Microsoft Is Embracing Android As the Mobile Version of Windows (theverge.com) 76
Microsoft unveiled a bunch of new hardware during a press event last night, but one of the most interesting announcements the company made was their new "Your Phone" app for Windows 10. Basically, the feature will let Android users mirror any app on their device to a Windows 10 desktop. The Verge's Tom Warren writes about how Microsoft is embracing Android as the mobile version of Windows: We've seen a variety of ways of bringing Android apps to Windows in recent years, including Bluestacks and even Dell's Mobile Connect software. This app mirroring is certainly easier to do with Android, as it's less restricted than iOS. Still, Microsoft's welcoming embrace of Android in Windows 10 with this app mirroring is just the latest in a number of steps the company has taken recently to really help align Android as the mobile equivalent of Windows.
Microsoft Launcher is designed to replace the default Google experience on Android phones, and bring Microsoft's own services and Office connectivity to the home screen. It's a popular launcher that Microsoft keeps updating, and it's even getting support for the Windows 10 Timeline feature that lets you resume apps and sites across devices. All of this just reminds me of Windows Phone. It's only been three years since Microsoft launched its Lumia 950 Windows 10 Mobile device at a packed holiday hardware event. Windows Phone has vanished in the last couple of years, and Microsoft finally admitted Windows Phone was dead nearly a year ago. The software maker has now embraced the reality that people don't need Windows on a phone. Instead, it's embracing Android as the mobile version of Windows.
Microsoft Launcher is designed to replace the default Google experience on Android phones, and bring Microsoft's own services and Office connectivity to the home screen. It's a popular launcher that Microsoft keeps updating, and it's even getting support for the Windows 10 Timeline feature that lets you resume apps and sites across devices. All of this just reminds me of Windows Phone. It's only been three years since Microsoft launched its Lumia 950 Windows 10 Mobile device at a packed holiday hardware event. Windows Phone has vanished in the last couple of years, and Microsoft finally admitted Windows Phone was dead nearly a year ago. The software maker has now embraced the reality that people don't need Windows on a phone. Instead, it's embracing Android as the mobile version of Windows.
Embracing... (Score:5, Informative)
You know what the other two "E"s are...
Re: Embracing... (Score:1)
Exterminate Apple? Enjoy?
Sounds good to me.
Re: Embracing... (Score:5, Informative)
Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That being said, I doubt they'll be able to do that anymore. They don't have the same dominance they used to have. At this point, Microsoft is just trying to survive, it's no longer capable of dominating anymore.
Re: Embracing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That being said, I doubt they'll be able to do that anymore. They don't have the same dominance they used to have. At this point, Microsoft is just trying to survive, it's no longer capable of dominating anymore.
This, they tried to do the three E's thing with Windows Phone, leveraging their waning dominance on the server/desktop market to a phone market they ignored whilst Google ate their lunch. The process was more akin to the DABDA stages of grief.
Denial = Android will never take off.
Anger = Hurrr, we'll sue Google for everything. And release our own half arsed operating system with tiles and solitaire.
Bargaining = Maybe if we buy Nokia people will buy it.
Depression = Why won't people buying Windows Phones.
Acceptance = Lets start making apps for Android and try to forget this whole Windows Phone palaver.
Microsoft's power has waned from the days of the 90's when they could take down competition at a whim. Microsoft are now starting to lose their grip on the enterprise market.
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You know what the other two "E"s are...
This is exactly what Google has done with AOSP. Rather than an 'embrace' stage they built a free, open source operating system and got everybody to embrace it predominantly on that premise. Then they started deprecating functionality in AOSP in favor of their proprietary Google Play Services layer and now they really only extend Android by developing important features in that layer. Ultimately AOSP will cease to be representative of Android at all and be effectively extinguished.
If Microsoft provide a laye
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The problem is that "framework" stuf
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electrical engineering?
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It communicates through an app to your phone. The phone still does the texting and everything, just that on your phone is an intermediary that communicates with your windows desktops. Theoretically, it shouldn't need to know your number, but probably will anyway.
These features sound ok until you go crazy with absolutely everything throwing a notification at you, rather than just your phone. These features have been messed around with on windows mobile, and you just get sick of seeing the same notifications
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There's only one other E. The correct saying now is "Embrace, Extend, Watch-idiots-misquote-this-because-they-don't-understand-how-EEE-works".
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Would they re-invent WINE or become contributors to it?
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Would they re-invent WINE or become contributors to it?
I wouldn't think so, the Win32 API would remain and probably have some sort of Linux Subsystem for Windows (the opposite of the Windows Subsystem for Linux) so the kernel could be switched. Then most likely new APIs and functionality would go through WSL so they could run on a Windows kernel but be switched to a Linux kernel.
The obsolescence of Windows (Score:1)
Time to end the Great Schism of computing by putting Windows out to pasture.
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Agreed. When the post said Microsoft was offering its Launcher on Android, I was hoping that meant you could have an Android that looked like the Windows-on-phone system, but running Android apps; so when my Lumia gives up the ghost, I could get a cheap phone but still have the same-looking GUI. No such luck, the launcher seems to be much less useful.
