Satya Nadella: 'We Clearly Missed the Mobile Phone' (mashable.com)

At the Wall Street Journal's WSJD Live conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admitted that Microsoft has largely failed in making a dent in the mobile hardware business. Nadella, who took over the command of Microsoft from Steve Ballmer in February 2014, however added that the company is now focused on doing well in new categories and also building new categories. He said:We clearly missed the mobile phone, there's no question. Our goal now is to make sure we grow new categories. We have devices which are phones today but the place where we are focused on, given where the market is, is what is the unique thing that our phone can do. We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC, the same way we have a tablet that can replace your laptop. Those are the categories that we want to go create. If anything, the lesson learned for us, was thinking of PC as the hub for all things for all time to come. It was perhaps one for the bigger mistakes we made.

Comments

First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Sent from my Windows phone.

Re: First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Liar! No one has a Windows Phone!

Re:First Post

[peragrin]

And how old is that phone?

There'sno chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them, than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get,". Steve ballmer in a 2007 interview with USA Today.

Microsoft didn't even see it coming.

Re:First Post

[paiute]

Microsoft didn't even see it coming.

Microsoft is a lot like Wile E. Coyote. We can see that the anvil is going to land squarely on them, but they never seem to be able to look far enough into the future to see it themselves.

Re:First Post

[FatdogHaiku]

Microsoft didn't even see it coming.

Microsoft is a lot like Wile E. Coyote. We can see that the anvil is going to land squarely on them, but they never seem to be able to look far enough into the future to see it themselves.

You forgot the part about them over-paying for the anvil in the first place...
and then paying extra for the expedited shipping option.
When it comes to cartoon anvils, everyone knows expedited shipping means "will fall from sky at some point".

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, Microsoft never sticks to a product line long enough to warrant investment in it.

Microsoft had the leading smartphone OS before it was called a smartphone (remember PocketPC's ?), before RIM's blackberry became the de-facto business device. Google set their eyes specifically on overtaking RIM and Apple came up and offered something compelling that wasn't a stuffy old blackberry clone.

The end result is that Apple is the Market Leader for the Smartphone, if you're not doing it Apple's way, you are doing it wrong. Google recognized that and changed Android from knocking off Blackberry to knocking off iOS, Nokia meanwhile kept on trucking out phones that appealed to people who didn't care about smartphones. Microsoft's killed it's own market share in order to push Windows Phone 7, then 8, and now 10. Each time halving their market share. So they went from 11% in 2001 to 0.7%.

Microsoft screwed up and lost it's foothold in the mobile scene. Had they never dumped the PocketPC, they might be market leaders today. But whoops, guess Microsoft hasn't been innovative since 2001 (Windows XP), and is just coasting on by spit-polishing it's existing software and doing as little as possible. This also cost them:
Internet Explorer, which went from market leader to toxic brand (now Microsoft Edge)
Windows Media Center (disappeared after Windows Vista)
Windows Media Player (Everyone uses VLC or Kodi (the latter is a knock off of Windows Media Center))
Outlook/Express (as a email client), nobody uses email clients anymore since they're not secure enough.
Zune (iPod and iPhone has completely killed it off)
Most applications of the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One outside of a game device. (At some point you were able to use it as an extender, before Steam and nVidia made their own non-Microsoft extenders)

Yet they spun off one of their most successful things:
Microsoft Mediaroom (IPTV) (Now Ericsson Mediaroom)

See that was a product that could have taken over the "SmartTV" ecosystem along with the Microsoft Media Center, but nope, Microsoft fumbled there too.

So far there is no winner in the SmartTV ecosystem, they're all bad, and if you were an early adopter, you likely bought a any SmartTV, none of the "smart" features work, and it's now really a "dumb tv" with a netflix app.

Microsoft's non-commitment to it's hardware and software keeps tarnishing the brand. If they are not willing to commit

Re: First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything you said is absolutely right. Having been a mobile dev since 2000 Microsoft really had the first smartphones so they missed nothing. It's the IDIOTS who probably backstabbed their way into the Microsoft smartphone dept who through away the code and customer base of 6.5 to come out with a clone of iOS 1.0. I do like the Windows Phone UI, but it should have been put on top of 6.5, not totally replacing it. Complete morons took over mobile at Microsoft then.

Re:First Post

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.

Lol. Apple sells more phones in a slow week than Microsoft was able to sell in any 2 quarters.

Ballmer must wince every time he sees that quote. :)

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, aren't you special.

Re:First Post

[Rob Y.]

Microsoft didn't 'miss' the iPhone - since their basic business model had always been to sit back and copy whatever big new thing Apple (or anybody else, for that matter) came up with - and count on tie-ins to the desktop to make their copy succeed. What they missed was Android, which swooped in and stole the OEM market from them. By the time they were ready to move the app barrier to entry was too big. That said, Blackberry missed Android too - they failed from a leadership position.

They failed with their iPod clone too - but for a different reason. iPods were fairly cheap, and they tied your music collection to the Apple ecosystem. And iPods worked with Windows as well as anything else - i.e., they were cheap enough and limited enough in functionality that MS couldn't leverage Windows to out-compete Apple.

Re:First Post

[OneHundredAndTen]

Don't forget that Ballmer is supposed to be a genius.

Re:First Post

[Rob Y.]

...and by the way, the Continuum thing may also be too late to market. Once Android has the same desktop dockability, the only advantage of Continuum will be the ability to run legacy Windows apps. Not a small advantage, that - but the keyword is legacy. The market for people that want a pricey phone with crappy phone apps so they can dock it to use legacy X86 Windows apps is pretty small. And once most of those legacy Windows apps get Android - or web - replacements, that market is better served by just using existing laptops for the Windows apps. Why invest in docking stations just to run legacy windows apps from your phone?

The beauty of Continuum would've been if everyone were using it, and docking stations were pretty universally available. Sure, it would've been great to plug your phone into a dock at the airport, for example, and have a full desktop at your disposal. But who's going to invest in that docking infrastructure to serve the tiny population of Windows Phone users whose companies also invested in it to the point that they handed out Continuum-capable devices to their employees? For that to happen, you'd need a docking standard that works with iPhones, Android phones and, sure, I guess Windows Phones could support that too. And of course, you'd need decent iPhone and Android desktop apps to make that desirable. But by the time you've got all that in place, you're back at 'if an iPhone or Android - with the mobile apps I want - can do it, and Windows can, but doesn't have the mobile apps...

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

> By the time they were ready to move

The problem is, they kind of still aren't today.
Their latest switch of app format (to UWP) is not long ago, and who knows when the next one will come, so they still have not reached the point where they have a stable base for developers to build on. Even by the most pessimistic estimate, that point was reached by Android with 4.0 and proper integrated tablet support (in 2012), though you could argue even 2.3 was already there.
And the kind of only "story"/"killer app" they have is Continuum, and being available in only one phone it basically is still a "tech demo".
Microsoft is still operating in that mode where they create and abandon frameworks faster than a lot of developers actually pick something up, and on a phone due to both development cost and resource constraints they can't just do the "ship all our old aborted attempts with the OS".
You can't have a tiny 0.7% market and then boast the highest risk and development cost for apps on top of it. And then not even be able to convince one of your own divisions (Skype) to support at least 2 versions of your OS. That just smells of "even inside Microsoft, only those whose job depends on it believe their Smartphone OS isn't a pointless exercise".
Luckily for Microsoft a lot of people and companies are still stuck believing that betting against Microsoft is a horribly risky move. Once they lose the last shreds of that image, I would expect the real trouble to start.

Re:First Post

[F.Ultra]

At tossing chairs or performing stupid dances?

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Never forget the tiny umbrella. Classic

http://i745.photobucket.com/albums/xx97/JML9999/Wyle_E_Coyote_Large_Umbrela_zps4e523dd3.jpg

_

Re:First Post

[fbobraga]

nobody uses email clients anymore since they're not secure enough.

not true here on my work (and several business I know) - maybe is a Brazilian thing (that I kind of like: it's avoiding The Cloud [TM])

Re:First Post

[TemporalBeing]

More to the point, Microsoft never sticks to a product line long enough to warrant investment in it.

True.

Microsoft had the leading smartphone OS before it was called a smartphone (remember PocketPC's ?), before RIM's blackberry became the de-facto business device.

False. PocketPC was a desktop clone for small device form factors that sucked so bad it was hilarious. Sure if you wanted Win95/NT4 on a phone it'd have been great...but then, you had to use a stylus to do anything as that was your mouse, and it required a full keyboard. Could it be considered a Smart Phone? Yes, but it absolutely sucked and never really had a very big market share - no where near majority by any means.

Palm and then RIM won b/c they actually did stuff the user cared about in easy to use manners.

Google set their eyes specifically on overtaking RIM and Apple came up and offered something compelling that wasn't a stuffy old blackberry clone.

Yes, Google and Apple aimed at displacing RIM b/c RIM was the de facto standard for anything more than a basic cell phone. If you wanted email, you got a Blackberry. RIM would probably still be a leader in the market if they hadn't screwed up with a highly centralized network design and had a 1 week network outage - which led to a lot of execs getting iPhones and demanding that their IT departments integrate the iPhone so they could use it; both Apple and Google exploited that, though Apple was the clear winner having a superior and flashier product that the Exec's loved.

The end result is that Apple is the Market Leader for the Smartphone, if you're not doing it Apple's way, you are doing it wrong. Google recognized that and changed Android from knocking off Blackberry to knocking off iOS, Nokia meanwhile kept on trucking out phones that appealed to people who didn't care about smartphones. Microsoft's killed it's own market share in order to push Windows Phone 7, then 8, and now 10. Each time halving their market share. So they went from 11% in 2001 to 0.7%.

Microsoft screwed up and lost it's foothold in the mobile scene. Had they never dumped the PocketPC, they might be market leaders today.

Well, if Microsoft hadn't abandoned PocketPC (aka Windows Mobile) then yes they'd probably have a bigger market share, but it'd still be a pittance compared to Apple and Google. As I said, PocketPC was basically the Windows Desktop in a small form factor - it would not be able to compete with Android or iOS. It also didn't have updates of any kind - builds were done by hardware vendors (not Microsoft) and there was no AppStore kind of thing for it. What you got when the device shipped is what it had when you retired it.

But that was always the Microsoft motive operandi - everything was focused around the Windows Desktop Environment or was an extension of it. For mobile, they put out PocketPC/WindowsMobile to exand Windows Desktop to mobile/small form factors; they put out Windows Server to push Windows Desktop into the Server Room; then extended Windows Desktop into the XBox to capture game consoles; they put out Windows 10 IoT to capture things like RasperryPi's (accessible and programmable only via Visual Studios, no direct user-interface).

No, Microsoft has not really learned the lesson of the failed Windows Phone experiment - that they won't ever hold the entire market, that people don't want Windows on everything. They're done a bit better with Azure and responding with LInux capabilities on it - but it still runs on top of Windows and all the overhead that incurs.

Re:First Post

[farble1670]

Seems to me like understanding your own mistakes is a pretty good step towards rectifying them.

MSFT under Ballmer was late or completely missed important trends like mobile and search. Ballmer focused on monetizing existing revenue sources, not building new ones. But since then, I think MSFT's hardware strategy has been good. I REALLY like the idea of creating hardware that eliminates the need for other hardware. This, as opposed to Apple's strategy of "now we built an iPad / iWatch, you need that too!". I like the idea of having one core OS on all your devices. I like the idea of a mobile device docking and serving as a desktop.
 

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

>Internet Explorer, which went from market leader to toxic brand (now Microsoft Edge)
Agree
>Windows Media Center (disappeared after Windows Vista)
Still present (even, standard in Pro & Ultimate) in Win7. Went away with Win8.
>Windows Media Player (Everyone uses VLC or Kodi (the latter is a knock off of Windows Media Center))
Agree, though WMP is still around in Win10 if you look hard enough. I use VLC on PCs, but VLC is still a work in progress (as are all apps, really) for Windows Phone.
>Outlook/Express (as a email client), nobody uses email clients anymore since they're not secure enough.
And good riddance. Outlook itself wasn't bad, and I still use Thunderbird. Is keeping your data on your own computer, as opposed to, say, Yahoo or Google, not secure enough assuming you have basic things like a firewall, and the client either encrypts you local data itself or runs in an encrypted directory?
>Zune (iPod and iPhone has completely killed it off)
This seems like something they could have saved if it had been redone for phone (Win and Android). But that was too much trouble and of course not New! Shiny!
>Most applications of the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One outside of a game device. (At some point you were able to use it as an extender, before Steam and nVidia made their own non-Microsoft extenders)
And why not? If you want a PC, buy a PC. If you want a game console, buy a game console. Sure, you could run Linux on some Playstations, but why? So you can run Win10 on some XBoxes; why?
>Yet they spun off one of their most successful things:
>Microsoft Mediaroom (IPTV) (Now Ericsson Mediaroom)
Hadn't heard of that one, but it sounds kind of niche. Sort of like relying on VirtualDub - good, but obscure.
They also spun off or killed most of their game development - shut down the Game Studio that had built (often but not always contracted-out) Flight Simulator (sold rights to somebody who updated it for commercial use), Train Simulator (v1 worked; v2 never got finished, twice), and a collection of other games that were, for their time, not bad. Not sure what happened to most of them. Sure, it's hard to compete with EA head-on, but MS had a couple of franchises with very little competition; not there is some, including some that's free, since MS abandoned the field.

Then there's Windows Phone - by v8.1 Cyan or Denim, it was a pretty good system that mainly failed to generate interest in app support due to low market share, which of course became a circle-the-drain proposition. I have one (Nokia-branded) - a pretty good phone, and for normal use it just works. But these days (largely because, IMO, nobody wants to be bothered with developing a decent web site any more) if you don't have Google or Apple-level app stores, you're dead. MS never had one that was close, and it's gotten worse. So byebye WinPhone. Too much trouble to actually, yaknow, COMPETE! Android is not going to be a good replacement for me, among other things due to the problems getting UPDATE support (which MS had too, but since they didn't (have to) do so many for the phones it wasn't as much of a problem) for more than 6 months. Wonder how many 1-year-old (or more) Android phones were part of the recent DDoS attacks?

MS does have a small toe in the low-end tablet market with Win10. Several 8-12" class ARM machines commonly available. While there's nothing like the variety in Android light tablets, it's there and the people I know who got them are happy. Among other things, basic Office apps are free with the system at the low end. While slightly more expensive than Android tablets in the class, they work well and MS could do a lot to promote it. But they're Not Invented By Redmond and they're Not Surface so I don't expect MS to do much about it - in the one new place at the moment where they could make an impact on Android and Apple dominance.

I do not own, and do not plan to buy, MS stock. They have enough cash and enough income from the remaining PC and server market

Re:First Post

[PRMan]

I remember having a conversation with a tech about my Windows CE phone, explaining that I should be able to download and install apps directly instead of connecting up my PC and syncing to do it.

He argued that "Nobody wants to do that."

I replied, "I do."

Microsoft had the market share, but they were too interesting in tying the phone to their Windows monopoly to give users what they wanted. Apple did this too, until everyone told them they needed apps on the phone.

Re:First Post

[unixisc]

For all my home computers, I use Thunderbird (in PC-BSD) or the built in client under iOS or Android. For my work one, I still use Outlook out of habit from my days when my former employers used Exchange Server.

Re: First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

I use K-9 on Android: it's pretty good (and open source)

Re:First Post

[Darinbob]

In some way it's still true. 60-70% of android is a bigger market than all of the iphone. What they missed is that there would be other competitors jumping into the market so soon.

Which they could have foreseen - both iphone and android started life outside of Apple and Google, the development of smarter things than java phones or feature phones was ongoing if you knew where to look.

Re:First Post

[arglebargle_xiv]

Microsoft had the leading smartphone OS before it was called a smartphone

They've still got a very widely-deployed smartphone OS, only for some unfathomable reason they've decided it needs to be running on everyone's desktop/laptop PCs.

Re:First Post

[Shirley Marquez]

One correction: Windows Media Center was also in Windows 7. You could get it as a $15 upgrade to Windows 8 (supposedly a fee for the codecs and DVD playback license) but only from Windows 8 Pro rather than Home, effectively killing it since the target market would have had to spend $114 to get Media Center ($99 for the upgrade to Pro plus $15 for WMC). It wasn't until Windows 10 that it was completely dead.

The Xbox One S will probably enjoy a bit of popularity as an Ultra Blu-Ray player, for the minority that still cares about discs. But Microsoft killed the proposed Xbox DVR capability which would have been a successor to WMC. My suspicion is that they couldn't overcome the licensing and DRM issues that the content producers wanted to impose; there were no major technical barriers.

Re:First Post

[Shirley Marquez]

Unfortunately for Microsoft, Intel killed the future of the Windows tablet market when they cancelled the successors to the Cherry Trail platform. More powerful and expensive hybrids like the Surface Pro remain alive and well.

Re:First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet now we see Apple copy Microsoft. The iPad Pro is a blatant rip of the Surface and a poor one at that. Apple couldn't call their stylus a "pen" so they call it a pencil. Apple doesn't have a full touch OS, but wait a year and they'll copy Microsoft again.

From today's Microsoft event, it looks like Apple may now start to lose more artists. I don't see anything in the Apple line even close to Microsoft Studio.

Yeah: like pushing their crap onto captive markets

[Anonymous Coward]

Making the deal with the bosses to force the sheep to follow along (schools here in Germany are a good example).

That's what Microsoft was always good at. Wine and dine the decision makers. The ones who, lastly, don't have to put up with their crap, since it's their secretary who does it for them.

Really?

[nospam007]

"the lesson learned for us, was thinking of PC as the hub for all things for all time to come. It was perhaps one for the bigger mistakes we made."

Apparently, according to IBM, they should give up and make Macs instead.

No you don't

[110010001000]

"We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC"

No. You don't. Because that isn't possible to do. The fact that this guy even said that means he is clueless about mobile. He needs to be replaced.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC"

No. You don't. Because that isn't possible to do. The fact that this guy even said that means he is clueless about mobile. He needs to be replaced.

"...the same way we have a tablet that can replace your laptop"

So technically he's correct, just not in the sense he wants to be.

Re:No you don't

[bondsbw]

You sound exactly like the guys who said nobody would buy a phone that had a software keyboard.

Don't worry, I'll get off your lawn.

Re:No you don't

[Gr8Apes]

"We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC" No. You don't. Because that isn't possible to do. The fact that this guy even said that means he is clueless about mobile. He needs to be replaced.

For likely 80% of the population that is in fact a true statement. Facebook? Check. Viewing youtube videos? Check. Web browsing? Check. Email? What's that.. err, check. Messaging? In all its forms, check.

Re:No you don't

[Gr8Apes]

Wait, I was thinking Android / iPhones. Windows phones? Not so much....

Re:No you don't

[mwvdlee]

There are plenty of people who can do everything that they do with a PC (i.e. watch YouTube, post on Facebook and play games) on a phone.
Most people don't use their PC's for anything more than mass media consumption; a phone or tablet could be a complete replacement for all their needs.

Re:No you don't

[Kjella]

No. You don't. Because that isn't possible to do. The fact that this guy even said that means he is clueless about mobile. He needs to be replaced.

Ah our resident doofus. If he said he had a PC to replace your phone, obviously he'd be clueless. A phone to replace your PC? Why not, for most people their phone now has way more power than the PC had ten years ago, it just has bigger input/output devices. Microsoft could make a x86 phone with a HDMI/DisplayPort/USB dock (or just an USB-C cable hookup) and it'd make a perfectly satisfactory PC for most people. His problem will be that nobody wants the phone side of it, they want their iApps or Google Play-apps.

Re:No you don't

[Archangel Michael]

The problem with Microsoft, is that they view themselves as a "Windows" company. I've said this for years, and was laughed at a long time ago. They are still a "Windows" company. Everything they do, they try to tie into "Windows" regardless of whether or not it fits that product. In the end, they will be a Windows company.

Their mistake, is thinking "Windows" when they should have been thinking "Technology"

Re:No you don't

[Junta]

Well, in principle it's not so far fetched. In terms of compute power, most people have needs that can be met. The PC difference is human factors around input/output. So their 'continuum' concept is not too terrible in *theory*.

In practice, 'modern' applications are nearly non-existant, making the phone-friendly applications exteremely limited. Where they do exist, they tend to have a worse interface than their Android/iOS equivalents (e.g. netflix's modern app is terrible). 99% of my Windows 10 PC usage is 'traditional' win32 applications (occasionally I open up calculator). With the windows 10 improvements, at *least* it's possible to create a viable UI for desktop and full screen usage, though still being responsive UI to span anywhere from a window on a desktop to a tablet to a phone is an art that escapes most UI designers.

Re:No you don't

[Junta]

The point that MS was *trying* to make was that they could give a phone that when docked becomes a viable PC (shame they made it based on ARM, which nullifies that promise of value, even in theory).

MS has a challenge that on the one hand they need to move beyond leveraging their near monopoly on desktop to get success. The problem is they haven't produced something that is new and compelling on its own merits in over a decade. They keep breaking and fixing Windows, keep milking the cash cow that is Office. Continue selling SQL server to shops that say 'hey, ' SQL server from our OS vendor, good enough'. They continue to enjoy their position with Exchange of having unbelievably terrible competition in the space. On the flip side they struggle to get people to enthusiastically adopt their messaging platform (repeatedly rebranding it and redressing and still having fundamental problems) or sharepoint (which makes users and admins alike cringe in much the same way people cringe at the phrase 'Lotus Notes').

I suppose Azure is a sign of their success, buried in the bowels far away from consumer end users at least..

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it does, for some.. with ubuntu phones...

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

And you sound like a tech noob that doesn't understand the fact that a physically larger form factor will always be able to cram in more power than a smaller form factor.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

A phone to replace your PC? Why not, for most people their phone now has way more power than the PC had ten years ago

Fantastic! Now all I need is a time machine to go back to ten years ago and give past me my phone and I will have been all set.

Re:No you don't

[ranton]

"[We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC] ...the same way we have a tablet that can replace your laptop"
So technically he's correct, just not in the sense he wants to be.

My Surface Pro 4 has replaced my laptop. Although it hasn't replaced my iPad, my Note 4 phablet did that.

Re:No you don't

[ooloorie]

"...the same way we have a tablet that can replace your laptop"

They can both be used as trays for serving drinks?

Re:No you don't

[gtall]

I think it is more that everything they do they call Windows...except for Office, but then they tie a lot of Office into Windows.

Re: No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure he's referring to phones that support continuum, dingus

Re:No you don't

[CohibaVancouver]

No. You don't. Because that isn't possible to do.

Sure it is. Watch this video -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

No, I don't work for HP. No, I don't work for Microsoft. I just think it's a cool phone.

Re:No you don't

[DickBreath]

Xbox = Windows
Data Center = Windows
Phones = Windows
Tablets = Windows

But what does the rest of the world use to run GPS navigators, cameras, routers, set top boxes, thermostats, wrist watches, super computers, and more? That would be Linux.

What do developers use? Linux. Microsoft admitted as much when they said the reason for bash on Windows was to lure developers back.

Maybe you shouldn't have driven developers away with Windows Surface, a whole new App API, and your crappy app store. Oh, but Surface also drove OEMs away because it back stabbed them by competing directly with them on hardware. And Surface drove users away, because it sucked. Wow. Developers, OEMs and Users. What a master stroke the Surface was!

Re:No you don't

[DickBreath]

Azure. It's the name of a color. A shade of blue. It's the color of acrid blue smoke belched by an old engine that is dying.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

"Workstations will never replace mainframes."
"PCs will never replace workstations".

Carry on.

Re:No you don't

[Gr8Apes]

But what does the rest of the world use to run GPS navigators, cameras, routers, set top boxes, thermostats, wrist watches, super computers, and more? That would be Linux.

What do developers use? Linux. Microsoft admitted as much when they said the reason for bash on Windows was to lure developers back.

Actually, they use some form of *nix at this point. Fewer and fewer are running windows. Even a long-time hard-core windows dev friend switched to macs and java because of his job just a couple of years ago and now can't believe he put up with that crap for so long. He only lost a couple percent of his team due to the switch, with the rest actually being happier.

What a master stroke the Surface was!

I thought so. How else could we get them to be sidelined more rapidly? If MS because just an app based services company like it appears they're going to be, I'm fine with that. Especially as tablet and phone apps force them into a more sane development model.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

How many mainstream PCs do you know of running Xeon or Opteron CPUs? How many have more than eight physical CPUs in them? How many have more than 32GB of RAM? How many have Tesla, Quadro or Titan X GPUs in them?

That's what I thought.

Re:No you don't

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC"

No. You don't. Because that isn't possible to do. The fact that this guy even said that means he is clueless about mobile. He needs to be replaced.

For once, I agree wholeheartedly. I don't think a phone, regardless of how capable, will be replacing a desktop PC anytime soon. Maybe someday, but not for some time to come. And the "tablet that can replace your laptop" is in the same category. Maybe someday...but not today, and certainly not tomorrow.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

And let me guess... your Note 7 has replaced dynamite for removing tree stumps from your yard.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Now show me that phone running 64-bit software, Maya, 3ds Max, Mudbox, The Witcher III, Crysis 3, Just Cause 3, etc.

I'll check back with this thread in a decade...that is if Microsoft and Windows even exist by then.

Re:No you don't

[sglewis100]

"Laptops won't ever replace desktops."

Re:No you don't

[sglewis100]

How many mainstream PCs do you know of running Xeon or Opteron CPUs? How many have more than eight physical CPUs in them? How many have more than 32GB of RAM? How many have Tesla, Quadro or Titan X GPUs in them?

That's what I thought.

How many mainstream PC users do you know of needing Xeon or Opteron CPUs? Or more than eight physical CPUs in this? Or more than 32GB of RAM? Or Tesla, Quadro or Titan X GPUs in them? That's what *I* thought.

Seriously, nobody said high end workstations and servers should go away. Just that for most consumers and business users, a laptop on the desk with an external monitor is pretty much covering their needs.

Same way nobody said DSLRs and medium format cameras will ever go away. But the iPhone or Android in most people's pockets suits their needs.

Re:No you don't

[TheRaven64]

All of those are bad examples, because the latter form factor is better in every way except its ability to fit hardware inside. If you could make a laptop that contained the same hardware as a desktop, for the same price, then it would obviously be better. A decade ago, laptop sales outpaced desktop sales and so the economies of scale started to tilt things in favour of the laptop. As desktops become increasingly niche, the prices will keep going up and a lot of desktops now are just laptops without the built-in screen, keyboard, or battery.

If you take a desktop and scaled everything down so that you had the same amount of storage, CPU and GPU power, and RAM in a laptop form factor, for the same price, then obviously the laptop is better for most people (people who need PCIe slots being the exceptions).

If you took a laptop and scaled everything down so that you had the same amount of storage, CPU and GPU power, and RAM in a phone form factor, then you'll have a very powerful phone, but it won't replace a laptop. There are a lot of things where you can open up the laptop and start working immediately, but the phone will need connecting to an external monitor and keyboard before it's equally useful. Even putting a picoprojector in the phone won't entirely solve that, as you often don't have a useable projection space.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Now show me that phone running 64-bit software, Maya, 3ds Max, Mudbox, The Witcher III, Crysis 3, Just Cause 3, etc.

I'll check back with this thread in a decade...that is if Microsoft and Windows even exist by then.

Yeah, because there are some apps that literally HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of people need. My wife ignores tablets laying around the house that I don’t use anymore. She doesn’t want a new laptop and doesn’t use any of the older ones we have. She works on a PC at work. She checks work email and responds here and there on her phone at home. She keeps up on Facebook from her phone. And that’s about that. The reason the phone can replace the computer is because for most people it just can. The fact that some one needs to run really high end stuff, and some other people are gamers but not console users doesn’t change the fact that the phone replaces the computer for many, many, many consumers.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

How many mainstream PC users do you know of needing Xeon or Opteron CPUs?

Irrelevant. The fact is that PCs never replaced workstations so my argument stands, but that's a mighty fine strawman you've built there.

Maybe you should learn some reading and comprehension skills before you decide to participate in a discussion next time.

Re: No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. The phone may be ok for the "consuming" activities, like watching cat videos. Also useful for sharing snaps & clips, and writing short comments.

And that is not enough to replace a pc. Phone games are weak compared to pc. But the killer is plain word processing. You dont write many-page reports on a phone. Too cumbersome. Writing this short comment was a stretch.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

If you could make a laptop that contained the same hardware as a desktop, for the same price, then it would obviously be better.

And even if you could do that, nothing would stop you from placing many times that amount of hardware inside of a desktop form factor and making a desktop PC that is again more powerful than that laptop.

Re:No you don't

[sglewis100]

There are a lot of things where you can open up the laptop and start working immediately, but the phone will need connecting to an external monitor and keyboard before it's equally useful. Even putting a picoprojector in the phone won't entirely solve that, as you often don't have a useable projection space.

For you, sure. For me, yes. But for many consumers, no. My wife doesn't use her work laptop at home for anything other than actually working at home. She gave her iPad to one of our daughters. And she lives, outside of work, on an iPhone. Doesn't want a laptop. Doesn't care about a laptop. No, laptops will never 100% replace desktops. Desktops will never 100% replace workstations. Workstations will never 100% replace servers. Servers will never 100% replace mainframes (well... maybe they will). But for the great masses of people, they will.

There was a commenter above who said it's all nonsense because it can't run 64 bit apps like Maya. That's true, it can't. But it's still good enough for most people, and they will continue to erode sales, the same way high end smart phones have eroded sales of both point and shoot cameras and DSLRs. Things just get good enough for most people.

Since it's Slashdot, I guess I'll make a car analogy. What percentage of cars are sold in the U.S. with a manual transmission? Are manual transmissions better for some use cases? Sure. But automatic transmissions have taken over and will dominate the market.

Re:No you don't

[pr0fessor]

I have 5 sons only one of them owns a PC and he is a software developer the other 4 don't work in any tech field and have game consoles xbox1, PS4, and android phones and aside from gaming their cell phones do everything they would do on a PC.

Replacing the PC for regular users is already happening.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of true.

But they are using an Android or Apple phone.

Not Windows phone.

Re:No you don't

[Arashi256]

Don't be so closed minded. That's the sort of software that is important to you and me. For the vast majority of people, all they need is a word processor, email, instant messaging, web-browsing and Candy Crush Saga. Those sorts of things can absolutely be replaced by something like that.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Azure is operated using a Linux based network...

And hosting Linux is almost 40% of the entire thing.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

And? The discussion isn't about whether a specific person can get by on a phone or tablet instead of a PC, it's whether a phone or tablet can REPLACE a PC and the answer to that is no. It is impossible for a phone or tablet or any other form factor that is physically smaller to replace the PC as the PC will be the difference in its size more powerful always.

The fact that your wife doesn't need a PC doesn't mean the phone or tablet is a replacement for a PC.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

We aren't talking about the layman consumer who bought much more machine than they needed (a PC) just to be able to get online or write documents. We are talking about the hard fact that it is impossible for a phone or tablet to ever do what its contemporary in the PC world does.

Good enough for most people != replacement. Those people never needed the power of a PC in the first place.

Re: No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

His Note 8 will replace Apple.

Except a small minority will *always* use Apple products, after the fad is over.

sameasiteverwas

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

That the majority of people have limited computing needs does not negate the fact that a phone or tablet will never be as powerful or flexible as a PC. How is that difficult to understand?

It's like saying that because most people don't need trucks, that motorcycles are equivalent to trucks.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

It's perfectly relevant.
When it comes to X replacing Y, just because it may not be possible in some cases, does not prove that it is not possible in all cases.

Re:No you don't

[thegarbz]

GPS navigators

Windows actually. My last Tomtom crashed spectacularly to a CE desktop. Admittedly that was a while ago.

cameras

Mostly just a bit of custom code, unless you count that one camera Samsung made that runs Android, but then you should also count that camera with a Gigapixel sensor that runs full blow Windows 7 on it.

routers, set top boxes

Yep and yep.

thermostats

Errr nope.

wrist watches

Errr what?

Look there's a lot of things in Linux, but don't pretend it's on every device in the house. There's an awful lot of custom code out there and for many of the above if they are running on Linux it's typically the type of device you end up throwing away because it's slow and clunky to use (though no where near as slow as it would be running on Windows, and no prizes for guessing why I don't use that old Tomtom anymore)

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that your wife doesn't need a PC doesn't mean the phone or tablet is a replacement for a PC.

What does it mean then?

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Got any more goalposts to move?

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

N-n-n-no!! If I doesn't work for ME then it doesn't work for ANYONE! Everyone thinks like I do! If they don't, they are dumb and wrong!11

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

It means that his wife doesn't need a PC. Are you being purposefully obtuse or are you just an idiot?

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-sequitur much?

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

My last Tomtom crashed spectacularly to a CE desktop

That would be surprising, considering that Tomtom runs on Linux.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

What if I told you that you could use a operating system suited to your use case?

Re: No you don't

[Gr8Apes]

You're quite mistaken if you think the majority of the population cares about PC AAA games or word processing. Anything more than a tweet is unnecessary to them.

Re:No you don't

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

aside from gaming their cell phones do everything they would do on a PC.

So in other words, they haven't actually replaced their PC with their phone. And your other son, the one who has a real job, he does use a PC.

Thanks for clarifying that and for making my point.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

That implies the initial argument was explicitly 'all', please show me where it was.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

It means that his wife doesn't need a PC.

Which is Nadella's point

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Just following with the analogy. Some people use A instead of B because A does what they need. That's the same thing here.

Though your average Slashdot poster has trouble realizing that some people have different needs, so in their eyes everyone must buy a truck.

Re:No you don't

[TemporalBeing]

GPS navigators

Windows actually. My last Tomtom crashed spectacularly to a CE desktop. Admittedly that was a while ago.

As pointed out, TomTom is a Linux-based GPS; AFAIK they have only ever delivered Linux-based devices. So you're probably confusing your devices, or you had a really really old TomTom that is nothing like their products over the last 10+ years, but I highly doubt that. (FWIW, TomTom made the news back in the early 2000's b/c MS sued them over FAT FS patents since they used Linux and a FAT/vFAT FS.)

cameras

Mostly just a bit of custom code, unless you count that one camera Samsung made that runs Android, but then you should also count that camera with a Gigapixel sensor that runs full blow Windows 7 on it.

routers, set top boxes

Yep and yep.

thermostats

Errr nope.

wrist watches

Errr what?

Look there's a lot of things in Linux, but don't pretend it's on every device in the house. There's an awful lot of custom code out there and for many of the above if they are running on Linux it's typically the type of device you end up throwing away because it's slow and clunky to use (though no where near as slow as it would be running on Windows, and no prizes for guessing why I don't use that old Tomtom anymore)

Linux actually runs on a lot of stuff you wouldn't even imagine it runs on - and the devices are not slow. The majority of set-top boxes now run Linux; there's a lot of "smart" devices (refrigerators, microwaves, etc) that run Linux. Many of these same devices also use Qt - which has an extremely presence in the embedded world (go figure).

Now, while those devices may run Linux they don't necessarily run it in the same way you think. They might run a minimal (f.e busybox) or custom user land that may not resemble anything you would think of as Linux.

Re:No you don't

[Merk42]

The automobile didn't actually replace the horse and carriage because so many people nowadays never bought a horse and carriage first.

Re:No you don't

[PRMan]

I have an HP Stream 7 which is a full 7" Windows 10 PC that also can take a SIM card

Re:No you don't

[pr0fessor]

Sorry, the most successful is a contractor but doesn't own a PC except for what the business owns and he has secretary to use it for him. Good try, making it sound like everyone has to own a PC to have a real job. In my family it's only those over 35 that own PCs even if they use one at work.

Now you could say the gaming console and cell phone have replaced the PC but I have nieces that don't game and do everything they would normally do on a PC on their cellphone alone.

You will have to face it other than business, hardcore gamers, and a few other small niches the PC is dieing off.

Re:No you don't

[unixisc]

For likely 80% of the population that is in fact a true statement. Facebook? Check. Viewing youtube videos? Check. Web browsing? Check. Email? What's that.. err, check. Messaging? In all its forms, check.....

Wait, I was thinking Android / iPhones. Windows phones? Not so much....

For the items you mentioned, you can still check off the boxes. You can still FaceBook, Email, Message... YouTube videos - you'd have to download one of the many YouTube clients online (all of which allow you to download videos, unlike Google). Only thing where you're SOL - FaceTime/Duo, and VOIP calls, if you need to make international calls but want to avoid paying Verizon or T Mo.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

> "We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC"

Microsoft never did, and does not, want to 'replace your PC', it wants you to keep the PC (and pay for new versions of Windows and Office) while _adding_ a Windows Phones _and_ a Surface tablet, _and_ an XBox, and Azure to link them all together (and also a MS watch and a Zune, and everything else they could come up with).

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

> The fact is that PCs never replaced workstations

Yes, they did.

Or are you classing 'better than average PCs' as 'Workstations' to save your argument ?

Re:No you don't

[unixisc]

If Linux or BSD or Minix or any other Unix variant can be a multi-purpose OS, then why not Windows? I'm not suggesting that anyone has to design w/ Windows, but what is wrong w/ using Windows to make something that someone else would have made using Linux?

Re: No you don't

[Billly Gates]

Anyone born in the 20th century knows the grandparent is idiotic as of course I don't see green screen dumb terminals hooked to a massive mainframe for basic word processing.

Yes offices did this as mainframes were real systems. Not toys for serious WordPerfect use.

Opterons? Huh. IBM 370 mainframes didnt run these and modern mainframes don't run on Xeons or opterons either.

Re: No you don't

[Billly Gates]

The point is 10years ago all sons would have pcs

Re:No you don't

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You will have to face it other than business, hardcore gamers, and a few other small niches the PC is dieing off.

It's interesting that you mention that "other than business"....in other words, where real work is done. Face it, damn few people program or write books on a phone. No one does any in-depth scientific research on a phone. No one in their right mind does spreadsheets on a phone. No one does any serious graphical work on a phone (i.e. Photoshop, Adobe Live, After Effects, etc etc etc etc). .

Yes, PCs are certainly fading, but the phone is not replacing them for serious applications.

Re: No you don't

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

The point is 10years ago all sons would have pcs

Sure, because there was no real alternative for casual consumption of media. But most real work is still done on PCs, like it or not.

Go to any real estate office, law firm, printing operation, doctor's office, research lab, computer shop, etc etc etc....they're all still using PCs even though everyone has a phone in their pocket. Why is that? Because most real work is still done on a PC.

Re:No you don't

[sd4f]

Definitely an indictment on the platform when MS apps are better on iphone and android, and MS employees don't use windows mobile phones.

Re:No you don't

[pr0fessor]

Most of the 100k+ employees where I work are able to use a thin client with a 1GHz AMD SOC 2GB RAM 8GB Flash these really don't sound like a pc but everything is a hosted web app now and the processing happens on the server. As for our small graphics design department you'll pry their overly expensive macbook pros w/retina displays from their cold dead hands before they will use a PC.

Re: No you don't

[Billly Gates]

But how often do they upgrade?

I heard same argument for mainframes. Sure I heard they exist but I have never seen one before because hardly anyone uses them today.

The PC is dying. Just because it is not dead yet doesn't mean it's on decline. Millennials can use an iPad with office fine for most office tasks and their phones and use a cloud. The pc is niching

Re:No you don't

[Gr8Apes]

but what is wrong w/ using Windows to make something that someone else would have made using Linux?

You don't make a bucket starting with a sieve.

Re:No you don't

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Most of the 100k+ employees where I work are able to use a thin client with a 1GHz AMD SOC 2GB RAM 8GB Flash

So, basically not a phone, but a thin client (AKA a PC without a hard drive).

-

their overly expensive macbook pros w/retina displays from their cold dead hands before they will use a PC.

So not a PC, but an Apple PC. That certainly is different.

Re: No you don't

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

The PC is dying. Just because it is not dead yet doesn't mean it's on decline.

Yes, it's in decline, I said that before. And I said that maybe someday a phone will replace a PC, but not today and not tomorrow. In fact, I doubt PCs will ever go away. It's where a lot of the real work gets done.

-

Millennials can use an iPad with office fine for most office tasks and their phones and use a cloud. The pc is niching

Uh huh, I'm sure Boeing is designing the next jumbo jet on iPads, and medical researchers are doing all their gene-folding on iPads. And lawyers are drafting large contracts on iPads. And no doubt IL&M is rendering the next CGI movie on a warehouse full of iPads. Except they're not. They might someday, but not anytime soon.

PCs are in decline, but they'll be around for a long, long time because there's heavy lifting to be done and phones simply aren't up to the task.

Re:No you don't

[pr0fessor]

Those thin clients aren't really a pc with out a hard drive they are closer to a beefed up TV streaming device with a couple extra ports.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

The claim was that PCs replaced workstations. That is demonstrably false and you, looking like a fool, are now trying to change what the argument was about.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have experience from which to speak, son.

PC = personal computer. A workstation is a computer that is not personal, as it is used for work and is outfitted with better and more powerful hardware than a PC. But then I supposed you believe that a supercomputer is just a "better than average PC" because they still use x86 processors in them.

Re: No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a comparison of modern phones/tablets to modern PCs. I guess that's too complicated for you to understand.

Re: No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

So if the majority of the population believed that the Earth is flat, does that make it so?

A phone will never be the equivalent of a desktop PC. And if people cared so little about games, then why is the PC gaming industry so huge as to dwarf the console game industry, the movie industry and the music industry?

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Nadella said he could replace a desktop PC with a phone, meaning he could make a phone that is the equivalent to a desktop PC. That is pure bullshit and you're trying to twist words around.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Motorcycle != truck
Phone != desktop PC

LOL, stupid millennial. You think a phone is equal to a desktop PC.

Re: No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be ridiculous. The PC isn't dying. PC use is declining, but that's only due to internet bandwagon casuals like you moving on to more appropriate limited use consumption devices. The PC world is returning back to us techies, just as it used to be.

Re:No you don't

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have a tablet that is a spyware marketing platform, but we're talking about PCs.

Re:No you don't

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Those thin clients aren't really a pc with out a hard drive they are closer to a beefed up TV streaming device with a couple extra ports.

They're a lot closer to a PC than to a phone. If not, why aren't they using a phone?

Re:No you don't

[thegarbz]

AFAIK they have only ever delivered Linux-based devices.

As far as I know, no Linux based devices look 100% identical to a Windows CE desktop which is what ended up on my Tomtom one day. I already said it's no longer a current device (because quite frankly who buys a dedicated GPS anymore).

Linux actually runs on a lot of stuff you wouldn't even imagine it runs on - and the devices are not slow.

I'm sure it does. But it also doesn't run on a whole heap of devices you imagine it runs on. Point is. The entire world isn't Linux, and there's a shitload of custom code out there, far more than the GP implied.

Re: No you don't

[Gr8Apes]

So if the majority of the population believed that the Earth is flat, does that make it so?

Strawman #1

A phone will never be the equivalent of a desktop PC.

Strawman #2

And if people cared so little about games, then why is the PC gaming industry so huge as to dwarf the console game industry, the movie industry and the music industry?

You should stop reading Gartner. US PC video game revenue is roughly 650M Movie revenue topped 11B Not sure what your definition of "dwarf" is.

Re:No you don't

[unixisc]

Architecturally, the only difference b/w a PC and workstation today is the use of ECC RAM in the latter, and w/ it, Xeons instead of iCores. Otherwise, any personal computer could just as easily be used for work: it can still have any amount of RAM, storage and processing power. Chances are both would use Windows 10, so would you strictly define one of them as a workstation if it uses the Professional edition instead of the Home edition? When the same software, such as, say, AutoCAD, could be installed on either?

Re:No you don't

[stub667]

He is talking to the plural 'your'. A lot of PCs most certainly can be replaced by phones. A lot of PCs have already been replaced by phones for that matter.

Re:No you don't

[TemporalBeing]

AFAIK they have only ever delivered Linux-based devices.

As far as I know, no Linux based devices look 100% identical to a Windows CE desktop which is what ended up on my Tomtom one day. I already said it's no longer a current device (because quite frankly who buys a dedicated GPS anymore).

Model please.

As I said, TomTom has been an exclusive Linux-based device manufacturer for >10 years. So either you bought something that isn't really a TomTom (fake) or you have a device so ancient it's not worth bringing up.

Linux actually runs on a lot of stuff you wouldn't even imagine it runs on - and the devices are not slow.

I'm sure it does. But it also doesn't run on a whole heap of devices you imagine it runs on. Point is. The entire world isn't Linux, and there's a shitload of custom code out there, far more than the GP implied.

But it sure runs a whole lot more than you think it does. It's pretty much the backbone of the world right now.

That's not to say custom OSes and code, etc don't come into play - they do; but >5/10 times it'll be Linux; the rest split between QNX, Firmware only systems, VxWorks, Windows Embedded (WinCE/Phone/Embedded/etc - the 10 different brands MS has for the market), IOS (not iOS), and Custom Code. The majority of that you'll also likely find an SSH or Telnet server with BusyBox box behind it.

And, FYI, almost no one writes their own OS for embedded any more; you typically will only see that in Firmware only systems; everything else uses something that already exists, and Linux is the cheapest solution that it most easily ported or more likely already is ported, so minimal work to get moving and release a product. (Note: In these markets it is the same level of effort for getting a commercial OS like Windows or QNX to work as it is to write any required Linux drivers; so there is no difference in required dev time, but there is in the required license expenditures. Support costs are generally equal too. So all-in-all, Linux does end up being cheaper.)

Re:No you don't

[thegarbz]

Model please.

Sure let me dig it out using my time machine. I couldn't tell you what model it was even at the time. They aren't big on flashy model numbers.

But whatever man. I know what I saw and you're free to disagree with me.

Re: No you don't

[shutdown -p now]

The trick about Windows 10 phones is that you can literally plug a keyboard and mouse into them, and use them as a low-powered desktop.

Of course, the real limitation there is software - since it's still an ARM device, it's limited to Windows Store apps only. Although that's still good enough for plain word processing.

Meanwhile

[Anonymous Coward]

Canonical thinks there is a place for its mobile OS

Re:Meanwhile

[DickBreath]

Microsoft now seems to think that it is 'open'.

Too late for that...

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC

It's a bit too late for that. For most non-techies their phone is already replacing their PC.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/134868-there-can-only-be-one-smartphones-are-the-pcs-of-the-future

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eliot-van-buskirk/6-signs-smartphones-will-_b_2689271.html

Re:Too late for that...

[DickBreath]

We have a phone UI that can replace your desktop UI.

Lesson Learned

[Anonymous Coward]

You have learned no lesson. You will repeat this mistake again, probably within the next year.

Developers, developers, developers

[undulato]

Microsoft misses because they don't engage developers - they said (Balmer famously said) it was all about developers but they really actually don't give a shit as long as the big corps still pay their licence fees. See XNA, see engagement over mobile, seeing the pathetic attempts at outreach with their bizspark programme. They do not care about providing an innovative, interesting and exciting platform for software developers to work on. It's a shame because I like Windows Phone as a platform but without spending a lot more money on developer engagement and support it was always going to fail.

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[Luthair]

The failure of windows phone had nothing to do with 'developer engagement'. Simply put they were far too late to market to compete with the already established iphone & Android.

They might have had a shot if they had realized it and focused from day one on the business market (which they were already a player in), but instead attempted to compete with Google and Apple who had more cachet with consumers.

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[whoever57]

Simply put they were far too late to market to compete with the already established iphone & Android.

They were not too late: there were phones running some form of Windows long before the iPhone and Android.

No, they had the wrong vision for a phone. Their vision was Windows running on a small platform and it did not resonate with mass market buyers. Perhaps they saw the market as corporate buyers, not the consumers who buy phones today.

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[DickBreath]

Microsoft misses because developers, and everyone else knows that the era of monopolists is past. Before, during and after Microsoft's heyday, people have always wanted the security of a 2nd source for everything. The software lock in phenomena that created IBM's and then Microsoft's (and Apple's) empire is a temporary quirk of history. One that predates the rise of open source. Open source is not yet done rising. It may be slower to rise, but it's rise never stops. It isn't beholden to short term management thinking. Marketing schedules. If there is internal bickering, forks can be created so that the Windows 8 approach loses out without being forced down everyone's throat as a bold experiment created by someone who fancies themselves a designer but knows little about how people use computers to do actual work.

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[Voyager529]

The failure of windows phone had nothing to do with 'developer engagement'. Simply put they were far too late to market to compete with the already established iphone & Android.

They might have had a shot if they had realized it and focused from day one on the business market (which they were already a player in), but instead attempted to compete with Google and Apple who had more cachet with consumers.

Smartphone history doesn't start in 2010. It didn't start in 2007 with the iPhone, either.

Those of us who have longer memories are aware of the iPhone's predecessors. For quite some time, it was a three-horse race between Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Palm. Blackberry was preferred by many businesses because of BES - it was a bit expensive, but it was super secure and made it possible to replace a lost or damaged Blackberry with a fresh one in about 20 minutes, with all the user's accounts and data intact. Palm was very simple to use, had great battery life, and Palm Desktop was like Outlook Lite and Salesforce Lite rolled into a bundled application.

Believe it or not, Windows Mobile was amongst the most versatile platforms of its day, and it was king of the third party apps. Those apps weren't purchased through the App Store, they were purchased at retail on SD cards or from developers' websites...but there were more for WinMo than anything else. It was kinda ugly on the surface, but in HTC's heyday with the Touch Diamond, Touch Pro2, and HD2, it had more eye candy than the iPhone. WinMo was easy to manage because it was treated like a desktop in Active Directory, and though Windows Media Player for WinMo had its idiosyncrasies, it wasn't until maybe the Blackberry Curve that there was a media playback application for a mobile platform that outperformed it. As an added bonus, XDA-Developers started with WinMo phones. If you think Android is customizable, you should see some of the mods that were done back when WinMo was a thing.

The writing was on the wall for WinMo when it became abundantly clear that stylus-based input was a compromise, not a desirable state of existence. With the exception of the HD2, everyone else had a resistive touchscreen, which has long since been obsoleted. If you've never used IE Mobile, be grateful - it'll make you pine for IE6.

Microsoft attempted to reinvent itself with Windows Phone 7, right around when Android hit the scene. It was definitely more polished at the time than Android was, but they bet on XAML and Silverlight-based applications, which wasn't the best start. They also bet that having a rooting/modding community was a liability rather than an asset, so they put the kibosh on it early and were pretty successful at preventing third party ROMs and mods from making the platform attractive to the technically savvy. Meanwhile, stability was a major problem, Nokia phones took *years* to arrive, and when they did, most carriers had more options in their iPhone lineup than their WinMo lineup. On top of that, Microsoft was still trying to not-suck at the media management department; WMP10-12 wasn't bad for local media syncing, but this was back when iTunes was actually good, and Microsoft still didn't have a good way for users to download music and movies.

Developers had to start from scratch upon the arrival of WP8. WP7 apps weren't compatible with WP8, and WP8 wasn't compatible with the majority of WP7 devices - keeping in mind that this happened when 2-year handset contracts were still very much a thing. Microsoft could have given themselves excellent mindshare by allowing WP7 users to trade their phones in for WP8 phones at no cost, but instead they released 7.8 which had about half the heralded WP8 features...and for all the complaints about Android fragmentation, the complete incompatibility between WP7 and WP8 was far worse. There was all kinds of attempts to do Google-style integration with Bing, which worked as well as you think it did, and Cortana tried to eat Siri's lunch, but especially in its ear

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft had the PocketPC and a 7 year headstart before the iPhone. They also had a 11% marketshare at some point.

The turning point was that that the PocketPC converged with the mobile phone and Microsoft wasn't making the hardware, thus they had no control over what features were standard. The last viable PocketPC was the Toshiba E830 which came out in 2004.

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[pr0fessor]

Don't get me started on xna... they canceled it just when it was finally maturing.

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[stephanruby]

I disagree with that. Spending money on developer engagement wasn't their problem. Their developer tools were great and they are still great. Plus, they spent a ton of money on developers (which I was one of).

One problem was that when their app store came out, they modeled it after the iOS App store. For instance, they wanted to charge $99 a year for a developer account (although, that fee was waived initially). They locked down their platform, as they wanted everything to be published and only available through their app store so they could charge a 30% commission on it.

At the very same time, Android was already growing like crazy, and Google didn't have any of those developer demands attached to it. A developer account on the Android Market/Google Play had/has a one-time fee (not a yearly fee) of $25 (for as many apps as you want). Google didn't force you to pass through their app store to publish your application (in that way, it was a lot like the old Windows Mobile store). And the 32% commission (not 30%) it extracted from applications published on its app store went to the carriers (technically, 30% went to the carriers and only 2% went to Google if Google Wallet was used instead of carrier billing). So as a mobile app developer, you knew that carriers would keep on recommending Android phones to its customers and that the market share of Android was only going to grow even more (even if the iPhone was arguably a much better phone at the time).

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[stephanruby]

PS: When I wrote "Plus, they spent a ton of money on developers (which I was one of)". I meant third party mobile app developers.

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[Luthair]

You mean the business market they were in with Windows Mobile which I specifically called out? iphone/android were a generational leap over the existing devices.

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[Luthair]

I specifically pointed out that they had been in the business market in the previous generation.

Re:Developers, developers, developers

[sd4f]

Probably the best summary of what happened to WP that I've read anywhere. Pity I don't have mod points!

However, I think that you have one error in there that WP7 apps weren't compatible on WP8 phones. WP8 was backwards compatible with WP7, it's just that none were forwards compatible. I think these reboots, as you've pointed out, caused more damage than a lot of the industry or even MS themselves would like to think. It seems to me that each time they were expecting the platform to go huge, and were prepared to throw their existing users under a bus in the hope that the new customers would more than make up for it.

There was a period where I didn't hear too much about the app gap on WP8, but that changed when W10M was announced, and especially this year, it's like as if the wheels fell off the platform. So many apps have been removed. I've lost so many apps that I liked to use that it's depressing, it reached the point where MS used to publish when an app was last updated. I suppose when you see so many apps have been abandoned, not receiving an update in years, it doesn't really instill confidence!

Making sense

[ErichTheRed]

The only thing I hope is that now that Nadella actually said those words, they're going to stop trying to turn their operating systems into an iOS or Android clone. Saying they're done with Windows Phone unburdens them from having to try to revive Windows Store and the Universal Apps model. I am very skeptical about whether they'd do this, but they could also (shock! horror!) completely separate PC mode and tablet mode, and make Windows behave more like a desktop OS when run on PC hardware. Just doing that one change would probably convert the last Windows 7 holdouts.

That said, this is a very expensive "oops." What I see doing engineering work for Windows shops is the need to monetize everything else -- Azure is being pushed extremely hard, and this is where Microsoft is going to make all their money in the future. All new features are Azure-first these days and backported to the packaged products. What's probably going to happen is that they're going to make it so cumbersome to run on-premises Windows Server and other Microsoft products that most companies will just throw their hands up and move everything they own to Azure. After that, they're locked in permanently and Microsoft will enter its new phase as the 21st Century IBM. Just like IBM collecting monthly mainframe revenue, they'll collect monthly fees from Azure customers, who will be even more dependent on Microsoft than they are now.

The other super-smart thing they've done is realize that the OS wars are over. You can run Linux in Azure as a first-class citizen. They do this to compete with AWS, but they also know that being OS-agnostic long term allows them to keep collecting revenue perpetually. I just hope they redeploy the Windows Phone people who are still there to new projects instead of throwing another few thousand techies onto the unemployment pyre.

Re:Making sense

[Anonymous Coward]

i guess you're right, with microsoft trying to integrate 'linux' in windows, and what we really need is some counter weight against amazon..
I for one would really like the clouds to be killed, or at least let it rain (and give us back our servers... )

Re:Making sense

[ISoldat53]

Maybe now they will stop making a desktop OS work like it's on a phone.

Re:Making sense

[Anonymous Coward]

unburdens them from having to try to revive Windows Store and the Universal Apps model

Where have you been? Universal Apps are now on Windows, X-Box and every other platform they are going to launch in the near future. It is now the new API besides the Win32, which is now the legacy API.

Re:Making sense

[thegarbz]

they're going to stop trying to turn their operating systems into an iOS or Android clone

They said exactly the opposite. They said they're giving up on Mobile phones and focusing on other areas. Other areas being crossover tablet devices in which they are doing quite well while to the disgust of everyone butchering their OS in the process.

Expect more of this not less as MS pulls back from mobile phones.

Re:Making sense

[shutdown -p now]

Universal apps are about way more than just phones. Excluding those, it's still desktop/tablet/Xbox. And even if it were just desktop, they're still worthwhile - it's a chance to finally clean up 35 years of accumulated API and ABI cruft in the ecosystem.

Also, Win10 does do exactly what you describe, with separate "tablet" and "desktop" modes; and it operates a lot more like Win7 than Win8 in desktop mode - all apps are windowed with the usual resizing etc behavior, start menu is a proper non-full screen menu, all swipe-from-edge widgets are replaced proper buttons to click on etc. It looks different mostly because of the flat style - I bet if you could reskin it to look like Win7, few people would even notice the difference.

Why they failed

[PingSpike]

Many people say its the lack of apps. I think that was their own fault for dumping and rebooting the platform a million times thinking they just had to get that sauce perfect and and the world would love them. They've been drinking to much of their own koolaid.

I think the lack of apps is simply what finally put them out of their misery though. I'm not convinced any significant amount of people actually wanted Windows on their phone in the first place.

Re: Why they failed

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when has Windows became open? It's as closed (if not more) than apples ecosystem.

Re:Why they failed

[OneHundredAndTen]

Yes, well, enjoy getting together with your two or three little friends with such phones to play grownups.

Re:Why they failed

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a windows phone.
It was mostly great, as long as you used only built in features. The problem was no devs, and end of life after 2 years.
Lot's of broken features, like skype didn't work if the phone was locked.
So you couldn't receive calls on skype (or viber) unless you were already in the app.
Of course they fixed it in the next update, but then decided that my phone was too old and wouldn't get that update.
That combined with not ever being able to install any of the games my friends were playing finally convinced me to go android.

The first step....

[Red Herring]

Is admitting you have a problem. While I assume they've known this internally for a while, it's nice to see the public acknowledgement.

MSFT is doing some... surprisingly... competent things with Surface and other PCs, it will be interesting to see if the magical "new devices category" is something that they can take the Surface competence into.

(Did I just use "Microsoft" and "Competence" in the same sentence? And not preceded with "in-"? Shiver....)

Re:The first step....

[subanark]

People need to stop thinking of Microsoft as one entity. It is a diverse company where each division is fairly independent. Yes, Microsoft makes mistakes, it is part of "no risk, no reward"

(Insert Windows Phone vs Amazon Phone discussion here)

Re:The first step....

[mwvdlee]

(Did I just use "Microsoft" and "Competence" in the same sentence? And not preceded with "in-"? Shiver....)

Shivering? Must be feeling a bit "Shilly" over there ;)

Re:The first step....

[DickBreath]

Maybe they can more fully admit their problem and recognize that most people hate patent extortion bullies.

Re:We missed the mobile phnoe so...

[DickBreath]

It is childish and unprofessional to call it spyware. The proper grown up name for it is Windows 10.

BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Nutella clearly did had his tea and samosas today. Microshaft has been clueless about mostly everything in the last couple of decades...how about moving on and closing it down?

Re:BS

[gweihir]

Giants die slowly. But I see their Win10 "strategy" as a good accelerator of that end.

Replace?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC"
"we have a tablet that can replace your laptop"

This word 'replace' you keep using. I do not think it means what you think it does.

Sure you missed it

[aglider]

By about 10 Yeats at least! Think about Blackberries and Palms! Then we had the iPhones and the Androids on 2008 and you were still sleeping! You are waking up too late and missed the school bus!

Re:Sure you missed it

[cwest]

Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.
--William Butler Yeats

Re:Sure you missed it

[ooloorie]

By about 10 Yeats at least! Think about Blackberries and Palms! Then we had the iPhones and the Androids on 2008 and you were still sleeping!

WinCE came out in 1996 and Windows Mobile in 2000, about the same time as BlackBerry and PalmOS phones, and long before iPhones and Android.

Microsoft was a pioneer in the mobile space, they just pissed it all away.

Re:Sure you missed it

[Anonymous Coward]

By about 10 Yeats at least! Think about Blackberries and Palms! Then we had the iPhones and the Androids on 2008 and you were still sleeping!

WinCE came out in 1996 and Windows Mobile in 2000, about the same time as BlackBerry and PalmOS phones, and long before iPhones and Android.

Microsoft was a pioneer in the mobile space, they just pissed it all away.

Yes, because they failed to recognize at the time that just start-button based windows with menus doesn't really work on a small device. Had they just copied Android after it came out, they would have done better.

Re:Sure you missed it

[DickBreath]

Microsoft laughed at the iPhone. No vision at all.

But then, Microsoft (Bill Gates) said (in 1995) that the internet was a fad. That should make you think about how much vision they have. It's in their DNA to be only a monopolist. They can't compete in any open market. That is why everything must be always tied back to Windows.

Re:Sure you missed it

[ausekilis]

Even better - their "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" mantra didn't work out. Just look at what was once Nokia if you need proof.

Re:Sure you missed it

[Anonymous Coward]

10 Yeats missed the school bus? He was a great poet but 10 clones of him won't help.

Re: Sure you missed it

[aglider]

Bringing a pesky os for PCs into a mobile device is not, in my opinion, going mobile.
Developing a new one to match the needs and the constraints of a small battery powered device, is.
Those experiments by MS were just that: experiments. And failing ones.

Re:Sure you missed it

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that a typo for "bleats"?

Re:Sure you missed it

[Anonymous Coward]

By about 10 Yeats at least!
Think about Blackberries and Palms!
Then we had the iPhones and the Androids on 2008 and you were still sleeping!

You are waking up too late and missed the school bus!

This is false. Microsoft has attempted to compete in real time with every generation of "smart" phone. They have simply failed to gain traction with every generation.

Re:Sure you missed it

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Mobile was their Newton. Too early. Same thing with Sega Dreamcast.. sega did the newton for them and then they shipped xbox. (Dreamcast was WinCE based)

Microsoft dropped the ball but at the same time they were trying to get people to click a start button on a tiny screen back then. Windows 95 didn't work as a UI on a phone. They've made the same mistake from both sides!

Re: Sure you missed it

[ooloorie]

Bringing a pesky os for PCs into a mobile device is not, in my opinion, going mobile.

You don't know what you're talking about. Windows CE wasn't a "pesky os for PCs", it was a different OS from Windows for desktops, specifically aimed at consumer electronics, embedded systems PDAs, and phones.

Those experiments by MS were just that: experiments. And failing ones.

Windows CE was big; it had nearly half of the smartphone market for a while and showed up in numerous embedded and portable applications.

Re:Sure you missed it

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft dropped the ball but at the same time they were trying to get people to click a start button on a tiny screen back then. Windows 95 didn't work as a UI on a phone. They've made the same mistake from both sides!

That's a good way of putting it. First they tried to cram the desktop UI on the phone, then they tried to make a phone UI work on the desktop, both failures. Odd that Microsoft can't seem to conceive of people wanting different ways of interacting with devices that have substantially different form factors.

The problem is they made a locked down piece of sh

[Anonymous Coward]

Android absolutely sucks and is also a locked down piece of shit, but at least you can load your own code to run on their piece of shit.

Depends on what you do

[sjbe]

No. You don't. Because that isn't possible to do.

That depends entirely on what you plan to do with it. There absolutely are some people who can replace a PC with a smartphone or a tablet because the smartphone/tablet competently does everything they did with the PC. While it isn't true for me personally I have family members that have ditched the PC completely because their tablet does everything they needed from a PC and it's easier to use for them. Even for me a smartphone has replaced a lot of what I used to do primarily on a PC.

The fact that this guy even said that means he is clueless about mobile. He needs to be replaced.

"Clueless"? Ummm... no. Far be it from me to defend Microsoft or their CEO but clueless is not a word I'd use in regards to them. I'm pretty sure he has more of a clue about the mobile market than you do.

Re:Depends on what you do

[Anonymous Coward]

"Clueless"? Ummm... no. Far be it from me to defend Microsoft or their CEO but clueless is not a word I'd use in regards to them. I'm pretty sure he has more of a clue about the mobile market than you do.

Yes and that really shows in their utter failure to gain any ground in mobile despite throwing billions of dollars at it AND buying the number one mobile phone company.

You missed the PC, too

[demon driver]

Which had no commercial impact, though, as soon as your monopoly was big enough, which came pretty quick (and not only by legal means, as we know today). Since then, you can stuff everything you want down users' throats who have nowhere else to go because the applications they need don't run on other platforms.

I still haven't completely given up hope, though, that this will change one day.

Re:You missed the PC, too

[Voyager529]

I still haven't completely given up hope, though, that this will change one day.

Unfortunately, I have.

We'll talk exclusively about desktop apps, and ignore web-based applications and mobile apps for the moment.

Who are some of the big players in the desktop software market?
Adobe, Autodesk, Intuit, Sage, and Nuance are all in the list of top-100 software companies by revenue, admittedly a list heavily skewed toward the enterprise market - SAP and VMWare are clearly outside the scope of this exercise.

Most of these companies' flagship applications (Photoshop, AutoCAD, Quickbooks, ACT, NaturallySpeaking) are cross-compatible with MacOS/OSX, so to be honest, Apple is a more viable path than ever before...once one gets past the sticker shock of not only buying the hardware, but re-buying the software. The real cross-platform challenge is all the niche applications, everything from software that runs law firms and software that runs intelligent lighting arrays to software that runs dental offices to the knockoffs of industry standards.

However, none of those applications run on Linux. Look, I like Linux on the desktop. I too would love nothing more than for commercial software vendors to consider Linux a viable platform for development. Game developers have started to do so, which is a great start...but for commercial software houses, there's the classic chicken-and-egg problem. Who wants to wipe a computer that ships with Windows in order to install Linux when their line-of-business applications won't support it? What software vendor is going to take the plunge on making something like that happen, knowing it's a gamble that may well not pay off? Plenty of Slashdotters have made Linux their primary, and I am glad that they have, but there are very few lawyers here, and even fewer dentists.

The only thing that I think will push software vendors to make this happen is for Microsoft to fully depreciate the Win32 API and push for Modern-Only apps on the platform. Nadella may not always make the decisions I agree with, but I can't possibly believe he would be stupid enough to push *that* button. If he does, he creates a vacuum that will suddenly be viable for desktop Linux to fill.

A Phone to Replace my PC?

[BECoole]

Yes, when phones come with 24" screens!

Re:A Phone to Replace my PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

A phone+monitor bundle would be nice, but it's not terribly important. Just buy them separately.

Re:A Phone to Replace my PC?

[avandesande]

A phone with a docking station so it could be used as a desktop would be pretty cool. (Yes I know there is already some such thing)

Re:A Phone to Replace my PC?

[Virtucon]

dual 32 inch 4K monitors you insensitive clod.

Re:A Phone to Replace my PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

like a Nintendo Switch?

I was thinking a small box you pair with a 5 inches dumb tablet to be your iphone, a 10 inches dumb tablet to be you ipad and you dock at home to be your gaming rig ...

Re:A Phone to Replace my PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Would be". Yes.

Try to keep up. These are features of the very phones that everyone is constantly shitting all over without actually trying them out. And the apathy has gotten so bad that the CEO of the company that actually made this work pretty damned well is admitting defeat.

A phone with a docking station so it can be used as a desktop is pretty cool. Except all you biased motherfuckers killed it. It is your fault that we can't have nice things. Fuck you all.

Re:A Phone to Replace my PC?

[SScorpio]

How about something the size of a larger cell phone that can wireless connect to a display and keyboard where it functions like a laptop. And has a dock to turn into a PC? You wouldn't really be gaming on it though.

http://store.hp.com/us/en/ContentView?storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&eSpotName=Elite-x3

Re:A Phone to Replace my PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they killed it by offering it only on a phone with a price tag that most people wouldn't even consider, needs an additional expensive docking station and still seems to have bad performance. Plus, still the lack of apps/no normal desktop apps (which wouldn't even be HARD to fix, Microsoft just doesn't WANT to, which is the prime reason I really can't even cheer for it).
As an idea, is it anything better than Ubuntu phone? Can at least run proper desktop apps.
For real-world use, it is actually better than an Android phone with USB hub and miracast? Works badly but actually runs more stuff.

Re:A Phone to Replace my PC?

[strikethree]

Yes, when phones come with 24" screens!

A few years ago, I had a phone. It was the Nokia N900. It essentially ran Linux on it. I was able to install arbitrary "Linux" applications on it.
If I could have connected that to an external monitor, I would have had the perfect computing device.

But meh. They make more money by not giving us what we want.

Dear Microsoft....

[Lumpy]

Stop FUCKING AROUND with stupid shit like phones.
Make your OS not suck, Stop trying to make the server OS into a desktop.
And make your other software work better and faster

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are on my todo list. Many mtgs today so items #2 and 3 might lap over into tomorrow though.

- Satya

No they didn't

[doconnor]

They've been making mobile operating systems since the days of the PDA, but they weren't considered successful, even in the odd years they where leading the category.

One problem is they every couple of years they would revamp it, losing compatibility with the old software.

Re:No they didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they didn't miss anything, they just failed.

That's why I'm skeptical of their ability to build "new categories." It's much more likely they'll fuck around with new tech and manage to produce something that completely misses the point, then Apple or Google or a new upstart will come along and make something that people actually want.

Says a lot

[The Grim Reefer]

It was perhaps one for the bigger mistakes we made.

This really says a lot coming from the company that brought us Windows Me, Vista, Windows 8, Windows RT, Bob/Clippy, Tay, Zune, Kin, IE6, etc...

Re:Says a lot

[DickBreath]

Edlin. And let's not forget that disaster of a specification LIM (Lotus-Intel-Microsoft) Expanded Memory specification. (I don't mean Extended memory, but Expanded memory. Back in the day. This was useful, in some sense of the word, for exactly one thing: Lotus-123)

Re:Says a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot Windows 10, the worst pile of shit ever excreted by any company.

Re:We missed the mobile phnoe so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah.

This one time I was downloading and running random executables from some shady sites. Suddenly my computer started acting strange, slowing down, rebooting at random, using up all of my bandwidth, grinding the hard drive, changing my browser settings (from Pale Moon to some Internet Explorer knock-off), displaying pop-ups and ads, etc.

Stupid me! I ended up with a Windows 10 infestation and despite running some anti-Windows 10s like SUPERAntiWindows10 and Win10Bot: Search & Destroy, I ended up having to reformat the drive to get rid of it.

Let this be a lesson. Never run executables from unknown and untrusted sources. You may get a Windows 10 infection.

They didn't miss it

[Anonymous Coward]

They completely failed despite trying for many years. I'm not talking about what they've done post iPhone and iPad; they were making Windows XP based tablets and Windows CE based phones back in the early 00s and similar products even earlier. Nobody wanted to use them. I hate Apple's arrogance and elitism but they did succeed at something that Microsoft failed.

That's why I'm pretty skeptical about their ability to build "new categories." It seems much more likely they'll fuck around with some tech and produce something that completely misses the point, and then Apple, Google, or some new upstart will come along and do it correctly

Re:They didn't miss it

[thegarbz]

They completely failed despite trying for many years

No they missed it. Throwing a token dev team at hacking a few things out of Windows CE and adding microphone support is not "trying". If anything they have shown very well how a company is able to release a product with the least amount of effort possible.

Re:They didn't miss it

[Anonymous Coward]

They were producing new versions of Pocket PC/Windows Mobile every year or two from 2000 to 2009. They supported and updated it for far too long to just call it "hacking a few things out." And they pushed tablets big time in the 2002 Comdex Keynote. With a tablet you can draw an org chart! They put a good amount of effort in making phone and tablet software, and people didn't want them.

Re:They didn't miss it

[strikethree]

They completely failed despite trying for many years. I'm not talking about what they've done post iPhone and iPad; they were making Windows XP based tablets and Windows CE based phones back in the early 00s and similar products even earlier. Nobody wanted to use them.

I had a Windows Mobile 5 phone. It was one of the first GPS enabled phones. I was so eager to use it and very excited about the possibilities...

And then, it became GLARINGLY obvious that the operating system was written by Microsoft. Unreliable and buggy operation ruined the whole experience for me. I almost feel guilty for selling the phone to a friend instead of just throwing the damned thing away. He said he REALLY wanted it though.

Meh. Anything Microsoft touches is garbage. Upper management cares about something, but they do NOT care about the experience of using their software. I feel bad for all of the software engineers there that surely must have lost their will to live by now. Of course, the nice pay helps to make it all palatable but what a soul destroying job it must be to never create anything that is awesome... and if you do create something awesome, some manager somewhere decides that some political agenda must be encoded into the product, thereby ruining all of the great efforts that were put into it.

Impressive. Most impressive.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

So, apparently Captain Obvious is moonlighting as the CEO of Microsoft. Always wondered what he did when he wasn't on the job.

I call bullshit!

[Gravis Zero]

Microsoft didn't "[miss] the mobile phone," they shit on the mobile phone market with their usual bullshit. Turns out that when the quality of your product matters, you need to put out a high quality software platform that offers more than concessions for users and developers.

Re:I call bullshit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft didn't "[miss] the mobile phone," they shit on the mobile phone market with their usual bullshit. Turns out that when the quality of your product matters, you need to put out a high quality software platform that offers more than concessions for users and developers.

Past tense is "shat"

no, you didn't miss the mobile phone

[ooloorie]

Microsoft was one of the earliest smartphone manufacturers, and together with Symbian, one of the two biggest. They didn't miss it, they screwed it up, with their usual mix of greed, attempts at monopoly, and bad software. The difference is that this time, it backfired, and people never again trusted them.

Re:no, you didn't miss the mobile phone

[Anonymous Coward]

What really happened is that Microsoft thought it could push the carriers around like it could the OEMs. This is the one good thing Apple did, was to sort of put the carriers in their place, and then Android swept in and by giving their OS away sort of coattailed on that.

stupid loser

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop FUCKING AROUND with stupid shit like phones.

yeah stick with the desktop and laptop computers that nobody is buying, that's the ticket

And make your other software work better and faster

yes indeed we need faster versions of word and outlook, word processing and email are just too daunting for today's processors

Re:stupid loser

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it how unemployed people like you think theworld is like you.

90% of microsoft business is BUSINESSES. and they are not making employees use phones you dipshit

Microsoft malware operating system

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers are computers. This bullshit about we made a mistake because a computer in form factor 'x' not 'y' is something I don't comprehend.

Current technology allows you to increasingly place essentially the same software/OS on any sized computer from pocket to room sized. In the grand scheme of the modern stack swapping a shell so UX on a little pocket sized computer for contortionists is usable by humans isn't a big deal.

All of this x is ahead of y... computers that fit in your pocket vs laptops without screens (tablets) vs laptops with screens vs PC is all total noise in my view because it doesn't matter to anyone.

The reason why Microsoft is sinking they looked at Google and Apple and said ... "I want a piece of that" rather than focusing on providing value to actual customers and making shit people WANT they decided they were going to play games and fuck with people and feed them crap they will barely ACCEPT by means of trickery and ignorance.

Billions wasted

[Virtucon]

All you have to say is "we missed it?" Come on Microsoft it's not like you can write off all those billions of dollars invested and say you missed it. Oh you mean you fucked up your execution? That I'll believe more. You had a strategy, remember Windows CE and it's derivatives which morphed into Windows Mobile? Yeah you remember those, platforms without real developer tools and you couldn't debug on? Those platforms that made any effort painful and then you'd pull support for them. Yeah I remember those days. Then you told everybody that you had fixed it. Some came back but most went off on to this IOS and Android thingy, they had tools and a lot better support from their respective houses. They didn't tie you to cumbersome APIs where you tried to tie Win32 to everything. They flourished, you died. So you didn't miss it, you just couldn't execute.

Re:Billions wasted

[Anonymous Coward]

Nadella is probably thinking of "mobile phone" as a wave that one has to catch. They spent billions building a surfboard and tried for years to catch the wave. Eventually Apple caught the wave, and Google caught the next wave, but Microsoft is still stranded in open waters, not really knowing how it should orient its surfboard. They missed the wave.

Windows Phone - haters gonna hate

[laupark]

Two things Microsoft nailed and iOS/Android don't do at all or pathetically. The people hub And voice response to incoming txt messages And it is laughable to think google/chrome/amazon/apple is any less evil than MS.

internal memo from Satya Nadella...

[SethJohnson]

My friend works as a developer within Microsoft and he just texted me saying he and his coworkers have all received a memo from the CEO using a metaphor of being on a 'burning platform' and asking if anyone knows of another company that can buy Microsoft and then after spending more billions of dollars just close the whole thing down out of frustration.


Any ideas?

Re:internal memo from Satya Nadella...

[mugurel]

On that topic, I just brushed off my 2012 Nokia N9. After a factory reset, and some apt-get installing it's still a great phone! Too bad it had to go with Microsoft's unfortunate adventures in mobile.

Re:Yeah: like pushing their crap onto captive mark

[johanw]

The Turks seem to do pretty well after the Armenian genocide, they're ready to start another one on the Kurds. The Germans, on the other hand, are now so full of guilt that they are infesting Europe with muslim emigrants to be able to feel dood. "Gutmench" (good human in German) has become an insult in the rest of Europe.

What bothers me specifically is this line:

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC".

No you fucking don't, stop lying. You only have phones that barely function as more than just phones, further proved by my complaining on Twitter about this and the Twitter Windows 10 Mobile app immediately crashing after.

Thanks Microsoft.

New Categories? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

> We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC, the same way we have a tablet that can replace your laptop. Yeah, because I really want to write a technical document on a phone, or play Skyrim (or whatever else) on a fuckin' tablet. Here's an idea Satya: Fix the "categories" you're already in. How about a secure focus on Windows that doesn't send out telemetry data? Or a version where users can control their content and patching? Or stronger support of virtualization and selective reboot? Oh, or a version of office that, you know, works to format as well as say InDesign? These are all areas MS could improve and send their stock soaring without billion dollar acquisitions. You know, the old fashioned way: hard work and talen--oh, right.

Microsoft sucks period

[Anonymous Coward]

You bought Nokia and fucked it up and ended up firing everyone. It's not that you missed, it's that you're incompetent and if it wasn't for incremental releases of your crappy OS and office suite, you wouldn't have a business. Everything you touch fails. Surface - fail. Windows Media Center - fail. Zune - fail.

Soo......

[Anonymous Coward]

So does this mean the Windows interface is going to change drastically again because your going to chase another market that isn't mobile while taking a huge dump all over the desktop again with the new markets interface choices? Not that I'm bitter from the mobile changes brought to the desktop and the half arsed compromise that was Windows 10. (HATE)

This is the obvious way for Microsoft to try

[bravecanadian]

and get back in the game.

They are unifying all their platforms on a common kernel with universal app frameworks.

Next, for the 90% of people that don't need tons of computing power, they replace your PC / Laptop / Phone with one device in a phone form factor.

When you are at a desk and need a keyboard and mouse you dock and voila you are good to go. Heck, using a mechanism similar to the Surface Book, the base / dock could contain a discrete GPU etc. to even enable people to do CAD / Video work.

The bonus for people using this type of setup is that there is no more having to sync multiple profiles, data, preferences, etc. across multiple devices. You carry it with you in your pocket and back up to Azure and you're done.

As someone else mentioned in the thread, the big stumbling block is the availability of apps for the mobile portion of this end run. They need to develop stuff in house or pay the popular 3rd party app developers to get it done. I liked Windows phone but the lack of support by developers killed it for me.

Another bullshit claim by Nadella

[JustNiz]

> We have a phone that in fact can replace your PC

Great! can I run Linux on it natively?
What about gaming or VR? ...or deep learning? can I plug my nvidia GPU into it?
Can it run my favourite IDE and compile/debug code?
Where do I plug in my Cat5 cable or all my USB devices, or my desktop monitor?

Updates on the port side

[thunderclees]

M$ main problem was that they were coming out with new incompatible updates to the OS all of the time while simultaneously slow to support new hardware features. Another problem was that they where extorting their developers early on forcing them to but new SDKs with newer versions and making things hard to port.

They weren't late, they just completely blew it

[Solandri]

The failure of windows phone had nothing to do with 'developer engagement'. Simply put they were far too late to market to compete with the already established iphone & Android.

A lot of us had PDAs back in the 1990s. A lot of us also had cell phones. It didn't take a genius to figure out that having one device which worked as both a cell phone and PDA would be really nice, if for nothing but to reduce the amount of clanking going on in your pocket. So it was pretty obvious by the mid-1990s that cell phones and PDAs were going to converge. The only question was if PDAs would get phone capability added on, or if cell phones would get PDA (computing) capability added on.

The late 1990s is when this convergence began. Nokia (a phone manufacturer) was first out of the blocks, which cemented their dominance of the early smartphone market. Palm came out with the Kyocera 6035 and Treo in 2001/2002. The smartphone-ish Blackberry didn't show up until 2003.

Microsoft was right in the thick of this. Since 1996, They'd been competing with PalmOS with WinCE (which became Pocket PC which became Windows Mobile which became Windows Phone). They had enough foresight to add software hooks for phone support to Pocket PC 2000, but never put much effort into the hardware side. For some reason they never took this PDA-phone convergence seriously. Apparently they were too busy thinking up with new names for their mobile OS than to work on phone hardware integration. I remember when the Jornada 928 came to market just in time to compete with the Palm Treo in 2002, reviews panned it calling the phone functionality buggy and unreliable. For all the evils of the old Bell Telephone monopoly, one thing they got right was "It Just Works". Your electricity could be out after a storm, but your landline phone would still work. That's what people were used to and expected. An unreliable phone was dead before it even hit the market.

So Microsoft wasn't late to the market. They were right there at the beginning of the smartphone market and had ample opportunity to dominate it. They just blew it. I suspect someone high up in their management chain, maybe even Gates himself, didn't believe this phone-PDA convergence was going to happen.

Re:They weren't late, they just completely blew it

[TemporalBeing]

So Microsoft wasn't late to the market. They were right there at the beginning of the smartphone market and had ample opportunity to dominate it. They just blew it. I suspect someone high up in their management chain, maybe even Gates himself, didn't believe this phone-PDA convergence was going to happen.

Very much agree. Microsoft's Vision - from Gates and through Ballmer - was Windows Desktop on everything. They executed their vision very well. It's just that it wasn't what their customers wanted and they were pig headed enough that they refused (still refuse?) to change to something that customers actually wanted.

Re:They weren't late, they just completely blew it

[Luthair]

I specifically called out that they had been involved in the business market (as was Blackberry) but both were slow to recognize and move on the new generation of smart phones.

Compatibility vs. Nimbleness

[Tablizer]

Microsoft had to choose between compatibility or nimble and compact.

When they competed purely on nimbleness, their mobile apps were not be sufficiently compatible with Windows desktop software to make anyone choose them over competitors, who were cheaper and more nimble.

