Wielding Their Windows Phones, Microsoft Shareholders Grill CEO Satya Nadella On Device Strategy (geekwire.com) 157
At a meeting with shareholders Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was asked numerous times what the company is doing about Windows Phones, and why do they keep hearing that Microsoft is abandoning smartphone manufacturer business. The stakeholders also asked why the company is seemingly focusing more on Android and iOS rival platforms instead of its own. From a report on GeekWire: Microsoft shareholder Dana Vance, owner of a Windows Phone and a Microsoft Band, said he received an email about the Microsoft Pix app but was surprised to learn that it was available for iPhone and Android but not Windows Phone. Ditto for Microsoft Outlook. He also alluded to reports that Microsoft has put the Band on the back burner. Given this, he asked Nadella to explain the company's vision for its consumer devices. As part of his response, Nadella said Microsoft's Windows camera and mail apps will include the same features as in Microsoft's apps for other platforms. "When we control things silicon-up, that's how we will integrate those experiences," Nadella said. The company will "build devices that are unique and differentiated with our software capability on top of it -- whether it's Surface or Surface Studio or HoloLens or the phone -- and also make our software applications available on Android and iOS and other platforms. That's what I think is needed in order for Microsoft to help you as a user get the most out of our innovation." Another shareholder, who says he uses his Windows Phone "18 hours a day," said he has heard Microsoft is "stepping away from mobile." He asked, "Can you calm me down ... and tell me what your vision is for mobile?" Nadella answered, "We think about mobility broadly. In other words, we think about the mobility of the human being across all of the devices, not just the mobility of a single device. That said, we're not stepping away or back from our focus on our mobile devices," Nadella said. "What we are going to do is focus that effort on places where we have differentiation. If you take Windows Phone, where we are differentiated on Windows Phone is on manageability. It's security, it's Continuum capability -- that is, the ability to have a phone that can act like a PC. So we're going to double-down on those points of differentiation."
Stick a fork in it (Score:2)
It's done
Re:Stick a fork in it (Score:5, Informative)
(Now, wait. Wait some more. Wait until the market is taken over by Android. Wait for it . . . Okay. Now . .
Windows Phone 7. Completely incompatible with Windows Mobile 6 and what came before it.
Windows Phone 8. Incompatible with Windows Phone 7 to the extent that you needed to build a new app.
Although the Nokia phone hardware was excellent, from all reports, that does not make up for the fact that it is running a Microsoft OS. The new UI. No apps except for a few high profile ones that Microsoft paid their developers to port. Developers don't want to write for a device that has no users.
To prop up the unpleasant Win Phone UI, Ballmer forced it upon desktop / laptop users with Windows 8. Whoever designed this had no understanding of how computers are used by people who do real work. But the thinking seemed to be if everyone had to learn this new UI on the desktop, then they would all flock to Windows Phone 8! Yea! Oh, wait. Didn't happen. Instead, a revolt against Windows 8. Windows 9 was cancelled. And Windows 10 largely functions like traditional UI's that we've been using for 30+ years.
And then the Surface tablets. At a single stroke, Ballmer pissed off (1) OEMs, (2) Developers Developers, and (3) Customers.
1. OEMs: Microsoft back stabbed them by competing directly against their own OEMs on hardware.
2. Developers Developers: The Surface had no customers. You had to use Microsoft's app store. You had to learn yet another API that Microsoft might lose interest in.
3. Customers: no software. The ARM processor Surface can't run legacy Windows software at all. The Intel Surface can run legacy software, but not using the new UI. There is precious little new software that exploits the new UI.
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1. Windows Phone sucks
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Re: Stick a fork in it (Score:2)
You can argue that there are "plenty" all day long, but when the typical user wants a smartphone, chances are that a windows phone doesn't have the applications that he wants to use.
Besides, the windows phone UI is ugly as hell. You basically have to be a Microsoft fan to actually want to use it.
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Like what? I am curious to see what you can come up with. Also I like the interface but despise windows 8... the interface is fine for a phone.
OmniFocus is not available for Windows Phone. I am also not aware of any app for the Windows Phone that has feature-parity with it.
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IOW, no true Scotsman.
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Can you find a Windows Phone app that has contexts, deferred items, and weekly review features? I couldn't.
The no true Scotsman fallacy doesn't really make sense here. I'm not generalizing from that one specific example. avandesande asked for an example app that was not available on Windows Phone. I gave an example. I didn't say that there are no apps for Windows Phone, only that one particular style of todo list app with a specific workflow is not available.