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Stomp your foot. Say it again.
Go ahead and pout if it makes you feel better.
The real competition for android is not iOS (Score:5, Interesting)
The real competition for android is AOSP.
Last time I saw the numbers* for Mobile OS market share:
Android total: 81%
- Google's Android: 55%
- AOSP Android: 27%
- iOS Total: 18%
- Other: 1%
% do not add up due to rounding errors
So, phase 1, embrace Google's Android, while mantaining compatibility with AOSP.
Phase 2: Extend AOSP, giving it functional equivalents to the functions Google keeps behind the Google Play Services, that have either no equivalents in AOSP, or Delerict APIs
Phase 3: I hope they do not extinguish Google's Android, but at least lessen Alphabet's grip on the mobile market. This monoculture is as bad (or worse) for us than the Windows desktop and browser monopoly was in the 90's and 00's.
* Numbers come from here:
http://communities-dominate.bl... [blogs.com]
Sorry for not posting the full link, /. threw a filter error
I do not agree with all that Tomi wites, and I do not like his writting style, but I give it to him, he has the best publicly available numbers, and I thank him for give them away for free.
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So, what's Microsoft's endgame here? A custom branded version of Android with Microsoft extensions? I'm not really seeing a lot of profit in that.
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So, what's Microsoft's endgame here? A custom branded version of Android with Microsoft extensions? I'm not really seeing a lot of profit in that.
Seamless access and handover between mobile, local, and hosted apps appears to be the goal, agnostic to the underlying hardware and OS kernel.
* Use O365 apps on your Android phone
* Boot your virtual Win365 work desktop, running O365, hosted on Azure, mirrored to whatever display you have nearby - and picking up where you left off - on any device you can configure to boot from Azure stored VMs
* Head into work and access a Net-PC or workstation, or dock your phone, and again pickup from where you were be
But this time it's going to work ? (Score:2)
But why do they think that *this peculiar time* it's finally going to work after a gazillion of failed attempts by nearly everyone else ? (e.g.: Citrix)
The history is littered with the corpses of failed such attempts.
Why do they think that suddently its going to work better now ?
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My guess is that what's different is they're seeing traction with Azure.
If you can build your infrastructure in Azure and then Microsoft creates a VDI product in Azure that is easy to setup, manage, and use, I could see it working this time. At least working better.
It also might be that they don't see the remote desktop situation as having changed, but just that their position has changed. They don't have the same kind of lock on the desktop OS market that they used to, and they're not charging for upgr
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It might work this time because MS licence agreements are all moving to user based subscriptions - which remove much of the compliance headaches of previous solutions - and the capability is (I assum
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So, what's Microsoft's endgame here? A custom branded version of Android with Microsoft extensions? I'm not really seeing a lot of profit in that.
the idea is not to get a custom branded version of android.
Is convincing all those guys making AOSP devices (and maybe some end users with Google Play android as well), to preinstall/use microsoft launcher and services instead of the hodgepodge set of services and delerict APIs they are using now (with very variable results).
If you are in an emerging market (full disclosure, I am in Venezuela), compare side by side any AOSP device with a Google one of similar price and see.
If you live in a developed market
Re:The real competition for android is not iOS (Score:5, Informative)
[quote]So, what's Microsoft's endgame here?[/quote]
Everyone subscribing to Microsoft's software services and cloud, directly or through phone plan.
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So, what's Microsoft's endgame here?
Complete buy-in to the Windows ecosystem with all of MS's services at the core.
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If you believe the mission statement, the end game is "to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more." I hear that literally every time Mr. Nadella speaks. He's platform agnostic too. He wants to change the world on Windows, Android, Linux, iOS, on desktops, in the cloud, on phones, on tablets, everywhere.
I wouldn't work for Microsoft if EEE was still the vision, but I understand why people are skeptical. It's a different company under Satya. That said, There were a lot
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So, basically, he doesn't care what platform they are on, as long as they have Office 365 subscriptions and are running applications hosted on Azure. Gotcha.
Repeat (Score:3)
Repeat article. I just read the exact-same thing last night.
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Unable to afford? Buahahaha!
I definitely can afford it, but I refuse to be locked into the rotten fruit ecosystem. Fuck your pansy-assed shitphone and all the rest of the idiotic trash from that jewelry company.
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First Linux, now Android (Score:2)
It's like I was saying to a recruiter last night.. (Score:2)
There's this one big recruiting company that's very interested in me again for some reason. Been corresponding with one of their recruiters at length for a couple of weeks now. Last night, I was talking about the things I will and won't work on, and/or code with. I mentioned that I'll write code on or for just about anything... except .net. To which I followed up, "But Microsoft has been oddly standards based the last couple of years, it's completely out of character for them. And, honestly, I'm worried the
Not even close to "mobile Windows" (Score:2)
Have you tried the app? All it does is let you remotely control texting and photos access from your PC. It doesn't let you run Android apps on your PC, it doesn't even let you do a sort of "remote desktop" to your phone. It's much simpler than that.