS office, and corporate directory integration with exchange, group policy, etc is their last fortress. Give me a phone that focuses on business applications with a high level of automated deployment and security using my other Microsoft tools, and I'll buy thousands of them tomorrow. Give me a worse implementation of the exact same consumer phone everyone else has and I'm not sure why you'd expect me to care.
The current state of things is exactly what Steve Jobs wisely exploited in 2007: an industry that is sleeping. The tech industry is sleeping on the massive potential that is a mobile platform designed for the enterprise. The next company to figure this out and do it well will be the next big thing.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
and free. Jump! Jump! Jump!
The sudden stop subscription is a real bugger...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Almost none of what you said addressed any of my points or even made a lot of sense. It was a nice rant though. Wait, anonymous coward... Balmer, is that you?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
What's your problem? You can just uninstall and blacklist these two updates. They're in a large list referenced by 10 digit kb numbers, shouldn't take you more than an hour to find. Then Microsoft will release more updates, I think the count is up to about 7 now, but you can just disable them all the same way. Oh, also they've simply downloaded Win 10 install files onto your computer already, but don't worry you can track all the files down and manually remove them. If it's too late and Win 10 already got in you might be worried about the innocent data collection? That's ok there's like 5 registry keys you can disable that probably shuts it all off. See, it's easy.
- MS fanboy
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I have a Dell laptop (XPS 15 L502x) that Dell says I shouldn't update to Win 10 from Win 7 Sp 1. Furthermore, I have never seen any of the nagging popups or other notices from Microsoft encouraging an update even though I manually install 2nd Tuesday updates. Looking around the web I find folks who have upgraded this model have a variety of problems as various hardware features no longer work with Win 10. The problem seems to to be that Dell has deigned not to provide critical hardware drivers and I've also seen that there's some glitch with the version of Intel's processors used in these machines. Some posts here suggest that Microsoft should also extend the free update to Win 10 to users of Win XP. The situation with the machines using those OSs may be similar to mine: they're likely using processors that won't work well with Win 10.
I'm not sure what my options will be in four years when Win 7 will not have security updates. This laptop is built like a tank, is my daily driver and shows no sign of hardware failure. I'm wondering when MS will decide some or all today's sold computers cannot be updated to future security patches. Will MS force new hardware purchases on something like a three year or five year cycle? Hardware providers would love it. Not so their customers.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Apple and even Google are replacing enterprise applications very quickly. In higher education almost nobody buys new Windows machines, the current ratio is something like 80/20. The 'new' enterprises (startups) are all running OS X and Linux. The old enterprises are still running some Windows for Exchange and legacy apps but anything new (since cloud and embedded is all the rage) is also running mainly Linux and thus slowly Microsoft is getting replaced and becoming another IBM.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Since they took over for Nokia, their phones have just gotten uglier, too. I really liked the look of the 532, wish they'd bring that back.
:T:R:A:N:S:
All this push to UPGRADE UPGRADE UPGRADE TO WINDOWS 10 pushed me to install Arch (Sure as hell isn't for beginners, but it was a fun challenge).
It also pushed my girlfriend to ask me to install Mint on her laptop, someone who isn't by any stretch of the imagination a tech nerd.
And several of my friends once I told them their favorite steam games now work perfectly fine, and I would be happy to install whatever distro they wanted if they bought the vodka.
I don't think microsoft understands they do not hold the monopoly on good, usable, noob friendly operating systems anymore.
Since I had no idea that Netcraft has confirmed the death of Win Phone, I just bought the new Lumia 650 dual sim, and it's a great value for a basic smartphone. 200 bucks and only lacks a compass and Continuum (if you ever want your phone to be a desktop replacement.. I don't). Feels pretty high-end in the hand too, for the price paid.
Lack of niche apps on Win phone is definitely an issue, though most of the big names are there (Whatsapp, Uber, etc.). If Microsoft can stop thrashing its APIs, they will likely catch up to some degree at least. Both Xamarin and Universal Apps seem like solid strategies on the part of Microsoft. We'll see if they give it a chance I guess.
On the plus side as an unlocked device purchased direct from MS, I'd expect several years of Win 10 updates (at the very least security updates). Unlike my last Sony Android phone, which got exactly "one" update from the carrier before being abandoned. That really soured me on Android.
Yeah. "feel like" doesn't cut it for free software users, but I understand how a user would feel liberated just by switching to any operating system that doesn't come bundled with trial crapware from the vendor and require six 3rd-party security/repair apps each with a redundant, proprietary update mechanism that bugs you every other boot-up. On linux, the "feeling" of owning your own computer can tip too far the other way and feel too much like a responsibility or burden that stops you from getting work done, because you are messing with your OS to try and get it to work properly. Apple has certainly struck a good balance.
Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay
An unfortunate trend. Not away from Microsoft, but away from internal infrastructure. I think you'll find this type of thinking is cyclical. You outsource (which is all the cloud is) discover the problems associated, insource, discover problems, get amnesia, outsource, etc. The cloud is a trend. If you invest too much into it you'll be sorry when the ideology reverses course. Regardless, what Microsoft is, is a software company. The location of the machine running the software is a minor detail. The major detail (What I'm taking about) is how the software is designed. Business favors highly scalable, automated, stable, secure, low overhead, long support cycles, etc. These are all problems for consumer grade products because consumers prioritize differently (think fashion and status). I maintain there's still a massive opportunity for an evolved platform that prioritizes enterprise concerns rather than those of the consumer. Microsoft et al. are missing a big opportunity by not seeing the forest for the trees.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Business favors highly scalable, automated, stable, secure, low overhead, long support cycles, etc
So Linux then?
Windows has had it's course. It's a decent operating system for a single system where the operator/administrator doesn't know too much about computers. You could even run a directory service entirely through the GUI. However, it's not very scalable (look at Exchange and SQL Server), it is very difficult to automate (until very recently there was no SSH-like common terminal), it has a reputation of not being stable and requires reboot every time you look at it wrong, security has improved but still not on par with Linux, all that adds up to high overhead and although Microsoft does support it's products averagely long, licensing agreements make upgrading a necessity (eg. if you run an Azure or O365 integration, you can't just stay on Exchange 2003 or Server 2012)
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
So Linux then?
A great choice. What Linux has lacked in the past is certainly automation and, as you pointed out, ease of administration. Microsoft spent a lot of money and time making their products highly powerful and automated with minimal training required for administration. As you also noted, Linux is a much stronger, more stable and scalable platform. So what Linux lacks, seems to be Microsoft's strengths and vice versa. A company like the Microsoft of the 90s, with a primary focus on the enterprise, and the foresight to recognise the current and long term benefits of an open source platform could certainly do very well; in my opinion. A company clamoring for the crumbs of the consumer pie, trying to climb up from single digit market share is doomed to fail.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The vast majority of CPUs sold in the last three years run Android. Did you make that post from an antique Windows desktop?
MS bought Cynagyn and has some tools in development to make android apps that do not use Google's proprietary AOSP store API.
No middle aged neckbeards Xenix is not the answer.
Rather, who is the market today and tomorrow? There are more millenials who LOVE their apps and portable devices as much as baby boomers and guess which one is entering the workforce and which one is leaving in droves? MS is in trouble and it's premier brand Windows has an identity crises. People do not care about WM's that mimick 20 year old legacy guis with sooo lame and outdated skuemorphic icons with no mobile support or startup daemon designs. They want ultra portable devices with flat UI's, hamburger menus, lots of small apps that are good for one thing (hmm rings a bell here from the past :-) ), and devices that function for both work and play.
I am typing this on a Surface Pro 3. I use it for wiresharking connections for Avaya and CIsco equipment at work with a USB ethernet connection. I use it to watch Netflix movies when I use my pc or traveling. I use it at night as an ebook reader too with my Nook app and I answer emails with Outlook. Yes I loved Windows 8 on it as it was designed for this. Windows 10 not as much but WIndows 10 INK with the anniversary update is perfect.
My point is universal apps for WIndows 10 will run on MS Android too eventually and it is why android emulators and tools are in Visual Studio 2015. No you did not missread that!
IBM changed when it lost. MS is now too to stay relevant. Yes MS has opened sourced .NET as well but they are embracing change and there are growing pains as WIndows 10 mobile does suck hard at the moment. Windows 8 phone I used and liked but left as I saw the writting on the wall. We will see if it is still around in 3 years?
http://saveie6.com/
Amen! I work as an University teacher in Telecommunications Engineering (mostly computer networks) AND as a trainer (Cloud Computing) for one Chinese telecoms manufacturer, and my main machine is a MacBook air Early 2015.
Why?
* I need all the power of Unix under the hood without fighting with my drivers.
* I want a nice slick GUI on top of that to help my workflow.
* I NEED full Office compatibility without whining at all (pun intended).
Note: While I use LibreOffie for work at the University and find it passable (althoug the Dictionary, Spellchecker and Thesaurus in Spanish can't hold a candle to their counterparts in Office 2016), the Chinese use Office for everything (excels for reporting progress and clossing courses, Powerpoints with the presentations), and in Particular, in PowerPoint, if I use LibreOffice the layout sometimes goes to hell and the animations are lost.
* I want my games selections on Steam to count into the Thousands, not Hundreds.
* I want to run Windows for those few things that do not run on Mac (currently Project, Visio, Arkam city Origins). So, goodbye ARM PCs
* If I ever change my line of work to, say, graphics design, the tools of the trade run on Mac whitout whining (again, pun intended).
To this particular machine, I can Change the Battery, FAN and the SSD down the road to extend the usseful life (not that apple allows, but I am proficient enough to do it).
And while I do not care much about fashion, it helps that the trainees that work on telcos in LatAm see you comming with a Mac (even my aluminum unibody late 2008), instead of a PC.
Those are my reasons to own a Mac, and I suspect I am not the only one in a similar position.