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Except slavish clones of popular programs, there are no two apps that have the same feature set. The intent of my comment was to point this out. OTOH, the popular consensus seems to be that Windows Phone has a very limited App ecosystem, so of course your point is valid.
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Those features aren't "nice to have" features. They're part of the core philosophy of how that task manager works.
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A current version of FBReader would be nice
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Ton of em, really. Especially apps that suddenly go viral, like pokemon go for example.
Re: Stick a fork in it (Score:4, Interesting)
there was so many kind of apps you simply couldn't write for windows phone 7 even that it was not funny.
MS/Nokia was dishing out cash and free devices and lunches to everyone, but their dev relations to questions "when will this or that be added to the api" resulted in "you don't need it". which was puzzling since making a decent version of the app depended on having that.
anyways, windows phone sucked big time. easy to develop for but so very much limited and not extensible at all - wp7 was so bad that by 2003 standards it would have been called a feature phone, not a smartphone(no real full multitasking and stuff that used to be the separator between a smartphone and a feature phone back in the day).
wp7 was featurewise equivalent to j2me phones and everything was very, very betaish despite being super simplified.
anyways, it all traces back to ZUNE - all of the crappy decisions and failures MS has done in the past 10 years goes back to the ZUNE. Wp was just a rehash of ZUNE shell, rushed. it's so simplified because thats all they had! and then they tried to cover it as being great because it does nothing.
a smartphone needs to have decent multitasking. win ce had it.
the whole problem was ditching the old stuff and replacing it with new stuff that wasn't ready. sure, one could live with wp. but why bother when there's android.
and being forced to use win8(and now win10) for development isn't exactly a plus either, especially when the dev env doesn't really depend on any win8/10 features.. oh well at least they were giving those license out free nilly willy too.
anyways, windows phone was never relevant in any market. the only place where it was slightly relevant was Finland due to loads of organizations sticking with Nokia's as their organization provided phones - and because nokia and ms were just giving cash to publish stuff.
And Microsoft has just about given up on it as well. It's now just this thing they have.
If you want a real explanation it's simply that MS board consists of idiots. how can so well paid people be idiots? well look at what they have done and bought in the past 10 years and how they have ruined their core product. it would have been better to do absolutely nothing. not buy nokia, not linkedin, not publish win8rt, not publish win8.
they could have bought ARM holdings with the cash they want to pay for linkedin btw. that should put things into perspective how much they overvalued it.
Re: Stick a fork in it (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, the windows phone UI is ugly as hell. You basically have to be a Microsoft fan to actually want to use it.
I disagree. I wasn't a Microsoft fan when I switched to Windows Phone in late 2012 (hated Windows XP, skipped Vista, was forced to use 7). But the somewhat denser UI allowed me to break out of the tap in, tap in, tap in, back, back, back cycle that I was seemingly stuck in on iOS.
Plus I liked the tiles: resizable, repositionable, and they contained information.
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I'm with you. Windows Phone is not bad, and the UI is better than iOS and way better than the confusing mess that is Android. Windows 10 that is,Windows 8 phone was a bit spartan.
I do a lot of mobile websites and UI work, so I like to keep track of what the frontiers of design is. Which is why I carry a iOS,Android and Win Phone device with me and sometimes swap out the SIM card to use the other ones as my main phone. I really like Windows phone but as a day to day phone I still use my iPhone. Why? a) Apps.
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<quote><p>Besides, the windows phone UI is ugly as hell. You basically have to be a Microsoft fan to actually want to use it.</p></quote>
<p>I disagree. I wasn't a Microsoft fan when I switched to Windows Phone in late 2012 (hated Windows XP, skipped Vista, was forced to use 7). But the somewhat denser UI allowed me to break out of the tap in, tap in, tap in, back, back, back cycle that I was seemingly stuck in on iOS.
</p><p>Plus I liked the tiles: res
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Translation: Developers won't touch it, but who those stupid apps anyways because it's so great because.... um...
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Whoever designed this had no understanding of how computers are used by people who do real work
The lion share of computers in the world are not used by people who do real work. The fact that the UI is such a drama is actually quite interesting because most people I know who use computers for real work also rarely if ever actually open a start menu. Pin what you need to pin, remember keyboard shortcuts for everything else.
It's still an abortion of a UI, but this may clearly explain just why MS went the direction they did. They aren't interested in you.
1. OEMs: Microsoft back stabbed them by competing directly against their own OEMs on hardware.
This is also quite false. Most OEMs don't give a s
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Really? Because just about everyone has a computer at work that they use to do real work. That's got to be around half of the "Personal Computers" in the world, plus servers, mainframes, etc. used for work. .pdfs for submittals, requests for Information, and the like, spreadshe
Nowadays, even construction workers have laptops or tablets with plans on them at the jobsite, not to mention their use of e-mail for communications,
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its not real work if its not the work that HE does.
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its not real work if its not the work that HE does.
Quite the opposite. I lump myself in the category of not "real" work as we're talking about in this context. My workflow would not be inhibited or changed in anyway by the interface. It's not time critical and efficiency of the computer interface has absolutely no relationship to the output I produce. No I don't do real work. I am just one of the billions of peoples who shit out power point presentations and excel spreadsheets all day, and the design of the Windows UI doesn't impact the efficiency of that a
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Because just about everyone has a computer at work that they use to do real work.
Remember the definition of real work on Slashdot is not a reflection of real work. People who do "real work" as in the common use of real work aren't the type of people who complain their workflow is messed up by a tiled interface. They aren't the type of people who complain about a lack of context. They just use stuff and move on.
Much of the bitching about Windows 8 really only applies to power users (US). The overwhelming majority of computers in the world see no more real work than some user fumbling thr
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Windows 9 was cancelled.
Windows 7 was released in 2009, Windows 8 in 2012, Windows 10 in 2015... looks right on schedule for me except they skipped one to avoid "Windows 9x" issues. Other than that, all good points.
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They simply gave up early on convincing Munich to switch to Windows Nein.
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What really killed it:
Hey developers - ya know that really cool language we made called C#? Well use it to develop really cool Silverlight apps that will run natively in any browser or on our phone! Go to it!!! ... 2 years later ...
Woops! Hey now developers... you know how we said to invest all your time and development strategies behind Silverlight? Yeah well now we're going to deprecate it and we're replacing it with C++/Metro/Windows Store. There is no migration path. So, you know, go to it!!!
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By the time M$ got off their ass and got serious, the market was already locked up, regardless of how awesome their product was.
IF their product was awesome they might've been able to get a foothold to work from. Their product was shit though. Basically windows manhandled down to phone size, all the good bits taken out and replaced with iWannabe imitations that failed on all fronts.
Re:Stick a fork in it (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like Microsoft shareholder Dana Vance is f-ing clueless and needs to move on, get a new phone and let his company focus on something they might make money on, instead of pouring resources into something that has been shown to be a reliable way to lose money.
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What was he going to say? "Look you simpering moron, my predecessor wasted billions of dollars on that very strategy, and it failed utterly. Go buy a Galaxy or iPhone for fuck's sake."
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Yes, you and the two other guys that bought this platform must feel really special.
Lacks VoLTE (Score:1)
Indian here. A major carrier here now is Reliance Jio, which uses VoLTE. Supported on both Galaxies and iPhones, but not on any of the Lumias.
In India, most of the commercial apps are available for Windows Phone as well, not just Android and iOS, since there are as many Windows Phones as there are iPhones here (given that there are no CDMA carriers here in the 3G and later). As a result, this is one market where Microsoft could hold their own. Their phones are mainly popular with chicks. But they are
Do you mean Device Tragedy? (Score:4, Funny)
Continuum sounds like a decent move (Score:2)
Letting the phone act as a PC by hooking up a monitor and keyboard/mouse. MS are looking into x86 on ARM [zdnet.com]
Outlook (Score:3)
Eh? last time I checked my Windows 10 Phone (a 640) it had Outlook plus the other office apps, always has.
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1. A gazillion units sold. And in international markets.
2. A jillion Developers build apps.
3. A gazillion Apps available.
4. Dozens of OEMs competing with each other to build hardware to run Android.
As for Outlook, I find this on the Google Play store, but I've never installed it . .
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the last time I checked, my 640 had:
- Security Updates
- App updates
- Stock App improvements and new features
All on a regular basis. This for a budget phone released several years ago.
The Tile UI works really well on a phone device, plus the UWP platform actually works, I do write apps that run unaltered on phone and desktop.
Admittedly the lack of third party apps is a problem for some. For me, I could care less - the basics, Email, Web, Phone all work very well. And I'm lucky enough that the banks I use hav
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"Windows Phone satisfies my extremely limited demands for a phone, therefore it will be supported in the future."
FTFY.
People want banking apps. Many (or perhaps most) banks don't support Windows Phone.
People want games. Most games are not on Windows Phone.
Etc.. There are many "must-haves" that are not available on Windows Phone. When even Microsoft does not port its own apps to Windows Phone, you have to see that the platform is being abandoned.
Android and iPhone do everything people want from a phone. The
bank support (Score:2)
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App updates mostly come via the store, if you check the history there you'll probably find regular activity.
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Don't bother. While Outlook in the Play Store allows you to completely turn off threading, it's 2016 and Microsoft can't be arsed to hyperlink URLs in text emails properly. Which means you have to copy and paste it in browsers. I tried it as I was tired of Gmail constantly threading stuff wrong, but boy it was an exercise in patience...
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Windows phone apps (Score:2)
Eh? last time I checked my Windows 10 Phone (a 640) it had Outlook plus the other office apps, always has.
One thing Windows Phone/Mobile - be it 8 or 10 - has always lacked has been a good VOIP app - it's only from a couple of weeks ago when WhatsApp introduced their video calling that they may finally have something that's common to all platforms. Until then, that was a major shortcoming
For a work phone, Windows 10 Mobile is actually a fantastic platform. I had a 520 in the past, when it was just Windows Phone 8, and now, one of my phones (my travel phone) is a 550. If one just needs a phone to work w/, i
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So Microsoft should invest even more money into a huge money losing platform?
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It's not that the Windows Phone division hasn't earned a profit, it's that it has been nothing but a black pit that MS has thrown money into, and worse, it's likely the Ballmer-lead push into the market produced a UI that was forced on to the desktop and mucked things up in other divisions.
There is a point when the gamble fails, and while MS has deeper pockets than most, where it's clear the entire platform has not only been a failure, but a horribly monstrous one, that I think it's fair to call it day.
Let'
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For a work phone, Windows 10 Mobile is actually a fantastic platform.
Agree and I think thats where MS's strategy is aimed, phones that can be easily integrated, provisioned and locked down via a Enterprise server would be a winner in large corporate. Might be a place for them in SMB's to.
One thing Windows Phone/Mobile - be it 8 or 10 - has always lacked has been a good VOIP app
Sadly, also agree :( I'd love a sip client that tightly integrated with the dialer and contacts.
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Does windows 10 phone home all the time on the phone like the desktop basically sticking the end user with the cost. Does the windows 10 phone actually make more calls than a typical end user reporting on that end user. Does it make two calls at once, one to the person the actually end user wants to talk to and another to send a copy of that call to the phones actual bosses, M$. Does the always on microphone run the battery down or if you have a desktop and the backend server matches the open mike on the ph
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OneNote (which really shines in mobile even better than on a desktop),
Unless you're not online in which case fuck you and fuck your notes. What save local copies or just have a simple offline notes app? Fuck off!
My main problem with my windows phone is it seems very reluctant to do things on its own and just begs to be synced, linked or otherwise connected to something else. It doesn't even have a simple phonebook ffs. It has to be linked to an email address that it can associate all the numbers and shit with so it's either give them all your contacts and have it mess with
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I use OneNote, among other things, for shopping lists. Yeah, I sync them at home while making the list, but if I happen to be offline, I am still free to add or check off items, and let it sync whenever it gets a connection.
The second thing about begging to be synced, linked or otherwise connected - I thought that people here actually hated the phones being so presumptuous and making such decisions for us. Linking to something else is something it should do when asked, unless it's a habitual thing - lik
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And the shareholders accepted that line of bull? (Score:2)
Seriously, those are pretty big non-answers to be giving to your investors.
as if that will make any difference (Score:2)
I see some shareholders will be receiving their next invitation... late.
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As much as I hate bullshit non-answers to relatively direct questions, I've got to hand it to this guy. He can come up with this shit on the spot.
It's security, it's Continuum capability -- that is, the ability to have a phone that can act like a PC. So we're going to double-down on those points of differentiation."
I mean, that's some high-quality, super fluid, eloquent bullshit right there. To come up with that from the top of your head. That's skill.
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As an investor, I am sure you learn to read between the lines.
What is probably meant by "What we are going to do is focus that effort on places where we have differentiation" is that MS will work with their big clients to customize their mobile offerings to meet their needs.
Example: https://www.onmsft.com/news/35... [onmsft.com]
Also, their push toward UWP apps and continuum is a longer term strategy of convergence. Eventually, phones will take over from PCs.... not for at least a few years, but when they do, MS will hav
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. Eventually, phones will take over from PCs
Phones and tablets have already taken over in large areas. That ship has already sailed, and Microsoft missed it.
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For some things. For many others, not a chance unless they reach some sort of parity with PCs regarding memory and storage capacity, display capability, and expandability. Perhaps we might see something like a docking station where one could connect their phone with the needed peripherals, but there are still some severe shortcomings to overcome before it will be adequate across all of those different use cases.
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Also, their push toward UWP apps and continuum is a longer term strategy of convergence. Eventually, phones will take over from PCs....
...and by that logic eventually cars will take over from trucks. For many people a truck (PC) was an overkill and a car (smartphone) suffices. By now almost all such people have made the switch and the remaining laptop/desktop users will never switch, because their needs are different.
To (over)extend the car analogy, you want the interface to cars and trucks to be similar, to facilitate adoption, but it likely will never be identical since their ultimate purpose is different. In that sense Apple got it righ
Just give up already (Score:1)
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Coming soon: the Microsoft Thing.
Actually it's just a rebadged Raspberry Pi running Win10.
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Microsoft missed these game changers that would have gave them almost endless profits: the Internet the phone the tablet next, they will miss the Internet of Things
But their cloud offerings are at least growing. They would be done already except they could coast on the corporate money from Office. But everything is changing due to mobile. Web sites are getting much simpler and apps can be run in the cloud. All the features that had previously been added to programs are not needed in real life.
They will probably pull an Apple and beg Bill Gates to come back and be a visionary to make them relevant before the ship sinks.
They didn't miss the Internet: that was one market where they successfully trounced Netscape. It was the Internet search engine market that they got into, but failed to displace Google.
Phone and tablet, I agree w/ you. IoT, I don't see consumer demand for them, although there may be manufacturers' demand. Except that manufacturers might find it easier/cheaper to just take Linux/BSD/Minix and build IoT OSs from those, such as WebOS already exists for LG
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The end all be all is not consumer devices.
MS has always been a business first company. Their attempts to break into the consumer market have had a spotty record at best.
But the consumer market is not their forte and is not, nor ever has been, their primary money maker.
Windows mobile definitely has a place still, but it is not in the hands of consumers. It will be on bar code readers in warehouses, in cop cars, in airline ticketing systems, in transportation systems, etc, etc.
That's not it (Score:2)
If you take Windows Phone, where we are differentiated on Windows Phone is on manageability. It's security, it's Continuum capability -- that is, the ability to have a phone that can act like a PC. So we're going to double-down on those points of differentiation."
Seems to me that the primary point of differentiation is that Windows phones have far fewer apps available than the big two, and jamming the store onto PCs hasn't fixed that.
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If you take Windows Phone, where we are differentiated on Windows Phone is on manageability. It's security, it's Continuum capability -- that is, the ability to have a phone that can act like a PC. So we're going to double-down on those points of differentiation."
Seems to me that the primary point of differentiation is that Windows phones have far fewer apps available than the big two, and jamming the store onto PCs hasn't fixed that.
It worked for the Blackberry - oh, wait...
There's an old Vulcan Proverb... (Score:1)
Microsoft does not, and likely never will, really understand what "from the silicon-up" means, and more importantly, how to do it right.
Shareholders shouldn't be fanboys (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem here is the shareholders are being fanboys first and businessmen a distant distant second.
The evidence is overwhelming that MS Mobile platform just isn't going to happen. They've tried everything they could think of multiple times, and no signs that there is anything more they can realistically do and expect a difference. As such, they need to do what they can to be relevant to the large market that matters rather than staying in denial.
Besides, being in hardware is not that appealing. It's full of low cost competitors and very well known brands with insurmountable brand strength. It can be a decent enough strategy if you don't have any way in on the software front, but if you have strength in the software side, you have a lot more lucrative prospects than the hardware side.
In the desktop era, MS overcame the competition by being able to pit the suppliers of hardware against each other and control the 'good' bits. Apple's success in mobile distracted them from this reality, and Google then out-did microsoft in the 'license to OEMs' game (by being free or near free depending, and banking on ongoing revonue).
This is about dividends, not "fanboys". (Score:2)
The problem here is the shareholders are being fanboys first and businessmen a distant distant second.
Eh - didn't they spend billions buying Nokia? Didn't they spend spend tens to hundreds of millions developing their desktop OS to double as a mobile OS? Didn't piss away marketshare with the Windows 8 debacle?
All of which affected shareholder value.
