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Neowin: Microsoft's Windows Phone Business 'Is Dead' (neowin.net)
An anonymous reader quotes Neowin:
If you've been expecting Microsoft to issue a press release formally announcing the end of its Windows phone business, you're probably hoping for a bit too much. But make no mistake: its phone hardware business is dead. RIP-dead. Send-flowers-dead. Worm-food-dead. Some fans, and even some in the media, have consistently refused to acknowledge this, despite the clear signs in recent quarters. Now, Microsoft's own figures, and its statements regarding its phone division, should make it irrefutably clear that there is no life left in its Windows phone business.
During the quarter ending in December, Microsoft's phone revenue dropped to just $200 million, which included some sales of feature phones, before the company completed its sale of that business unit to Foxconn in November. That figure has now dropped to virtually nothing... Today, as Microsoft published its earnings report for Q3 FY2017, it revealed that its "Phone revenue declined $730 million". Based on its earlier financial disclosures, that means the company's phone hardware revenue fell to just $5 million for the entire quarter ending March 31, 2017. During Microsoft's earnings call today, its chief financial officer, Amy Hood, acknowledged this, stating that there was "no material phone revenue this quarter". The outlook for the next few months is similarly bleak, as Hood predicted "negligible revenue from Phone" in the coming quarter.
During the quarter ending in December, Microsoft's phone revenue dropped to just $200 million, which included some sales of feature phones, before the company completed its sale of that business unit to Foxconn in November. That figure has now dropped to virtually nothing... Today, as Microsoft published its earnings report for Q3 FY2017, it revealed that its "Phone revenue declined $730 million". Based on its earlier financial disclosures, that means the company's phone hardware revenue fell to just $5 million for the entire quarter ending March 31, 2017. During Microsoft's earnings call today, its chief financial officer, Amy Hood, acknowledged this, stating that there was "no material phone revenue this quarter". The outlook for the next few months is similarly bleak, as Hood predicted "negligible revenue from Phone" in the coming quarter.
I'm replying to the post above because for some reason I cannot just 'Post'.
I have to admit, this makes me sad. I love my Windows Phone, because it is the easiest to program and configure of all the phones in my household (I have an Android for business, my wife has an iPhone from work, and we both have WIndows Phones for personal use)
I find the iPhone and Android very unfriendly unless reconfigured from the ground up. The Windows Phone leaves you the illusion you own it. It is an illusion, it still does things without asking, but I feel that I can disable the things I do not want... except for the bloody updates.
On my Android, I always have shit that I did not put there, and I have to figure out how to disable...
Now I am going to actually have to go and educate myself in the search of a new hardware that I will have to configure to my liking. The Nook is my favorite tablet... so I guess I will have to look for an Android that can be gracefully opened/jailbroken/whatever the kids call it nowadays.
And yes, I know I am a dinosaur for sticking with Windows Phone. It's just that I had so much C# software to talk to the CNC machines at work, the servers, the UPSs, the robot cells and the boxline... and even my cars.
I even managed to learn to like the bloody tiles.
No good deed goes unpunished...
[nt]
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
What is the tech world coming to if we lose our grip with Monty Python?
If one has a Lumia, then one can still use it in the ways that one uses a cellphone. Talk, send text messages, use Bing maps for directions, listen to music, watch videos... I don't see any of that stopping. Is there an en masse migration of services to VoLTE-only that would make a Lumia unusable? So that it couldn't be used for Legacy GSM networks?
I agree that the Windows Phone platform has been stagnant, but that only matters if one is heavily into apps and is seeing them pulled from the Windows Store. But for the basic things that a phone does, Windows Phone is still fine. While there were complaints about the original tiles in Windows Phone 8, the look & feel of Windows 10 Mobile has been pretty fluent, and the only thing it lacks is a good app ecosystem. Heck, I'd argue that it's the best in work environments if Windows is the main OS being used - both for servers as well as laptops
Just b'cos Microsoft has stopped selling them doesn't mean your phones will stop working. If you and your wife like your Windows phones, why're you looking for new hardware? Just stay w/ this one until it dies. I too have all 3 types of phone, and while I use my iPhone due to FaceTime, I do prefer my Lumia 550 over my Moto-X.
