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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 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.
Seriously... Harder?
Free download for Vista and XP users.
So far they've only targeted Win 7 and 8 machines.
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.
Windows 7 doesn't access the Windows Store. The Windows 7 install base is HUGE. They want those people off Windows 7 and on an OS that has their store built in. Windows 7 runs on almost 60% of general user PCs, this number includes Macs. https://www.netmarketshare.com... That's a shit ton of potential people buying from your store. Let's face it, most people running W7 won't pay to upgrade, but their logic will be "hey if it's free, why not?!?". There you go, more money extracted from what would otherwise be a zero revenue generating install.
MS takes 30% of sales on their Windows store. MS wants everyone purchasing from their store so they get a 30% cut of every other company's programming work.
How I interpret MS's a long term goal - it's likely that they want to at some point force you go through the "Windows Store" to buy programs, just like Apple does on their "App Store". Hey,if you can't ignore the forced update that makes this change, then too bad for you. Here's how I see it as a general outline:
1. Develop New Windows OS that Data Mines (read new MS agreements @ https://edri.org/microsofts-ne... ), "cloud services", and more importantly includes the windows store and forced OS updates to add/remove features as they see fit. - Check
2. Offer "Free" windows upgrades - Check
3. Gain Installs / market penetration for new windows OS - In Progress
4. Sell / Use mined data for marketing purposes - Check (See above)
5. Leverage "cloud" services as a vendor lock in - Future
6. Sell more "windows services" - Future
7. Use forced Os updates to lock windows program installation down to their store just like Apple does on iOS - More Distant Future
8. Utilize a 90%+ PC device install base to profit massively off the "windows store" ( http://www.windowscentral.com/... ) - More Distant Future
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!
Larger community, more drivers for common hardware. Why would anyone use BSD?
Indeed.
Sometimes I just cannot believe it's decided to let me wait while it renders a huge number of thumbnail images instead of letting me actually do stuff. Context switches just browsing into another directory are also difficult to believe are a good idea. Incredible indeed. They managed to make it far worse than the earlier version.
"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.
> it's likely that they want to at some point force you
> go through the "Windows Store" to buy programs,
> just like Apple does on their "App Store"
Score: -1, Factually Incorrect. Apple does NOT "force" you to buy apps in their store. They encourage you to use the store, sure, and they'll pop up a warning the first time you try to run an app from somewhere else, but it's literally one click in System Preferences to say "run software from anywhere."
http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-con...
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
If your current strategy works, great. But as someone who has also been involved in administering Linux and Windows boxes, Powershell is a great tool with a multitude of very useful features. As much as I love Bash, I would be very happy if Powershell got ported to Linux.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
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.
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
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!
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.