Windows Phone Dies Today (theverge.com)

From a report: Microsoft is killing off Windows Phone 8.1 support today, more than three years after the company first introduced the update. The end of support marks an end to the Windows Phone era, and the millions of devices still running the operating system. While most have accepted that the death of Windows Phone occurred more than a year ago, AdDuplex estimates that nearly 80 percent of all Windows-powered phones are still running Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8, or Windows Phone 8.1. All of these handsets are now officially unsupported, and only 20 percent of all Windows phones are running the latest Windows 10 Mobile OS.

Comments

Glad

[fred6666]

it never took off.
A monopoly on both desktop and mobile would not be a good thing for consumers.

Re:Glad

[Oswald McWeany]

They were too late to the game. If they had been first they probably would have been the standard.

We'd all have been complaining about it like we do the windows desktop- but it would be silly to have anything else because Windows Phone would be the standard.

Re:Glad

[Anonymous Coward]

But they never would have been first. The iPhone was a fundamental reimagining of the mobile phone, a generational change. After the iPhone razed the landscape of clunky, carrier controlled phones, others, like Android and Windows phone, were able to step into the new world. The iPhone was the big bang of mobility devices.

Re:Glad

[dlleigh]

Microsoft was not late to the market: they have been working on phones for a long time, and PDAs before that. Windows Mobile on phones predates both the iPhone and Android.

For whatever reason, Microsoft was just never able to get mobile right.

Re:Glad

[Oswald McWeany]

But they never would have been first. The iPhone was a fundamental reimagining of the mobile phone, a generational change. After the iPhone razed the landscape of clunky, carrier controlled phones, others, like Android and Windows phone, were able to step into the new world. The iPhone was the big bang of mobility devices.

That's not entirely true. There was the IBM Simon and the Palm Pilot phones and blackberries before iPhone. There were also other "dumb" phones that could run apps. I had one that predated iPhone.

Apple were just the first to put a really solid device together that worked well and appealed to a large market.

It's not impossible to believe that someone at Microsoft could have thought "Let's make a better version of the Palm Pilot Phone" before Apple had the idea... they just didn't. Or if they did, the stupidity of the MS management squashed the idea until it was too late.

Re: Glad

[that this is not und]

Apple just leveraged their iPod success. In the clamor to claim the smart phone market they've brushed that fact off to the side.

Re:Glad

[sexconker]

I had a Windows Mobile 5 (later updated to 6) phone. It was actually pretty great. And I was doing things miles beyond what the iPhone did years later.

The only thing it didn't have was built-in GPS, so I bought a GPS receiver ($99 at the time) and an add-on for mapping and navigation (at $5 a month, I think).

Re:Glad

[unixisc]

I don't think there would have been any monopoly, and besides, Microsoft no longer has even a desktop monopoly. Apple has quite a viable alternative, and if they introduced a few Macs in the $500 range, they'd be good to go. Chromebooks too - if they dropped the requirement that everything has to be on 'the cloud' and provided some w/ adequate storage, they'd be pretty good as well.

Re: Glad

[tripleevenfall]

It doesn't really matter whose shoulders you're standing on when you break through, does it? You still did the work to break through.

If it had been M$, they'd be on top of the world. But they're not.

Re:Glad

[The Grim Reefer]

They were too late to the game. If they had been first they probably would have been the standard.

Really? Windows CE was released in 1992. My first smart phone ran it. My iPaq from 2003 ran it's predecessor Widows Mobile. I had two phones after that (and prior to 2008) that also ran Windows Mobile. So no, iOS and Android were not first.

Re:Glad

[gsking1]

Too much hype about apple. Sure the iphone was better, than many others at the time, but it was more evolutionary. It combined some of the best ideas and added a few new ones. Before iPhone, the Palm and Blackberry were standards. The iPhone solved some issues with those for example, it didn't require the server software for email unleashing the market to the masses. The Palms were nice, and many loved them, but they had trouble with stability issues once phones were added. Much more evolutionary than revolutionary. With that said Apple seemed to have gotten it right and I've been with apple since 4S.

Re:Glad

[stooo]

>> Windows Mobile 5 (later updated to 6)
That's soooo cute, really. Most Winphones didn't update, and were obsoleted overnight !

Re: Glad

[that this is not und]

I remember, though, the "Get a free iTunes song" bottle caps on Pepsi bottles. It reminded me of Jobs' comment to Scully about "selling sugar water to kids".

The Apple Phone success wasn't very technical at all. Like most of the Apple aura it was slick pop marketing. The tech people at Apple are no different than those at any other company. Like Google, it's a marketing operation. (Cues up that Rush song: "...salesmen. Salesmen!!")

Re:Glad

[alexgieg]

Chromebooks too - if they dropped the requirement that everything has to be on 'the cloud' and provided some w/ adequate storage, they'd be pretty good as well.

They're doing that already. Newer Chromebooks run Android apps, which can all use local storage. It isn't a great solution by any means at least until apps that leverage the screen, the keyboard and the mouse start appearing, but it's being done.

Re:Glad

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you weren't alive before the iPhone. Blackberry and Palm and all sorts of great handsets were on the market with features the iPhone lacked for years to come (they eventually got them).

The "everything before the iPhone was crap" mantra is getting stupid.

Re:Glad

[Chris Mattern]

By "updated to 6" he means "I bought a new phone"

Re:Glad

[jellomizer]

The real issue that I see, is that the Windows Phone didn't bring anything to the table. It was just a Me Too attempt.
The Market was already dominated by Apple as the design that other base after. And Android was the alternative that worked on all the non-apple devices.
Google beat Microsoft to the rest of the devices game.