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
I have one and use it on a daily basis, but primarily as a SIMless podcast player using PocketCasts (which I still hope to see one last update for....).
The lack of apps is the big thing, and a couple of the ones you mention may become more problematic in the near future
There are other more niche apps I'd like to have which either aren't available or can't be available due to the security model - things like SMS, call log and decent location tracking.
As for other aspects, for a Microsoft phone running Outlook it has a terrible time with calendar sync - I'll add a calendar entry on an Android tablet, it'll sync to my company Exchange server, show up on my Android phone, then show up on the Windows phone hours later after the event and only when I actually open the calendar app to see why I didn't have a notification on there. While the keyboard is better than it appears at first, it still has some gaping holes (such as not showing the "secondary" characters available by swiping on the keys).
I don't feel bad about having purchased the phone and might do it again under the same circumstances - it was $80 and I got a free 1-year subscription to Office365 with it, and my previous phone was showing signs of dying - but with the current status of Windows Phone and the application environment I can't imagine the scenario in which I'd actually buy one to use as a daily driver.
fencepost
just a little off
Strange, I have one sitting right in front of me, and it seems to still be alive. A few hours ago, I was sitting next to my son at dinner, and he was showing me his Android. I used to have an Android, but I much prefer the Windows OS. He said, "But you can't get App A on Windows!" I opened up the Windows phone store, and downloaded App A. "Oh, but you can't get App B!" I went back to the Windows store, got App B.
Obviously there are far more apps for Android than there are for Windows. Some would say I was just lucky. I'd say I don't need the junky apps that mostly fill the Android store. In all the years I had an Android phone, I never found as good a weather app as the one that came built into my Windows phone. I prefer the navigation apps I have on Windows to the ones I had on my Android phone (although I hear that app maker has jumped ship). It's much easier to set the alarm on my Windows phone (the Android phone was always over-shooting). And in general I find my Windows phone easier to use.
I am _not_ an Ms shill, and I never moved from Win7 to Win8 on my desktop (nor have I found any compelling reason yet to move to Win10). And for programming, Linux is far superior. But Android is, IMNSHO, a piece of junk.
I realize that barring some miracle, the Windows phone will probably be dead some day. But it isn't yet.
No they make Windows Phone, which is a family of OS for phones, going on 16 years now. Right now they have 1.6% market share in the world. rather pathetic
You said one truth, its hard to find a good weather app on android, the g play search engine is either fucked up or too cluttered with advertisement. The top ones seems to be of all those TV weather companies that apparently have trash mobile devs, because their apps suck ass. I can name you a couple good ones. Weather timeline, AccuWeather, Wecal(also calendar ), 14 days.
This stuff is true for most common apps like launchers, browsers, messaging, cameras, battery managers, cleaning tools, media players.
"Apple's core customer base is interested in fashion accessories and status symbols". Not really, I work in science and we're filthy with Macs and iPhone and iPads, this is not status conscious community. They use the devices because they need to get work done. I recall one fellow finally making the switch from Winders to Mac, his comment to me was, "I feel like I own my computer again". I'm not entirely sure what MS is doing to their clientele, but that sentiment seems rife among scientists.
I felt that way when I switched to Linux.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
They stared with forcibly not allowing Windows 7 and 8.1 to run on Skylake hardware after 18 months...
http://arstechnica.com/informa...
They're also removing USB 2.0 support, to make sure your much-older computers are properly neutered. Guess you're going to be using that Skylake-esque hardware after all...
http://wccftech.com/intel-skyl...
Don't ask a question if you don't want to know the answer!.
- Sig
Sorry, I'll go back to trimming my beard.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
If by "sold" you include "dispose of at approximately 1/10th of the cost of building the damned things."
The wife was given one by her daughter a few months ago. Camera is OK. WiFi works (an improvement on the previous phone). It has ... a mapping app which we found could give directions after a few weeks. Oh, and Skype (so the wife can talk to her mother abroad).
What else would you want from a phone? Particularly if you've got a proper SatNav in the car as well.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
If I sold 2.3 million of phones I'd be a millionaire and very happy. ;)
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
What MS really needs to do to keep in the mobile market and save Nokia is to completely move to a MS branded flavor of Android. They still need to meet the requirements for Google services, which I know would be horrible for them to have to release a device that would require a google logon for all it's features. They have, however, lost the mobile OS race. If they would just give up on their mobile OS and delicate those resources to a platform(android) they could actually start working on REAL desktop and mobile OS integration. I got a Lumia at the same time I got my surface pro. There was absolutely no integration benefit. The surface pro was awesome. The Lumia 1020, with my favorite camera ever, only stayed with me 6 months. The windows mobile interface was miserable. I can't believe they're throwing away so much time on making what is their only decision at this point.
What I really want, and have wanted for a long time, is an Atom based Windows 10 phone. That is, a real x86 intel phone so that Continuum exposes a real Windows PC that can run real Win32 software. Then you don't even need any special magic to run Android apps, because you can actually just run Android in Hyper-V or VirtualBox like a sane person.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild