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New York City Cops Will Replace Their 36,000 Windows Phones With iPhones (theverge.com)
The New York City Police Department says it will give up its 36,000 Windows phones and transition to iPhones by the end of the year. The Verge reports: The switch is prompted in part by news in July that Microsoft was ending support for Windows Phone 8.1, which a large percentage of all Windows-powered phones are still using. It's a predictable end to the Windows phone, considering that its market share had already slipped below 1 percent at the time the police department adopted its phones last year. The ill-fated decision to go with the Windows phone was made solely by its NYPD deputy commissioner for IT, according to The New York Post, and apparently did not receive further judgment before implementing the program. The Windows models were Nokia Lumia 830 and Lumia 640 XL, equipped with special 911 apps, case management apps, and the ability to receive assignments. They were purchased as part of a $160 million initiative to modernize the NYPD, which has been around since 1845. The new business for Microsoft's phones was clearly not enough to keep Windows Phone alive.
Or buy older iPhones. Because that's a lot of money...
...just whoindahell could be dumb enough to think that Windows phone would ever last? Hell, us North Georgia Rednecks(TM) stayed away from them in droves! Christ, that one sale must have been half of all Windows phone sales. What maroons!!
No kidding. That was such a breathtakingly stupid decision she honestly deserves to lose her job because of it.
#DeleteChrome
I wonder how much she got from Microsoft.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If the proprietary applications mentioned in the article summary are derivatives of their desktop or tablet cousins, then I could understand the business argument in favor of attempting to keep with the same platform, especially depending on development costs for the Windows Phone versions of those applications compared to possibly much higher costs for developing whole new applications for either Apple's phone or an Android model. It may well be possible that the costs for the applications was low enough to give some justification for trying Windows Phone generally.
That said, if the platform was already on life support then I hope they got a screaming-good-deal for their attempt. Several years ago we faced attempting to upgrade to the latest Novell Netware or migrating to Active Directory. Netware had been in-service in the organization since the 3.x days when there was no network between sites other than for the AS/400 connectivity, so we had a long and successful history with it, but it was clear that Netware was not seeing the new development that it needed, and the time between a new version of Windows coming out and full Netware client support was getting worse with each new release. As much as we'd been successful with Novell in the past, it was clear that future success with them was strongly in-doubt, and we ultimately left.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I loved this...
"Nobody purchases 36,000 phones based on the judgment of one person," a source said. "I don’t care if you’re Jesus f--king Christ, you get a panel of experts."
#DeleteChrome
She'll be getting a pussy pass on this one
I don't think it's a pussy pass she will get, she has inherited privilege due to several generations of money and the political connections that come with money.
She is a friend of the Mayor's daughter, which explains how she got the job in the first place, despite having no experience.