If Microsoft brought something good to the table, Support for native x86 windows applications? or just better cross platform support. That may had been enough to change the market.

With the only exception with the XBox line. Microsoft had had a hard time trying to get people off the windows x86 platform.
Failures such as
Zune, Windows CE, Windows NT for Alpha... When ever Microsoft looses PC Comparability it has a hard time in the market.

Re:Glad

[swb]

I think Apple's big breakthrough was that it was all screen. Until that point every PDA Phone was half keyboard, half screen and on the iPhone you had a "giant" screen which seemed even bigger and more useful with pinch zoom and scrolling.

Re:Glad

[Anne Thwacks]

Pretty sure there were Windows CE based smartphones as well that predate the iPhone.

Indeed there were - I had two! They demonstrated all that has killed the Windows Phone today - and more!

The software looked good, and had the features expected of Windows of its day: There was never enough ROM or RAM, it kept locking up or rebooting itself or needing re-boots - which deinstalled all your apps!

And there were some extras, familiar to today's WinPhone users: It had few apps from third parties, and no bug fixes, ever. When the OS was upgraded, you were left behind. new OS versions could not be installed on the old phones.

What made the iPhone a massive hit was that the software had bug fixes, and updates - because Apple had the clout and good sense to fight the carriers.

If only Nokia had released regular bug fixes and software upgrades, and had ditched that appalling "SIgned for Symbian" that effectively blocked third party software, the world would be a better place. Who knows, perhaps Nokia would have been able to buy MS.

Re:Glad

[drago177]

For whatever reason, Microsoft was just never able to get mobile right.

Totally agree - I'm floored by all the comments claiming MS was late. But I believe what they missed was apps. I agree with the other fond memories of WM mentioned. I remember, despite seriously hating MS, I thought in 2006, "Wow, they got this WM 5.x pretty right, this is the wave of the future. It's just a pain to install software. They need something like apt-get." How many years did MS sit on it's butt before Apple came out with a technically inferior phone, with the exception of the app store?

Re:Glad

[davester666]

What "late to the game"? They were only late to copying the iPhone.

They had WinCE (pronounced "wince"), WAY before the iPhone was a gleam in SJ's eye. And when the iPhone was released, the head of Microsoft, at least publicly, dismissed it as a toy. Google at least pivoted to a touch-screen only UI when the iPhone was announced. Microsoft took years to switch.

Re:Glad

[Paradise Pete]

They were too late to the game. If they had been first they probably would have been the standard.

They were in the game long before Apple and Android. As I recall, Ballmer liked his strategy. He liked it a lot.

Re: Glad

[Paradise Pete]

The Apple Phone success wasn't very technical at all.

They got a real OS onto a phone. A feat that the RIM CEO called impossible and accused them of lying.

Re: Glad

[StormReaver]

They got a real OS onto a phone. A feat that the RIM CEO called impossible and accused them of lying.

IBM got a real operating system onto a watch in 1998.

Re:Glad

[Stormwatch]

There was the IBM Simon and the Palm Pilot phones and blackberries before iPhone.

1994 to early 00s, that's a huge gap there. You fail to mention Nokia's GEOS-based 9000 Communicator, launched in 1996. It was perhaps the first commercially successful smartphone, and the first mobile device to do web browsing with graphics.

Re:Glad

[breeze95]

I had a Windows Mobile 5 (later updated to 6) phone. It was actually pretty great. And I was doing things miles beyond what the iPhone did years later..

Sorry but I call BS to this. I had Windows Mobile 6 on my TMobile Dash and the operating system was a dog. The original iPhone and Android phone was way way above and beyond the capabilities of Windows Mobile 6. One of the problems with Windows Mobil 6 was the operating system tried to duplicate the look and feel of the Windows desktop environment. There is a reason why Windows Mobile phones never exceeded 15% market share and this is before the iPhone and Android.

Re:Glad

[baka_toroi]

You're underestimating how out-of-this-worldly easy to use the iPhone was for the common population. The iPhone was a smartphone that just fucking worked (as cliched as it sounds). iOS 1.0 didn't even include an app store. It was that browsing the web with Safari was almost as comfortable as doing it on a PC, excepting the obvious differences in form factors.

Windows Mobile 6.5 was DOS-like in comparison. Obviously designed for an era other than of readily available processing power.

Re:Glad

[OneHundredAndTen]

They were too late to the game. If they had been first they probably would have been the standard.

They were very early to the game. They were there way, way before iOS and Android. They could have owned the market. But, they failed. Ignominiously. Abjectly. As it behooves the despicable company that they have always been. And thank goodness for that.

Re:Glad

[drinkypoo]

Windows Mobile 6.5 was DOS-like in comparison.

I wouldn't go that far. I'd say it was Windows 98-like in comparison. That's still a pretty spectacularly crap interface compared to the iPhone, though. The pathetic thing though is that we had LCD organizers before either one existed which had an iPhone-like interface with an ultra-simple launcher, apps always taking up the full screen and the like, but Microsoft still felt that phones needed to have an interface just as complex and powerful as a PC in spite of the drastically lesser screen real estate.

Re:Glad

[drinkypoo]

The difference is the simplified interface. Although you could buy a date book/organizer from e.g. SHARP which had an interface that simple for years before the iPhone came out, and even Palm used a simplified interface, Microsoft chose to go fully complex with their mobile interface and it sucked.