The only FACT in this story is Amy Hood's comment regarding WP revenues. Everything else is speculation and opinion.
This is nearly identical to the story that was posted here a few weeks ago declaring Windows Phone is "Officially Dead". Only Microsoft can make such a claim and they haven't to date.
I happen to agree with the author's assessment, but I don't like an opinion piece being disguised as a news report. As a loyal WP user, I won't be buying any new ones until I see more commitment from the company.
Totally agree - this is sad. I am primarily an iPhone user, and have experience with Android tablets, but I had to use the Windows phone for a while and I ended up liking it better than either. The UI is far less intrusive and needlessly complicated: it just works, to coin a phrase. When my Dad wanted a smartphone, despite his fears of being overwhelmed, I got him a Windows Phone and he had no problems at all. Even he was surprised at how easy it was to use. It was easier than the Jitterbug he replaced. Yet as a power user I didn't come across anything I couldn't do - and do easier - than on my iPhone.
I think the tiles setup allows *much* better customization than the wall of icons approach that both Apple and Google went with.
Seems like an example of the market not rewarding a good product, I guess.
Under Gates or possibly even Ballmer, this could have been a reality. They both cared about businesses and to a degree consumers, too. This is why there was such an emphasis on usability in Windows until recently. Nedalla cares about one thing and one thing only: subscription services. If it isn't this, he doesn't give too fucks about it. And this totally makes sense, too, he comes from Microsoft's Azure Cloud as a background. Gates was all about being a cutthroat business man, so this is the type of people he catered to when pushing the company agenda. And well, Ballmer, we all know the DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS speech.
Let the Dephonestration begin!
I distinctly remember Gartner forecasting that Windows Phone would become the second most used smartphone OS, just slightly behind Android. Usually, their forecasts are super accurate even going 20 years into the future. And it was obvious at the time: Windows Phone had doubled its market share from 0.4% in 2011 to 0.8% in 2012. From this rich dataset, Gartner did they only sensible thing to produce a forecast: They assumed the same growth rate for the coming years and predicted 1.6%, 3.2%, 6.4%, 12.8% to 25.6% in 2017. Forecast for 2018 was 51.2% and for 2019 102.4%. Despite all the headlines, I think Microsoft are on track to achieve Gartner's 2019 forecast.
RIP-dead. Send-flowers-dead. Worm-food-dead.
"It's pining!"
"It's not pining, it's passed on! This is an Ex-Phone!"
I just had this vision of Monty Python's Dead Parrot.
I personally hope MS keeps it alive in some form. 2 competitors is far too few...
Successful phase 3. Extinguish.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Which is kind of ironic as that's exactly how the computer OS situation worked out. Windows was the shittiest OS but ended up owning the market much like Android does for phones. Apple is on the sideline in both situations providing an alternative at a premium price.
I use that forum too and if it says it is dead that means alot.
I was hoping it would take around 20% marketshare just for healthy competition even if I do not use it anymore as this would benefit everyone. :-(
It is not WindowsCE (which sucked) and was a much different and better OS. It usess the same kernel as Windows Server 2012 R2! I loved the UI. Windows 8 rocked on a phone and the back and forward feels more natural than Android. It was stable and very lightweight and ran easier on slower but battery saving cpus. The tiles give you the notifications for news events perfect at a quick glance.
MS got it backwards with a start menu on WindowsCE and a phone UI on the desktop. Windows Phone should have come out in 2009 if it were to survive. Also WIndows Universal Apps or UWP was not mature until last year! If this was there in 2009/2010 it could have had significant marketshare and be a much needed 3rd player and kept IT and programmers jobs and not made --webkit CSS extensions standard.
