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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...
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
RIP-dead. Send-flowers-dead. Worm-food-dead.
"It's pining!"
"It's not pining, it's passed on! This is an Ex-Phone!"
Microsoft have a big event on Tuesday.
Mega lols if they release a new phone, along with a Surface Pro 5.
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...
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
Non of the big phone sellers in my country sell Windows Phones anymore. They were pretty angry when Microsoft's flagship phone was sold for 750 euro when it finally arrived in our country only to see it appear in a low cost supermarket for only 199 euro 5 weeks later. They were still selling their phone for 750 euro while they were dumped in the supermarket. How do you explain your customers that you ripped them off, even when it is not your fault?
I've read that these phone sellers couldn't even turn the phones back to Microsoft. They had to sell them with a loss to get rid of them.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
It's Irony princess, I didn't mean to offend your transgenderness.
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.