It also didn't help Microsoft that wince was an unreliable POS

Re:Glad

[Desler]

Yeah and the smartphone market in those days was a tiny fraction of what it became after the iPhone.

Re:Glad

[sexconker]

Nope, Samsung released a free update.
Samsung Blackjack SGH-I607.

Re:Glad

[sexconker]

I could cut and paste on my Samsung Blackjack running Windows Mobile 5 (5.5 I believe is what it had when I got it) and Windows Mobile 6 later.

I could browse the real internet, get real email, and even download and manage files. Over bluetooth, I connected to a GPS receiver and got live turn-by-turn navigation from a third-party application. I could get games (I only got a few), I could watch all sorts of video formats, I had a real fucking keyboard, I had customizable shortcut keys, it was easy to hack and run whatever I wanted, I could tether it to my PC and use its data connection, etc, etc.

Hell, how long was it before the iPhone supported MMS?

I'm sorry you bought a shitty phone, I guess. And in what way did WinMo try to "duplicate the look and feel of the Windows desktop environment"? I had a home screen with a few icons, then some nested menus to go through to get to everything else.

Re:Glad

[Big Hairy Ian]

They were too late to the game. If they had been first they probably would have been the standard.

I had a Windows Phone before Apple started making Ipods being the first in the game is no guarantee of success.

Re: Glad

[Wraithlyn]

Yes. And more importantly, they correctly anticipated that the emergence of ubiquitous multimedia-capable phones was the biggest threat to standalone MP3 players. So they beat everyone else to the punch and put out an iPod-killer. A lot of companies would've sat on their laurels and resisted cannibalizing their own sales.

It's hard to imagine that kind of boldness and confidence of direction from them today. I miss Jobs' Apple.

Re: Glad

[Paradise Pete]

IBM got a real operating system onto a watch in 1998.

Also a fine technical achievement.

Re:Glad

[JohnFen]

In fairness to Microsoft, Apple didn't understand the importance of apps at first either. They didn't even allow third parties to create them. In terms of apps, the difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple figured out and adapted to the reality of the business rather quickly.

Re:Glad

[JohnFen]

I remember WinCE. It was truly horrible.

Re:Glad

[Stormwatch]

They did, it was called MeeGo. And the Microsoft-planted CEO Stephen Elop killed it in favor of Winblows Phoney.

Re:Glad

[mjwx]

solid device together that worked well marketed

The Iphone didn't do anything new, it didn't do anything particularly well except for marketing. Previously, smartphones were exclusively for business, That's who RIM, HTC, et al. targeted. They were quite deficient at first, being less capable than the Nokia E series at the time. The first Iphones didn't even have 3G (which was common in 2007 in most countries) and wouldn't connect to Exchange. What they did have was tens of millions of marketing dollars behind them.

And as much as the fanboys will hate me for pointing this out... they wouldn't have half the capabilities they do now without Android coming across and stealing the market. I remember when Android came out featuring the capability to copy and paste, iFanboys said they'd never need it. Of course 18 months later when it appeared on IOS, it was touted as wonderful and magic... same with Wifi hotspot, wired tethering, home screen alerts (took almost 8 years for that one).

wind down

[profssrfink]

Took a long time to amortize that $8 billion Nokia purchase. Jeez.

It's not April 1st...

[__aaclcg7560]

My friend works at a Sprint store. They have a Windows phone in the back room. Everyone asks for the iPhone or whatever Android phone is sale. They never ask for the Windows phone.

Re:It's not April 1st...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone possibly want Windows on a phone? People only begrudgingly accept Windows on their PCs because the other choices are shit and people have old software they run, but in the phone market no one cares about x86 applications and any other historical baggage.

Because it doesn't pop up "you won an ipad" buzzing/beeping redirects when you open the web browser
Because it has a bluetooth implementation and voice response system that actually works without a need for cludgy, privacy eating, published by god knows who third party apps
because it isn't owned by google stealing every movement you have ever made, indexing your emails and asking if you want to take a picture and post it everywhere you go.
because although the UI isn't 100% configurable, it is actually good. and android cant seem to be configured to be good without investing 15 hrs a week into rolling your own.

Re: It's not April 1st...

[dougdonovan]

the windows phone is an antique. its already worth more than a droid or iphone combined working or not.

Re:It's not April 1st...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you should buy an iPhone rather than the ghetto knock-off.

Re: It's not April 1st...

[tigersha]

No, he's right. I have an Android, a iPhone and a WinPhone lying around. I like the WinPhone, and am looking around for a cheap Lumia. It is really a nice phone.

Re: It's not April 1st...

[tigersha]

That is something all of the Apple haters tend to forget. Apple is a hardware company. The make money from slick expensive hardware, not from user data.
Their software is very cheap for what it does, actually, unlike Microsoft.

They do NOT sell user data like Google or Facebook because it is not part of their business model. Which is the main reason I use my iPhone even though I like my Windows Phone more.

Strangely, this puts Apple at a disadvantage in the big neurocomputing AI thing that seems to be coming on like a Tsunami: Google has a hell of a lot more data to trains their networks since they have all the data about searches , scans peoples emails and are not ashamed about it.

If AI is the future Apple better start watching their backs.

Re: It's not April 1st...

[Desler]

What specific data is Apple giving away? Don't handwave and be vague.

Re: It's not April 1st...

[Stormwatch]

Everyone did. Why do you think retailers kept it in the back?

Re:It's not April 1st...

[Stormwatch]

because although the UI isn't 100% configurable, it is actually good. and android cant seem to be configured to be good without investing 15 hrs a week into rolling your own.

Android's stock interface is pretty good. Or you can easily find an alternative launcher to your liking. Even ones that are modeled after WP or iOS, if you're into that. Ew.

Re: It's not April 1st...

[mcswell]

Maybe it *is* April 1st.

I have a Nokia running Win8 (not enough memory to upgrade to Win10). It's by far the favorite phone I've ever owned, much preferable to the Androids I used to own (YMMV, and no, I've never put out the $ for an iPhone). But I would part with my precious Nokia for, oh, say, $1000 (which would allow me to upgrade to a newer Windows phone).

Story icon

[acoustix]

Why does it have an Android icon for a story about a Windows OS?

Re:Story icon

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how dead the windows phone platform is

Re:Story icon

[amiga3D]

Android license fees paid to Microsoft subsidize windows phones.

Re:Story icon

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it have an Android icon for a story about a Windows OS?

"Posted by msmash"

Re:Story icon

[unixisc]

Yeah, they should have used a Windows icon.

Re:Story icon

[TheDarkener]

lol

Re: Story icon

[that this is not und]

A couple years ago they quietly retired the bill-borg icon for Microsoft. I am sure a whole branding team at Microsoft worked for years to make that change happen.

Re:Story icon

[thegarbz]

Why does it have an Android icon for a story about a Windows OS?

Microsoft ended support for the Windows Mobile Icon a few years ago. We make do with what we have.

Re:Story icon

[stooo]

Yep !
Windows phone icons also been replaced by android today.

Re:Story icon

[acoustix]

The icon doesn't mean "Android" to the Slashdot editor, it's a generic icon that means "smartphone." I should have been a taxonomist.

The mouseover text says Android.

Re:Story icon

[freeze128]

When you hover your mouse pointer on it, the tooltip says "Android".

Re: Story icon

[unixisc]

They could replace the Bill borg w/ either a Windows window logo, or a Windows flag logo, if the latter is about anything before & including Windows 7

Re: Story icon

[LinuxIsGarbage]

A couple years ago they quietly retired the bill-borg icon for Microsoft. I am sure a whole branding team at Microsoft worked for years to make that change happen.

Wasn't there also the "Windows" icon with smashed out panes? I think it was very popular in the era when Vista was a flop, and before Windows 7 arrived.

Re: Story icon

[unixisc]

No, upto Windows 7, the logo was a flag, so smashed panes couldn't have happened there. Windows 8 was where MS made the decision to replace the flag w/ a trapezoidal window, and that's where you might have seen it, since the Metro interface (as it was then called) was an UI disaster, being so radically different from Windows 7

Re: Story icon

[LinuxIsGarbage]

October 2010 "66% of All Windows Users Still Use Windows XP"

The icon is the cracked Windows

Dies...

[Nutria]

does not mean what you think it means.

Re:Dies...

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, it would be more appropriate to say "Windows Phone Buried Today", because it died a REALLY fucking long time ago.

Re:Dies...

[Darinbob]

My coworker has a new Windows phone. He likes it. If you don't need a million apps then it's not a bad product. The UI I think is pretty nice; what fails on the desktop works on the phone.

However, it's not dead because even the summary says there's a still Windows 10 phone. All that died was the previous version. That in itself should be the story, the Microsoft is accelerating the planned obsolescence in their rush to emulate Apple. But it's not dead. I know it's a Slashdot meme to declare things dead at the first sign of sniffles, but sheesh...

Re:Dies...

[Nutria]

Will Windows 8.1 phones keep working? If so, then the phones aren't dead.

Re:Dies...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

does not mean what you think it means.

Meanwhile, Darl McBride, the owner of the intellectual property rights to the Windows Phonery, has announced that the Windows Phone is "not quite dead yet", and "thinks he'll take the Windows Phone out for a walk."

Owners of iPhones and Android phones will still be able to use their devices, provided they pay the Elusive Useless Litigation Acquiescence of $1,399 to cover the iPhone and Android infringement on the Windows Phone technology. McBride plans to use the influx of funds to finance yet even more litigation.

However, rumors persist that the briefcase full of cash carried by Bill Gates' younger brother, Fredo, never made it to the Cayman Islands. John McAffee has publicly suggested that whole SCO operation, otherwise known as, "The Other, Other, Operation" was privately funded by Bill Gates through a Ho Chi Mihn Trail of Intelligent Africanized Bee Toilets, but McAffee was wiggin' on "Fringe" potency psychotropic drugs at the time.

Re:Dies...

[unixisc]

More precisely, Windows Phone/Mobile is fine for work: it has Office, OneNote & Outlook coming w/ it, and along w/ Calendar & Maps, it's ideal for use as a business/work phone. Yeah, you're out of luck if you want Snapchat or Pokemon Go: however, there are a few other apps that still work, such as Fandango, which is still supported. The calculator is awesome: features not just a calculator w/ different modes, but also unit conversions. Toss in a currency converter, and they'd be all set.

However, lately, devs have been pulling some supported apps from the store, such as Yelp! Which makes it tough to maintain for the long haul

Re:Dies...

[maestroX]

However, it's not dead because even the summary says there's a still Windows 10 phone.

It's dead. Apps in the app store are not updated, my banking apps are being phased out, for Win10. Also, build quality has become gradually worse from the label Nokia to Microsoft. Apps (e.g. whatsapp) becoming worse, more app quirks. Last buy was a Lumia 640, great value, great battery. I found winphone a great improvement to Android 4 but will be returning to Android reluctantly.

Re:Dies...

[bad-badtz-maru]

Office and OneNote work better on Android then they do on WP. WP was always last to receive any updates of any MS app, many times it was a year or more behind.

Re:Dies...

[Darinbob]

Yup, a good calculator by default would be great for Android.

Re:Dies...

[sd4f]

Yea, it's just the official end of mainstream support. Reality is WP8.1's last update was early to mid 2015. With this though, more apps will lose support and possibly stop working. While the OS worked quite well, third party support really dropped badly in the last couple of years, and from the position where it was, i.e. not very well supported to begin with, it just went dire for the platform.

Re: Dies...

[tepples]

[Windows Phone Store is] the only mobile app store that I bother with these days because there's too much competition on the others and the users treat games as disposable as tissues

Have you considered PlayStation Store (for PlayStation Vita) or Nintendo eShop (for Nintendo 3DS)?

How to upgrade to Windows Mobile 10

[syn3rg]

How to get Windows 10 Mobile
Windows 10 Mobile Specifications & Systems Requirements

Re:How to upgrade to Windows Mobile 10

[unixisc]

All phones are not upgradeable to Windows 10 Mobile. I tried it w/ a Lumia 520 I once had, but the system requirements clearly stated that it was not possible.

Microsoft should make Windows 10 Mobile something like Android Marshmallow, so that people can swap the definitions of primary & secondary storage, then pop a 128GB SD card into any old Windows phone, define that as the main memory, and then install Windows 10 Mobile on that, and re-define the 8/16/32GB internal memory as external storage.

Nothing of value...

[Desler]

Will they be having the same mock funeral they arrogantly had for the iPhone? The hubris was astounding.

Developers, Developers...

[Malggi]

If anything proved Balmer's screed of "Developers, Developers, Developers!" it's Windows phone.

I had two Windows 8 phones and they were both (subjectively) amazing. A great user interface with live tiles, fluid animations, very low latency response times. Live tiles were a lot of fun too. Cortana three years ago had all the features that Google Assistant is finally rolling out today. The People app is to this day the best phone based contacts app I've ever seen.

BUT! Third party development was non existent. When I would show this phone off to friends they would love it, but when they realized it didn't have Snapchat, that was a deal breaker. Windows Phone was to the iPhone what MacOS was to Windows. Superior OS, but lack of applications killed it.

It's too bad really. I have an LG G6 now and it's a nice phone, but I still miss my Nokia 928. Now I know how people must have felt when WebOS folded.

Re:Developers, Developers...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

It's why Microsoft bought Xamarin, a cross-platform mobile environment, and made free. It's also why they have been helping Unity3D so much. They are trying to make developing for Windows on Mobile super cheap, to the point of one additional checkbox in the "Export to all platforms" dialogs.

Re: Developers, Developers...

[that this is not und]

Windows Phone had an official app for The Register. I found that amusing, and for a time, useful.

Re:Developers, Developers...

[MrKaos]

If anything proved Balmer's screed of "Developers, Developers, Developers!" it's Windows phone.

The thing that really killed Windows mobile was when they killed the first version, Windows Mobile 6. Like always with microsoft development there is a big upfront investment to be certified.

Developers who made that investment in WM6 were soon disappointed when MS changed the platform entirely and effectively neutered the return these developers invested in the platform. Since developers aren't stupid it was hard to see anyone investing in the new platform. Once bitten, twice shy.

So MS shot themselves in the foot with their mobile strategy by doing this to early adopters. Why would any developer invest their time in a company that did this to them.

Re:Developers, Developers...

[drinkypoo]

So MS shot themselves in the foot with their mobile strategy by doing this to early adopters. Why would any developer invest their time in a company that did this to them.

I think the real problem was that they didn't spend enough time with .NET on wince before making the switch. Developers didn't take up .NET in sufficient numbers to make it work by that time, in part because .NET on wince was shit. The devices didn't have enough power to run .NET apps.

Re:Developers, Developers...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Xamarin always had a free tier (and as you pointed out, may have, but almost certainly didn't, infringe on Microsoft's IP.) I recall something about the free tier was so off-putting that I went partway through learning it, but didn't finish. Microsoft has fixed both those issues.

Re:Developers, Developers...

[MrKaos]

I think what you're saying is at that time .NET was shit on wince AND the platform didn't have enough cpu time to support it? It's an interesting perspective that I hadn't considered.

The outcome of their solution to bringing something to market early was they alienated the people who would have become their advocates, hilarious greedy m$, thanks.

It isn't dead

[Ukab the Great]

It's, it's, um, probably pining for Mt. Ranier.

Re:It isn't dead

[93 Escort Wagon]

Given we're talking about Microsoft... it's just pining for Redmond Town Center Mall.

A death march from start to finish

[evolutionary]

The usual story with MS: Enter the market too late, rely on their dominance of the general user desktop market (decreasing with tablets and phones), and hoping a marketing/hype effort will be enough to compensate.IE/Edge is another example. The only question now is, between the heavyweight 'A' players. (Android and Apple) which will dominate the market. (or perhaps a fork of Android)

Re:A death march from start to finish

[Misagon]

To nit-pick, they didn't enter the market late. They were just left behind when the Blackberry and then the iPhone and Android whizzed past them.
They have been trying to catch up, but didn't make it.

Re:A death march from start to finish

[Oswald McWeany]

The only question now is, between the heavyweight 'A' players. (Android and Apple) which will dominate the market. (or perhaps a fork of Android)

Depends on your definition of dominate. Android dominates by market share.

Apple dominates in profits for the host company.

Re:A death march from start to finish

[thevirtualcat]

It's the same thing that happened to IE.

When Firefox (and later Chrome) hit the market and started decimating their market share, the just said "meh, businesses still love us." By the time they woke up, all they could do was damage control. Now they bitch and whine about how "browser monocultures" are the worst thing ever.

Re:A death march from start to finish

[DuckDodgers]

You skipped an important aspect of the story: the people who would otherwise be at the vanguard, the Microsoft fanatics, aren't interested. They thought Microsoft was serious about Pocked PC 2000, then it was abandoned. Then Windows Mobile, and then it was dropped. Then Windows Phone 7 was important. Then it was dropped. Then Windows Phone 8...

It's poetic justice. The big reason Microsoft still dominates corporate desktop is legacy support. Companies are running Windows 95 and Windows NT applications they still need in dusty corners. That's why they bought XP, and Vista, and 7. But in Microsoft's quest to fight Blackberry and Palm and later the iPhone and Android, they kept introducing things and then dumping them. So legacy works against them.

Re:A death march from start to finish

[sd4f]

Actually, now that you make that analogy, it seems spot on. MS's approach has been to target 'enterprise' with their mobile products once it became clear the consumer attempt wasn't going anywhere (around 2013-2014). I've been quite sceptical about the strategy of targeting enterprise only, because the rise of the smartphone was decided by consumers, not enterprise. Browser wars appear to have gone in the same direction, while I'm purely an observer, it appears to me that even enterprise has been moving from IE/Edge purely because consumers, their staff, are so used to using something else. I'm now forced to use chrome at work (I prefer Opera though).

Re:A death march from start to finish

[thevirtualcat]

To be fair to them, up until the last decade or so, enterprises were their bread and butter.

Before the iPhone, how many people did you know who had a smart phone (Palm, Blackberry, WinCE, etc) that *wasn't* issued by work? I knew one person who had a non-work smartphone.

Internet Explorer is similar. Around the time Firefox was an upstart, many business-critical apps were being written around IE and ActiveX. To the average CTO, adding features like tabbed browsing just looks like "increased training burden" and "increased testing costs." So Microsoft was probably right when they said "Our customers don't want tabbed browsing."

The assumption was that the consumer market would continue to be happy with the crumbs of the enterprise market. Turns out they were wrong about that and in both cases and they had to play catch up.

Missed Opportunity

[pr0t0]

I still think MS probably should have purchased RIM and re-introduced the Blackberry and BES. Blackberry was the enterprise phone for a long time, and it seemed like a natural fit back when Microsoft was courting Nokia in 2013. BB was on life support back then, but still had its fans.

It might have worked.

Probably not.

Re:Missed Opportunity

[zlives]

BB was always about security and still is. clearly that is something if you don't care for... then there are other choices including no management.

Re:Missed Opportunity

[unixisc]

Yeah, that OS might have been more successful had it remained in Nokia's hands. Microsoft could have bought off RIM and integrated their features into Windows 10 Mobile, which incidentally is what Windows Phone should have been like.

Had Nokia kept it, there could have been 2 stores - one Microsoft's, one Nokia's, and there would have been more of an incentive to buy those

Re: Missed Opportunity

[that this is not und]

Microsoft could have leveraged Blackberry into something-Exchange and captured the entire business market. The only people who would now be using Apple phones in business would be the guys with tasseled shoes.

Re:Missed Opportunity

[JohnFen]

BB was always about security and still is.

Well, it was, until BB decided it was OK to weaken security in exchange for being allowed to continue to sell phones in certain markets. That basically eliminated the only reason to use BB phones.

Re:Missed Opportunity

[zlives]

not entirely true, you can setup BB to use private keys so they would then have to use tools to decrypt your stream like certain govt agencies do. the governments of india, china and US forced the issue on their citizens. if those citizens cared for security they would make the change in their governments. as a business you have the ability to configure.

Re: Missed Opportunity

[zlives]

too bad they decided windows phone was a better option for their cash.

Re:Missed Opportunity

[JohnFen]

Yes, that was what I was referring to.

if those citizens cared for security they would make the change in their governments.

Wow. That's not a realistic response at all. In most of those governments (perhaps including the US), the only way to enact such a change is through violent revolution. Such an action is unlikely to succeed, and even if it does, it would take a long time and cost a whole lot of lives.

That's all rather beside the point, though. Regardless of whether or not there exist ways to change the situation politically, the fact remains that BB cannot be relied upon to provide a secure communications channel.

Re:Missed Opportunity

[zlives]

i don't think violent revolutions really work (or most often not). Looking at the political landscape, typically its more important to the citizenry whom you sleep with than your ideas about privacy. Thus things won't change unless it becomes important. so probably never... look, there, squirrel.

BB provides a secure channel if you configure it. now if your adversary is your government... you better roll your own. Even then when the collusion between Govt and private sector is on the wire (att, verizon) just make sure govt is not your adversary or go dark.

LOL

[Trailer Trash]

the millions of devices still running the operating system

LOL!

Yeah, right.

They should just call the 2 people still using Windows phone to let them know.

Re:LOL

[Dunbal]

I already know. You need to find the other user.