My mom who is 68 years old and has dying eye sight and is techno illerate loves her $50 Windows Phone Nokia 640 unlocked. No way could Android run as good for that cheap for $50. The big tiles make it easier for her to see and understand what each tile does.
But it makes no sense to buy one as I did not want to invest $500 into a dead platform so I went back to Android 18 months ago. Even if Neowin of all places admits it now it is time to move forward. Ironically this is what killed Unix for Windows. People wanted standards and no one wanted to pay lots of money for Unix or a Commode as everyone was using Windows. Now MS got hit in reverse by the same logic.
http://saveie6.com/
As we witness the end of this sad tale, let us not forget that Microsoft tried to hijack Nokia's rabidly loyal userbase by planting one of their own as CEO and switching the company to WP, only to be universally rejected. They killed the top-selling smartphone system of the time (Symbian) and the new system that everyone was hyped for (MeeGo), all to peddle a late, rushed, still unfinished piece of crap that no one wanted.
So, good fucking riddance to stillborn WP, the mobile equivalent of "this is why we can't have nice things" (and by "nice things" I mean MeeGo).
Circumcision is child abuse.
Here you go. Build it yourself.
https://learn.adafruit.com/pip...
Ballmer wasn't wrong, he just didn't realize that consumers would put up with that. However, Microsoft learned these lessons and applying them with Win10 desktop.
I just had this vision of Monty Python's Dead Parrot.
Gee, Wally, I just had this vision that Windows Phone burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
At least their Zune business is alive and well.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Newer one.
https://hackaday.io/project/19...
It seems like I've heard this news before only for Microsoft to change its mind and try again. How many times has it been left for dead only to be resurrected? I've lost count ....
My wife is using my old (first) Windows Phone. Our daughter just impacted the volume control last week... which was the first physical damage, but won't be the last. My own phone is more than two years old.
Between my first comment and this one, I have been browsing the new Lumias... but I know that at some point, I may want newer technology, if only for processor power.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Anyone want to buy an Amazon Fire Phone?
The Windows Mobile phones were great for the first few years (before the iPhone) and showed great promise. MS must have invested a ton of loot into the project, just to let it die this slow death.
The author wrongly assumed that Microsoft's phone business is the manufacture and selling of cell phones. Microsoft's phone business is in patents, and it brings in far more money from patents that it does phones.
Reports range from 2 to 6 billions dollars every year in profits just from Android.
https://www.howtogeek.com/1837...
https://fossbytes.com/microsof...
Samsung alone pays Microsoft 1 billion per year
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1...
Making handsets is simply a convenient way to stay in the patent creation business.
I still like my Windows Phone, and my next one will be a Windows Phone, as well. The UI is much better than the other two.
I don't respond to AC's.
iOS 10 blows chunks on an iPhone 6 even
My wife has an iPhone 6 and iOS 10 performs pretty well on it, and has a number of substantial improvements from iOS9... if nothing else the messaging app is much better and what do most non-technical people use anyway?
On top of that are the invisible things like allowing call management apps and other app improvements possible on iOS10, and it has been nicer for her than iOS9 was.
We'll see if that continues to hold through other iOS updates but she'll keep the phone 2-3 years more probably, Which will be fully supported unlike Windows phone going forward...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.alcatelonetouch.us/...
Any phone you can't prevent from shutting itself down and applying updates is a phone you don't own. The best you could do is schedule no less than 6 hours where the phone could make itself unavailable for up to 20 minutes at a time. If you see the update come I understand in your can put it off for some hours, but if you don't catch it in time, tough. Totally unusable as a 24 hr on call support phone. I consider my lower end Windows phones to be toys.
You obviously never tried to develop for Windows Phone. I tried on a 6.1 and it had a kiloton of unimplemented api calls.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
But it does mean that existing bugs won't be getting fixed, nor will there be much needed improvements.