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Which is why it was a bad idea to do all that in the first place.
Now that it has happened, all the shareholder objections about how it wastes money previously spent is chasing sunk cost. Shareholders saying 'stay the course' are being fanatical about a failed goal.
The money is gone and it isn't coming back. Throwing more money at the problem is just making the money pit worse.
They're thinking long-term, not being fanboys (Score:2)
The last 10 years have seen two new entrants to the operating system market - iOS and Android. iOS still has a relatively small, but lucrative userbase. Android alre
Microsoft phones? We don't need no stinkin'... (Score:2)
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You forgot the disclaimer about Droid being a registered trademark of Lucasfilm LTD.
Some amalgam of George Lucas and Walt Disney will be suing you shortly.
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Wait, I thought only Verizon stores had Droids.
Would you like a Blackberry with you Windows phone (Score:2)
What the savvy investor should be asking is why Microsoft is not in merger talks with Google or Apple or heck Amazon. Outside the server business, Microsoft is in decline.
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Having Google, Apple, or Amazon in charge of my SQL servers, my AD domains, or my SCCM sites sounds like a fresh new level of.
The biggest take away from this (Score:2)
Is that people still willingly have windows phones?
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I do love Windows Mobile, but I finally gave in and got an Android. MS is moving all of their consumer apps over there anyway.
I asked my family if anyone wanted my old Lumia 920 with Windows 10 on it. My sister, despite sever warnings, took me up on the offer. Then, at thanksgiving she is like "I can't get any apps on it..." I was like "I told you...." I have a feeling I will be getting it back at some point. Perhaps an Android is in her xmas future...
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In other news... (Score:1)
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Look! It's brown! It's squirts! It's from microsoft!
Very annoyed (Score:1)
I for one am VERY annoyed about Microsoft's strategy around their mobile phones. This is NOT about differentiability, it is about creating an ecosystem where developers can thrive and the rest of us can choose to use Windows 10, and not be forced to use Android and iOS while all our other machines are running Windows 10. It is a lame a stupid strategy by Microsoft and is one thing that is likely to tip me off Windows and into the arms of Linux, even with all the annoyances that would provide me with.
I have
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You know you can disable the Google spying on an Android device? Or are you the the kind of person that gets afraid of the word rooting because you suddenly have to take responsibility of your own device?
Wielding Windows Phones... (Score:2)
Is not a threat to anyone. Not even BlackBerry.
Your company lost the mobile wars. Suck it up. Nadella knows it's a hard sell breaking into a market. To break in you've got to break the chicken-egg cycle of getting apps on your platform. Metro wasn't the killer UI that it needed to be to pull users over in the absence of apps. Microsoft, if they really are committed, have to play the long game, basically replicating features until they can switch out the OS (the thing that runs apps, and not so much the UI)
On the bright side (Score:3)
Microsoft finally found out who bought the Windows Phone and the Microsoft Band that they sold! Yay!
Thanks, Dana!
Grilling? Really? (Score:2)
Sounds like their Windows Phones were actually Note 7s if they could use them to grill an entire human.
Have you "editors" graduated high school? (Score:2)
The aliteracy [wikipedia.org] is annoying. "It's" is a contraction for "it is". "Its" is the posessive:
He's there
She's there
It's there
His car is broken
Her tire is flat.
Its OS is screwed up
Do none of you ever read books??? I expect this is comments, but NOT in a summary. If that mistake was in TFA, it is NOT a reputable publication.
Fascinating- too bad it won't work (Score:2)
Having bought a new car with Android Auto, I fired up my Galaxy S6 and connected, thinking to myself that Windows is missing another app. Well, not so much. Other than being able to control the device from a larger screen I immediately was less than impressed. Not only was the functionality less but the same fuzzy blah graphics that I so hated on Gnome (vs KDE) were present.
I nee
Bring it on! (Score:2)
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People simly don't want Microsoft phones. (Score:2)
Strategy? (Score:2)
It's all in the chip (Score:2)
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But if you're shopping for a new smart phone, you should trust Microsoft!
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Windows phone was more like the Zune strategy repeated 3 times in rapid succession failing harder each time.
Its perplexing to me that Microsoft fought it out so hard with the xbox and then did nothing more than half heart fight in phones. Consoles don't really do much for Microsoft's other businesses IMO, and I'd actually argue their success hurts Windows in some direct ways by weakening the need for a Windows gaming PC for some people. I don't really see what Microsoft at large really wins with the xbox.
Th