Re:LOL

[Desler]

And then kicked you in the nuts and walked away laughing?

Re:LOL

[Fly Swatter]

I already know. You need to find the other user.

Hi! I am the second user. The ops job is done here.

Shame they broke the promise of the windows 10 upgrade for my lumia 450. Bastards.

Re:LOL

[mcswell]

No, no, no!!! I'm the second user!

Unless--gasp--there are more than two of us! But no, that wouldn't fit the \. ethos, so it couldn't be true.

Re:LOL

[WallyL]

Boys, boys, you're both ugly/use Windows phones.

Re:Still better than Android

[Desler]

By the same logic, niche and unpopular != good.

Re:Still better than Android

[DonkeyG5]

At least Microsoft didn't let manufacturers play with their OS like Google has done with Android.

UI Disaster

[crafoo]

I remember looking at various screenshots and videos of the windows phone UI. It had bunches of flat-shaded boxes with random information and interactive elements. It was almost impossible to figure out what was interactive and what was passive information. Also very simple arrangements had boxes halfway scrolled off the screen requiring finger-fidgeting for no good reason. It just looked sloppy and mostly painful to use.

The tragedy is forcing this UI design failure into the desktop OS as well. It didn't even work well on the phone!

Re:UI Disaster

[mcswell]

Strange, I switched from an Android phone to a Windows 8 phone several years ago, and found the Windows phone's interface far more intuitive, easy to use, lacking bloatware (and no warnings that my phone would stop working when I tried to uninstall a piece of said bloatware). In short, I find the Win8 interface much better than the Android.

YMMV.

Unlike the Apple ecosystem?

[p51d007]

Phone, computer, iPad etc? Granted...their system integration actually WORKS, but still...

Re:Unlike the Apple ecosystem?

[fred6666]

I'm also glad Apple doesn't have more than 10-20% market share in the computer and smartphone markets.

Yeah, well...

[woboyle]

I was working for Nokia Mobile Phones when MS took it over. A week before the deal was complete, MS said that everyone would be kept on. Two weeks after the deal was complete, they laid off 20,000 of us! Yeah. MS is a predator! We were a division of Nokia that was serving over 100 million customers world-wide...

Re:Yeah, well...

[mcswell]

In the interest of 1up, I've dropped my Nokia on concrete several times, had pieces pop off and the battery fall out. Put it back together, and it still ticks.

So agreed, the Nokia phones are, in my experience, darned good.

Re:Yeah, well...

[JohnFen]

MS is a predator!

You sound surprised, but shouldn't be! Microsoft's history makes this clear, and if you're too young to remember it firsthand, it's easily discoverable.

It sucked

[nospam007]

The only place where everybody had a Windows phone was on the TV show 'Under the Dome'.
And even there they couldn't get any service.

is there one or two WPhones ??

[stooo]

"Windows Phone Dies Today"
or is it rather
"Windows Phones Die Today"
?

is there one or two WPhones remaining in service to die today ?

Re:is there one or two WPhones ??

[green1]

Numbers in the article talk about "80%" and "20%" assuming whole numbers of devices, that would imply there were actually FIVE devices remaining in service!

Window's Phone

[stooo]

Window's Phone : https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1Z45FYq...

RIP

[tim620]

A part of me had hoped Windows phones would have succeeded. But, I understand why it didn't succeed.

I had a Lumia 928 for a brief time. I loved the interface and the phone. But it really lacked apps. Unfortunately, iPhone and Android already had too much of a foothold. It is much easier to develop apps for 1 or 2 platforms than it is for 3 or 4. So, the top 2 platforms win.

Re:Still better than Android

[tigersha]

Agreed, although the Bluetooth sucks

Stupid story

[DogDude]

This is a stupid story. Support officially ended for it. That doesn't mean it's "dead". Here are the list of all of the products that have support ending in 2017. Are all of these "dead", then?

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 2 January 10, 2017
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 October 10, 2017

Microsoft Customer Care Framework 2005 .NET 2.0 Edition
Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006
Microsoft Voice Command 1.6
January 10, 2017

Microsoft BizTalk Adapters for Host Systems
Microsoft BizTalk FileAct and InterAct Adapters for SWIFT
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
Microsoft Expression Web
Microsoft Host Integration Server 2006
Microsoft Office Communicator Phone Edition
Microsoft Office InterConnect 2007
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals
Windows Vista
April 11, 2017
Engyro Product Connectors for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007
Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007
Microsoft Integration Designer 2.5
Microsoft Intelligent Application Gateway 2007
Microsoft ProClarity Analytics Server 6.3
Microsoft ProClarity Desktop Professional 6.3
Microsoft ProClarity SharePoint Viewer 6.3
Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization 4.1 for Desktops
Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization 4.2 for Desktops
Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization for Terminal Services 4.1
Microsoft Virtual PC 2007
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005 Standard Edition
Windows Phone 8.1

July 11, 2017
Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011
Microsoft Lync for Mac 2011
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011
Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011
Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac 2011
Microsoft Word for Mac 2011
2007 Microsoft Office Servers
2007 Microsoft Office Suite
Microsoft Customer Care Framework 2008
Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0
Microsoft Dynamics SL 7.0
Microsoft Expression BlendMicrosoft Expression Design
Microsoft Expression MediaMicrosoft Expression Studio
Microsoft Office Groove 2007
Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007
Microsoft Office Project 2007
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007
Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Office Visio 2007
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007
Microsoft Visual J# Version 2.0 Redistributable Package Second Edition
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Re:Stupid story

[Chris Mattern]

Yes, of course they're dead. Now, some businesses may be stupid enough to continue using a product that is unsupported, but that doesn't change the fact that they're dead.