When they competed purely on compatibility, then the device was expensive, bloated, and had short battery life because it had to copy too much of the desktop to be compatible.

When they tried the middle ground, they sucked enough at both of these factors to not be compelling to consumers.

They cannot compete with smaller companies on price, features, battery life etc. because they are big bureaucratic behemoth.

Re: Yeah: like pushing their crap onto captive mar

[Z00L00K]

Microsoft had the chance to make a decent phone with Windows Phone 6.1, but they nlew it because they had a shitty api and a bad build system for the OS creating headache for many vendors.

Microsoft failed at legacy, too

[Phil Urich]

Once Android has the same desktop dockability, the only advantage of Continuum will be the ability to run legacy Windows apps. Not a small advantage, that - but the keyword is legacy. The market for people that want a pricey phone with crappy phone apps so they can dock it to use legacy X86 Windows apps is pretty small.

But that's the thing, Microsoft's solution doesn't even do that; because their Windows Phone (now Windows 10 Mobile) devices run on ARM, they can't run legacy x86 Windows apps, and people can't even recompile those for ARM even if they wanted to and in the cases where there'd be no issues because Microsoft won't let you distribute and install non-'Metro' (or whatever exactly they're calling it now; UWP, I think?) code on ARM-based versions of Windows. The only stuff you can run using Continuum is Windows Store non-legacy apps, which are actually a far smaller set of applications than those available on the Google Play Store or iOS App Store. Hell, my old Nokia N9, the product left in a ditch as Nokia jumped foolishly on the Windows Phone bandwagon, has a more vibrant developer community with a better selection of applications than Windows Phone managed for quite a while, so leaning on the new-apps side of the strategy wasn't ever going to be a winning play for Microsoft.

Microsoft's mobile offerings floundered for many reasons, and no small part of it was how they completely failed to take advantage of their entrenched positioning in the desktop market.

Re:Microsoft failed at legacy, too

[Rob Y.]

Well, that was Microsoft's mother of all big mistakes. If they had made it easy to port existing WIN32 code to ARM prior to releasing the Surface RT, they might have had a hit on their hands. A crummy, legacy-encumbered hit, but a hit nonetheless. But they were too jealous of Apple's clean, secure-ish new OS implementation and 'app store' distribution model. So in typical me-too mode, they cloned the iPad instead of taking advantage of their legacy platform to make up for their late-to-market status.

It's worse than that--you're losing the PC

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than that. You're losing the PC. Go back to a simple fee-for-service model, and you might have a chance of getting the PC back. Those of us who enjoyed the old windows don't want to be the product. We're dropping out of your metro-interfaced fake iStore ecosystem, slowly but surely, and once we get used to free operating systems you won't be able to get us back.

I can mod the post +1 Funny?

[fbobraga]

... or only comments?

Re:Yeah: like pushing their crap onto captive mark

[Anonymous Coward]

At least spell it properly, it is "Gutmensch".
And it doesn't really have the meaning you claim, it never really had any non-insulting meaning in German.
I also find the migrant issue rather weird to associate with guilt, (almost?) all countries have signed (e.g. UN) contracts around the treatment of refugees.
Maybe it's just that some people in Germany still believe you should at least to some degree honour contracts and promises you made even when it becomes inconvenient.
Besides, Germany had the Aussiedler/Spätaussiedler (4.5 millon) and the re-integration of half of the country before and the world didn't go under because of it.
Those scaremongers especially in countries like Hungary really suffer from a complete lack of perspective.
But I guess the future is pretty certain to tell us if Germany was wrong. Will any of those complaining and spreading fear change their tune if the future shows that Germany will do just fine? I'm afraid like with terrorism, no amount of proof will change their minds.
However, coming back to the guilt thing, I think there might be maybe 3 understandings that are sufficiently more widespread to indeed make Germany different that might be consequence of past experience:
1) "the law says so" isn't a good excuse for doing something wrong. Using that phrase to justify something is likely to end with uncomfortable follow-up questions.
2) that following whoever shouts the loudest, especially the loudest hateful things, is not particularly likely to end well.
3) that "it would never happen to us/we would never do that because our country is so great" is just nationalist bullshit.
Meanwhile in other countries, people are still shocked when they find out that back in that time it wasn't just German ideology but that their own country engaged in castration, science experiments and all kinds of other things on "undesireable" people of all kinds. Seems to me like it's especially countries like Sweden that are so stuck in guilt (or is it denial?) that many people don't even know about what was going on in their own country.

MS commitment to projects

[unixisc]

Microsoft's non-commitment to it's hardware and software keeps tarnishing the brand. If they are not willing to commit

There's one more - the Windows NT on RISC platform. It was actually a pretty promising concept, and had Microsoft executed on it properly, we would probably still have Silicon Graphics and DEC workstations running today Windows 7 (or 8 or 10). And there wouldn't have been an Intel monopoly either - there would have been enough semiconductor fabs and vendors willing to make MIPS and Alpha chips for the platform, so that we'd have had a healthy choice of workstations from which to choose.

Re:MS commitment to projects

[Shirley Marquez]

Microsoft made one key error. They could have made support of the RISC architectures a condition of getting Windows certification for software. They didn't do it. They didn't even produce RISC versions of all of their own applications.

But a bigger blow was Apple's refusal to license OS X for PReP (PowerPC Reference Platform) and CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform) systems. (The idea went through a few iterations of its name before dying.) The plan was for those to be systems that could run all three of the major OSes: Windows, OS X, and Unix; IBM produced CHRP prototypes and was prepared to go into mass production as soon as the Mac license was signed. The idea was born during the time when Mac clones were a big thing, but then Steve Jobs returned to Apple and killed the clone market, and PReP/CHRP along with it. If those systems had been made and been popular they would have offered a large market for Windows applications on PowerPC, and that would have put pressure on software developers to support more than one platform

Announcing Microsoft Ear!

[theendlessnow]

The new Microsoft Ear is an exciting add-on to popular phone that might be lacking a headphone jack. Just plug it in or get the Deluxe Elephant Ear case (in genuine immitation rogue elephant hide leather) and now you have a place to plug in your head phones!

Re:Yeah: like pushing their crap onto captive mark

[Anonymous Coward]

What 6 million? Ah, you mean that "holocash" childrens tale.
You do know, that the official numbers in Auschwitz are gone down from 4 million, to 1,5 million and now to mere "thousands of people died here".

The first OFFICIAL plaque that was on display at the Auschwitz camp from 1948 until 1989. Also, no talk about jews there.
"Four million people suffered and died here at the hands of the nazi murderers between the years 1940 and 1945"

The second is the OFFICIAL plaque from 1989 until some years ago.
"For ewer let this place be a cry of despair and warning to humanity where the nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children mainly jews from various countries of europe."

Lhe latest OFFICIAL plaque in Auschwitz talks about "thousand of peoples who lost their lives here"

Go to Auschwitz and see for your self, if you do not believe.
So The number has come down from 4 million to mere thousands, but the official number of 6 million still lives on? Interesting ...

MS adventures in phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Sent from my Windows phone.

I have no idea whether you're being facetious or serious - you'd be right either way. Nonetheless, as a Lumia owner, I'd like to 'back' up what you wrote.

I first bought a Lumia 520 some 5 years ago or so, and just loved it. Note that this was my first smartphone. It was reasonable compared to the alternatives, and completely changed the way I used cellphones. Previously, I used to use a Motorola RAZR, but after that phone went bad, I bought this phone. Once I started using their texts, it totally transformed the way I used to text. Previously, I'd avoid texting at all costs, since pressing the numeric keypad for a-z was too painful. And other models, like Nokia, with their dictionary that attempted to forcefully autocomplete words that you had no intention of typing, drove me nuts. But here, Windows Phone 8 delivered a smooth experience - not only was typing a breeze w/ the on-screen keyboard, but they included suggestions of completed words and the following words - what you see today in iOS and Android (but which wasn't there on those platforms at the time!)

Windows Phone 8 also came with a nifty set of utilities - calculator, maps, OneNote (by far, the best!!!), and I also downloaded some free utilities from the store - like unit converter (now a part of the standard calculator in Windows 10), currency converter and a few more things. The phone's touch screen was just awesome - far superior even to the iPhone. In short, it was a perfectly functional office phone. It's main shortcomings - if you wanted the latest games, go Android or iOS. Also, the screen color choices were really limited - 16 color or so, and its customization was seriously limited. I won't comment on the camera, since the resolutions vary wildly from model to model.

Last year, I passed on that phone to a driver, showing him how to use it in a hands free mode. Since then, I got a Lumia 550, which is the low end phone that has Windows 10 Mobile. It is almost identical to Windows 10 desktop, so has none of the shortcomings that Windows 8 has. It still has a shortage of apps - the ones I really miss are a VOIP app, as well as an Android Duo app

If one is heavily into standard apps that are not available on this phone, then by all means, go for an Android or a iPhone. But if one only uses the phone to call, text, WhatsApp, car handsfree, camera and so on, then Windows 10 Mobile is a perfectly adequate alternative. Only downside - it's not available on the CDMA carriers, such as Verizon or Sprint

Re:Yeah: like pushing their crap onto captive mark

[Anonymous Coward]

In India, the Windows Phone is a good platform. Most of the major apps that are popular there are available not only on Android and iOS, but Windows Phone as well. A major contrast to the US, where it's usually just the first 2

Re:Yeah: like pushing their crap onto captive mark

[unixisc]

Precisely!!! Everybody is still stuck on a war that ended more than 70 years ago, but ignoring today's version of the Nazis - the Muslims who want to bring the entire world under the banner of Islam

Microsoft didn't just miss the boat

[fruitbat23]

Microsoft bought Danger in 2008 for $500 Million. Two years later the wrote off $750 Million, with warehouses full of their BS "Sidekick" phones.
Then they bought Nokia, and did it all over again, but BIGGER! (Paid over 7 Billion, write off 7.6 Billion shortly thereafter..)

Microsoft didn't miss the boat, they EPICALLY FAILED.

Missed the market by about thirty six years

[khz6955]

If Microsoft CEO Bill Gates hadn't acted to suppress the development of the TRON platform, they would have been first to market even before Apple. While purporting to support the TRON consortium MS acted on Capitol Hill to have TRON denied access to the US market. ''We don't want the Japanese to create a specification that would preclude competition,'' 1989. A similar strategy applied to Sendo a British maker of handsets. Who of course were bilked over and went broke in litigation with Microsoft. So that's TWICE or THREE times if you include Nokia, that the worlds chief software visionary didn't get it.

WIndows Phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, that's nothing.

Wait until you see Windows 10 in an enterprise setting. Had to kill the machine by forcefully powering it off. After waiting an eternity for it to turn off.

Think Vista, but with better looks... And if you think Vista was unique, boy, you're in for some serious flashback!

Re:Yeah: like pushing their crap onto captive mark

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I can explain. The 6 million number comes from a place called "reality" while your numbers come from your ass.

My next phone will be the surface phone

[rhyous]

My next phone will be the surface phone. I am just waiting for it to release.

Re:Yeah: like pushing their crap onto captive mark

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that the six million figure is way off. The Nazis killed closer to twenty million people in total.

http://www.businessinsider.com...

PReP

[unixisc]

IMO, the biggest blow to PReP was the cancellation of OS/2 for PowerPC. That would have made a remarkable combination - the unique capabilities of OS/2 running on this new RISC platform. PReP didn't make much sense for Windows NT, which already had the fastest CPU in the Alpha and some pretty good graphics capable CPUs in MIPS, or for Unix, which despite the number of vendors, was mainly a Sun stable. Also, even w/o Apple, had the companies doing PReP computers - Motorola SPG, Umax and Power Computing - put BeOS on their boxes instead of folding when Jobs yanked their MacOS licenses, that would have been another bold foray into a new computing platform. Unfortunately, it was a lost opportunity.

T-Mobile MDA?

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently popped a SIM card and bought $10 worth of airtime just to see if my Windows phone from 2005 still worked. It did. The MDA was a fabulous Windows phone - unlike a used (but far newer) Windows-banded Lumia that I bought recently, which ended up in the trash can because it was completely useless and irrelevant.