I'd been a happy Windows Phone user since it first came to Verizon back in 2011. Eventually I got a better carrier (just to be able to stick with the platform), but eventually even I had to relent and go Android just a couple of months ago as it was abundantly clear that the even my 950 XL was suffering some some of the same SW issues that my previously upgraded Lumia Icon had... none of which were getting fixed.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Beaten by Linux.
(Monkey boy got one thing right.)
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I am hanging onto my Windows 7 machines until MS releases an OS with a Windows 7-like UI.
While you're waiting, you can dual-install Linux and have that right now. (KDE)
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
As much as I hate Microsoft as a company, having Google and Apple control everything is also problematic. Thus, it would indeed be nice if MS gave them decent competition.
Table-ized A.I.
A year or two ago Microsoft offered our company money and even some engineers to help to port our mobile product to Windows phone. Since we were really strapped for engineering resources, which we would still have to devote to the port despite the assistance, but not short on cash, we turned them down because we felt our other priorities were more important than Windows phone. We must have been the minority to do so because they were incredulous at our rejection. Just as well it seems.
Wait... your Windows phone gets updates??!!!
Wow, you are the lucky one then, because my my Lumia 625 and 635 were promised Win 10,(along with 78% of the MS phone market), then left to die alone in the digital wilderness, like ALL MS hardware eventually does. So Skype,Messenger, and Whatsapp are all unsupported now, in fact, even with the latest FB update, you get stuck in the loop, where if someone messages you, the screen asks to download Messenger, which you cant, they couldnt even roll it back to letting FB receive/reply PM'S,even thought the icon is still there.
No MS, you lost because your place in the phone arena because you ABANDONED it, it was a TOY to you, Like your first Surface was, Like the Zune was,like...well, ANYTHING not PC related.
Hope you never escape the furthest depths of Hell.
As usual, Windows phone users are flabbergasted.
Both of them.
To be fair the first Surface was a toy to everyone with a toy OS even less useful than Windows 10 mobile.
I'm on the Insider program, and my Lumia 640 gets more updates in a month than either my Android 4.3 and 6.0 have ever gotten throughout their entire lifetime.
Seriously, when walking out of the store, Android feels like abandonware. At least I know the known vulnerabilities are getting addressed on WP. On Android...the list is just getting bigger over time.
I wonder if this means they'll stop trying to turn Windows UI into an phone OS...
Who am I kidding, that ship has long since sailed... sigh.
The Digital Sorceress
Microsoft fanboy detected, the single Windows Phone user that still thinks it's great.
With the Internet Microsoft didn't get in early enough since they weren't in the UNIX server/storage market. ISP's offering home Internet with SLIP/PPP came out in 1993. Trumpet Winsock was the choice for many ISP's, offering PC owners a command prompt text based USENET browser and Email. As the large companies had already abandoned their proprietary network protocols into supporting TCP/IP, they weren't going to just switch over to another standard. So Microsoft just had to adopt TCP/IP in order for PC's to be able to communicate with other Internet servers. They then couldn't dominate the internet, cloud, servers, database markets.
For a while they owned web browsers simply because they bundled Internet Explorer free with Windows and budget PC's. Microsoft made a loss on selling X-Box hardware but makes the profit from game licenses and royalties. The only reason they can dominate a market segment is because they are already there and can scare off investors that would be willing to fund rivals.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Wow, you are the lucky one then, because my my Lumia 625 and 635 were promised Win 10,(along with 78% of the MS phone market), then left to die alone in the digital wilderness
Same thing happened to my sony xperia play, same thing happened to my moto g 2nd. In both cases the community stepped up and provided something but the vendor? nope nope. Anyone who gets updates (which don't render the device a total turd) is lucky.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's Irony princess, I didn't mean to offend your transgenderness.
That's in USA.
In a lot of countries, phone companies don't even sell phones. They sell only SIM cards.