Re:Stupid story

[DogDude]

What does it mean for software to be "dead"? We still use a bunch of the software on this list and it still works just fine.

Re:Stupid story

[Anne Thwacks]

We still use a bunch of the software on this list and it still works just fine.

So you are brain dead.

Re:Stupid story

[JohnFen]

"Dead" means no longer sold or supported.

Where's the hubris today?

[UnknowingFool]

Remember when Microsoft held a "funeral" for the iPhone in 2010? Today the iPhone makes more money for Apple than all of MS.

Re:I hope you enjoy your apple/android duopoly

[green1]

Competition is good, however it's not worth picking an inferior choice just for the sake of competition, the competition needs to be able to compete on it's own merits.

To be blunt, Despite the massive marketing push by MS that put these at the forefront of every carrier's store, discounted them to effectively free, and pushed them on every TV show and movie, nobody was willing to put up with Windows Phone.

I also don't use Firefox because it isn't the best choice. I do however use Linux on the desktop, because it's better than the alternatives.

The success of failure of a product is the responsibility of those developing the product, not of the consumers. It is not our obligation to adopt a product that we don't want just to support the concept of competition.

I love my Windows Phone

[otopico]

I have a Lumia 928 with Windows Phone 8.1 and once it dies, I might not get another phone. Android and iOS are still clunky messes. For as much as Microsoft gets wrong, sometimes they get things right; and I think WP 8.1 on Nokia designed hardware was one of those moments.

Re:I love my Windows Phone

[tim620]

I used to have a Lumia 928. I loved it. I wish I still had it, somedays.

No it doesn't

[HalAtWork]

Headline does not match summary. Windows Phones running 8.x are now unsupported, but Windows Phones running 10.x are still around and supported. Headline should be "Windows Phone OS 8.x unsupported as of today"

Re:No it doesn't

[ChunderDownunder]

clickbait headline is clickbait.

Windows Phone is on life-support. They can't kill it per se because their OEM partner, HP, released a Windows 10 phone only in August last year.

Any comment from Balmer?

[sandbagger]

Just curious.

Two things

[rsilvergun]

a. Microsoft is not hip. You need to be hip to sell phones because like movies the sales are driven by what teenagers buy.

b. Microsoft, for whatever reason, refused to give rank and file phone salesmen a spiff. So if I went into a Sprint/AT&T/T-Mobile/Whatever and bought an iPhone or Android that salesmen got a few bucks. He/she got nothing for a Windows phone. So they were promptly relegated to the bottom of a filing cabinet in a disused lavatory behind a sign marked 'beware of leopard'.

Re:Two things

[Trogre]

a. Microsoft is not hip. You need to be hip to sell phones because like movies the sales are driven by what teenagers buy.

Nonsense. Now sit still while I squirt you a couple of cool songs....

My Windows Phone met a Brick Wall

[Northdot]

Had a cheap Lumia with Windows 8.1 mobile and it was a great little phone. Snappy well designed UI. I figured the apps would come eventually.

So I upgraded to another Lumia with Windows 10 mobile and it was a buggy, laggy mess. It would constantly show me outdated "live" tiles, and basic functions stopped working after an automatic update. Furthermore it was a dual sim phone, and they stupidly designated the sims as 1 and 2 instead of A and B. So the message and phone tiles would always have a 1 or 2 on them and it appeared like you had 1 or 2 messages - what a stupid design decision. Ended up literally throwing it against a brick wall in frustration. Completely smashed with satisfying chunks of the screen missing.

Got an iPhone. Way more expensive but you get what your pay for. Very happy. Oh and it has every app you could want.

And Hawaii 5-0

[lamer01]

And a few movies I've run across but don't remember the names.

They pissed off Nokia fans

[Stormwatch]

Microsoft thought they could hijack Nokia's passionate fanbase. But those people were hyped for MeeGo, so when that died, everyone was furious. So you could say that WP didn't merely start from zero, it started from a huge negative number: millions of people who hated it by default.

Lumia 530

[tezbobobo]

Hey Windows guys,

I know you're reading this. Could you please, please, please flick the switch that lets me install Windows 10 on my Lumia 530 before you turn out the lights.

Thanks,

Tezbobobo.

Apple was the first to give the dev kit away

[rsilvergun]

At least in the States. Up until then the cheapest one I knew was a couple grand. And there were big fees for getting your app hosted. Forget about 'free' apps.

Today?

[JohnFen]

It seems to me that Windows Phone died years ago. They're just finally burying the body.

Millions??

[beastofburdon]

dozens of devices still running the operating system

There fixed that for you.

Mac mini for $499

[tepples]

Apple has quite a viable alternative, and if they introduced a few Macs in the $500 range, they'd be good to go.

I don't know what country you're posting from, but as of today, a Mac mini is $499. I'm aware that doesn't include a monitor, but let's say $514 if you reuse your living room HDTV as a monitor and source a keyboard and mouse from Goodwill.

Would that explain why ...

[RockDoctor]

My wife can't call me on Skype (an Microsoft product, now) on a Nokia (Microsoft) Windows (Microsoft) phone, while she can call her Babushka in Pyccia on Skype (Microsoft) on a white-box PC running pirated Windows.

Tell me again, Apple-o-philes, of the benefits of single-supplier ecosystems.