This time, Microsoft, you may not consider yourself middle-fingered - you ARE middle-fingered.
From my experience the windows phones have longer battery life than android devices, they are just more efficient. I would keep my old windows phone just for that. What sucks though is the browser. For example it regularly messes up displaying Facebook, showing it shifted to the side, so you can't see things. And it does not display CNN at all. Well, I guess websites also just don't get tested on this browser.
Bill Gates is that you? Ah the Betamax argument. Numbers tell a different story. NOBODY IS BUYING WINDOWS PHONE. It's dead. Get over it.
Sales. Seriously is that hard to figure out. Nobody is buying the phone get over it.
Even my old Nokia N900 still gets updates, some community updates turned up over the weekend according to the notification icon. That's despite Nokia being drained of blood and staked through the heart.
MS is just "special" - locking anyone else out who would be capable of doing updates and then abandoning a product which is not even old enough to need a new battery.
It happens on PCs as well like those folks with TV tuner cards that suddenly found them unsupported in Win10 media player.
Forced updates and AD stuff is only wanted by MS-indoctrinated sysadmins. That group is too small to make it profitable.
If noone makes windows phones anymore they will be dead over 3-4 years, when most units will have physically died.
Apps: No. For Android, there are stingray detectors once you're root (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.srlabs.snoopsnitch, only if you have a Snapdragon soc).
If you want a phone without a company controlling it, either flash an open soure ROM or root your android and kill the Google analytics and adservices.
Even though I preferred the openness of Android, I always secretly admired Microsoft's mobile UI. The tiles concept seemed very well-done.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
I'm conflicted about this. Although I'd never own one, I felt it was important for Windows Phone to continue as competition (however feeble) against Android and IOS. It's important to have multiple vendors pushing each other to excel.
I'm worried now about Microsoft tablet. Of all the tablet makers, Microsoft seems the only one who at least pays lip service to content *creation* rather than mere content consumption. If Microsoft fails in the tablet market (which could easily happen, considering all the other missteps they've made) the message could easily be that nobody wants to create content on a tablet, which is profoundly untrue. Its that there haven't been good solutions yet.
I'm saying all of this not as a Microsoft fan. I run Winders because it runs the Adobe suite and I can't justify the cost of a mac. (I can build a PC to my specifications for a fraction of the cost.) The OS is a means to an end, not an end in itself. If the Adobe suite ran on Linux, M$ and Apple could both go screw.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Wait... your Windows phone gets updates??!!! Wow, you are the lucky one then, because my my Lumia 625 and 635 were promised Win 10,(along with 78% of the MS phone market), then left to die alone in the digital wilderness, like ALL MS hardware eventually does. So Skype,Messenger, and Whatsapp are all unsupported now, in fact, even with the latest FB update, you get stuck in the loop, where if someone messages you, the screen asks to download Messenger, which you cant, they couldnt even roll it back to letting FB receive/reply PM'S,even thought the icon is still there.
I'll grant you that the initial Windows Phones - 8 & 8.1 - didn't get updates on their own, since those were tied to the carrier. Like when I had an Icon, I never got an update for that b'cos Verizon never released one: it took them forever to test the thing.
Microsoft changed things in Windows 10, where they made the updates automatic. Like on my Lumia 550, everytime I've had a major Windows update on my laptop, I've had one on that phone. It may change going forward in Redstone, but as long as the basic things that I do on that phone ain't sabotaged, I am happy. I've never used Skype or FB Messenger, but WhatsApp works fine. In fact, I think the issue you have is that WhatsApp eliminated some older OSs from its support, such as Windows Phone 8. 10 and 8.1 (I believe re: the latter) are still supported.
Actually, w/ the Windows 8 & 8.1 phones, Microsoft did leave it up to the carriers to provide their updates, which turned out to be a fiasco, particularly w/ Verizon. Now, Microsoft provides all the updates in Windows 10 Mobile, and those come at the same time as the desktop updates. Microsoft did the right thing here in following Apple's example, and even Google's gotten the hint, since every phone that has Lollipop and beyond is upgradable. Good luck doing that w/ Gingerbread, Ice Cream sandwich or Kitkat
There were at least 3 on this page, by my count.
Matte screen: whenever I get a phone, I buy its matte sheet protector online almost immediately and put it on. Gone are the days when I'd let the screen get scratched and smudged beyond cleaning
I never owned a Windows phone until Nokia adapted that platform w/ version 8. From what I heard, the CE based ones were crap. The first Windows phone I had was a Lumia 520 - their entry level - and it was a breeze, going from a flip phone Moto RAZR. Until then, I never used to text, but once I had this, texting was a breeze. As was HERE maps, OneNote and a host of other features.
In fact, at the time, Windows 8 had the best phone typing platform: Android and iOS have since caught up. But at the time, if you typed, you'd see suggested words on the top, which you could ignore. That was way better than the Symbian word-guessing that Nokia phones tried to do while one painstakingly used the numeric keypad to type out words. One had to know where to find the option of disabling the dictionary.
Also, as an aside, the touch sensitivity of the Lumias were unmatched by anything else I've had.
As someone else who's travelled, it's nothing like the US. There, phone companies sell you a SIM, and as for the phone, it's up to you whether you wanna buy one from them, or provide your own. Also, the system of getting a 'free' phone w/ a 2 year contract doesn't exist: you simply buy the phone at cost upfront, and then put in the SIM of your choice. Of course, that's due to all of them being GSM standards: not sure what the practice is in Japan or Korea.
And if you want to stop making Tysons rich, start your own chicken farm
Are you talking Edge for Windows 10 Mobile, or Internet Explorer for Windows Phone 8?
Was it ever alive?
From what I understood about Continuum, it's changing b/w desktop and tablet modes when something like a Surface is attached to, or removed from, the keyboard.
I've not seen that come to phones, nor do I see it as essential. As it is, Lumias are ARM based, and so any software - like MS Office - has to be specifically there for both platforms. Where they are useful is that if one uses OneDrive to store documents but needs to access them w/o their laptop, like say at an airport, the Lumia comes in handy.
Microsoft failed because they tried to make a platform that had all of the weaknesses of iOS and Android, with none of the strengths of either:
- Whitelist only app publishing model
- "Live tiles" that aren't actually live, and compared to Android's widget system are just big icons that change at an interval that neither the developer nor the end user can control.
- Demanded ridiculous prices for app development and publishing (until only very recently)
- Not once, or twice, but THREE times changed the app framework in such a way that broke compatibility. Windows phone evangelists loved talking up a storm about Android fragmentation, but at least Android apps work across different major versions of the OS.
- Not once, or twice, but THREE times broke OS compatibility across devices, and they knew before they even released WP7 that they'd be doing this (technically speaking, there's no real reason WP7 devices couldn't run WP8 so long as new drivers would have been provided by Microsoft, and the filesystem converted to NTFS. The argument of "it's a different kernel" is not a valid one in this regard, rather it's just a combination of trying to rush to market with what they had at the time, and then cheaping out on upgrades.)
And if all of that isn't enough, they created a weak ass API framework that isn't actually capable of doing anything interesting.
Its all or nothing the last time I checked, iOS at least makes it easy to turn off/on what apps can access.
Android 6 and up essentially disables permissions by default, and you have to grant the app access to different things as it needs them, and you can always decline any particular permission. Even Google's built in apps are subject to this (for example, Google Maps requests permission to access GPS, which you can either allow or deny.)
There's still an app manifest, so you'll see the permissions needed when the app installs, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the app will actually be able to do those things.
and even Google's gotten the hint, since every phone that has Lollipop and beyond is upgradable
It's not up to Google, it's up to the handset OEM. That said, I especially doubt most of them will actually provide timely updates.