back to article Microsoft building its own Phone hardware: Not 'If', but 'When'

Rumours refuse to die about a Surface-like smartphone coming from Microsoft. The Wall St Journal cites unnamed sources as (this time) saying Microsoft is working with component suppliers in Asia to test its own smartphone design. The paper reports Microsoft "is testing a smartphone design but isn't sure if a product will go …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tetra 3 slower than Intel Core i5

    Who'd believe it.

    1. Bob Vistakin
      Linux

      Re: Tetra 3 slower than Intel Core i5

      Microsoft shits on its customers then its partners and this is news, how?

      1. N13L5
        Pint

        Re: "Microsoft shits on its customers then its partners and this is news, how?"

        I've never quite seen it summed up this well and succinct.

        How you did that with so few words amazes me!

        The shortest masterpiece of analytical description of a complex aspect of corporate reality I've seen so far.

      2. N13L5
        Mushroom

        Re: "Microsoft shits on its customers then its partners and this is news, how?"

        I should add, in this sentence, Apple and Microsoft are interchangeable.

  2. Lars Silver badge
    Coat

    Fist they where able to steal from Sendo and now they are stealing from Nokia.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Indeed

      How anybody is still willing to consider "partnering" with Microsoft is beyond me. Or perhaps it just means that the company is in a death spiral.

  3. Paul Shirley

    it's all about the app store

    3.6mil licences probably doesn't cover the launch costs for WP7. See that repeated with WP8 and losing the license income really doesn't seem important.

    It's also pretty clear MS have bet the future on a steady income stream from their app store. Sacrificing the license stream would hurt but with unlimited riches just an app store away they'll do it just to get the store into wider use.

    It's a little weird though: Win8 has been butchered to prop up the lacklustre WP biz but if Google are to be believed delivering apps on mobile isn't a source of riches. So in a way wider WP distribution would then become a way to prop up the app store on the desktop! On the desktop bandwidth is cheap -> costs low = profit!

    ...but first they have to get some sales and only Nokia seems remotely interested in pushing the phones.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: it's all about the app store

      The problem with their app store 'strategy' is that they seem to be taking a sledgehammer to their existing business to get one, rather than the more orthodox approach of building on what they have - treating the app store as a goal, rather than the means to an end.

      "Angry Birds WP edition" rather than "Windows Server 20XX" as a strategy? The shareholders will love that.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: you could drive the Torrey Canyon through the wriggle room

    The Torrey Canyon. Wasn't that a giant behemoth of a thing that was slow to manoeuvre, couldn't stop and reverse or change direction soon enough, got itself well and truly stranded and, well, ended up bombed?

    1. Anonymous Custard
      Pirate

      Re: you could drive the Torrey Canyon through the wriggle room

      Indeed it was. Due to a navigational error, it was shipwrecked, caused an environmental disaster and sunk.

      Draw your own analogy.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: you could drive the Torrey Canyon through the wriggle room

        At least the Torrey Canyon sank. MS has enough money to keep floating around for years doing damage like Yahoo's ghost on steroids.

        1. PhilipN Silver badge

          Re: you could drive the Torrey Canyon through the wriggle room

          The main damage from the Torrey Canyon was the leaked oil, which must have left an unfortunate legacy lasting years, AND the massive quantities of emulsion dropped on to it intended to break up the oil slick - which did mean of course that every marine creature on top of and below the waves suffered.

          Then the RAF bombed the slick with something inflammable to try to get the slick to burn.

          Sounds all a bit comical today except it is very unfunny.

      2. Bob Vistakin
        Pirate

        Re: you could drive the Torrey Canyon through the wriggle room

        It's captain claimed to be on a burning platform, but it was a huge lie his true masters had told him to parrot.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cheap R&D

    Fortunately string's cheap, so are tin cans.

  6. Steve Evans

    Well that's it for Nokia then...

    Overloaded with middle management, infected with the Elop virus, R&D decimated, eggs into one basket, basket shared with others with no preferential treatment given, and now basket maker wants to lay it's own eggs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well that's it for Nokia then...

      Sorry for the people still there and who will at some point soonish be without jobs, but they did this to themselves, or more precisely, the management did this to the company. I am not sure how the Finns feel about it, but I can't understand letting Elop go scot-free after destroying in a couple of years a multi-billion company that was a considerable fraction of Finland's economy and biggest mobile phone maker of the world.

  7. The_Regulator
    Mushroom

    Android Fanbois

    "The problem with Microsoft for decades has been twofold: the price of licensing Windows coupled with an operating system that device-makers are not allowed to customise – kit running Windows has always had to feature the Windows look and brand. "

    Licensing I will give you as I am sure it is not cheap, however why would anyone need to customize something in terms of the look of Windows Phone when it already looks a thousand times better than android and ios combined??? Live tiles are customizable btw in that the content displayed on them can be selected by the author meaning that if the hw company eg. HTC or whoever wants to include custom apps/live tile information they can. You can also customize the home screen (wallpaper) with notifications from an app if you want to as well.

    I know this statement is hard for you guys to understand but Open Source is NOT always the best by the way, this is proven by apple and by the ridiculous amount of articles regarding privacy issues, malware and trojans that make their way into the android operating system.....enjoy needing to carry on rooting and side loading to get the FULL experience.

    Last time I looked the xbox360 was about the most popular gaming system on the market and MSFT makes Billions of Dollars every year from an overall strategy, they have more cash than they will ever need to pretty much do whatever they want with so if anyone here really thinks they can't push an idea because it loses money you need to go back to finance school. BTW how were those finances looking at Motorola before they got taken over?!?!?

    I could go on but I wont bother because I know the main portion of people here are too blind to actually contemplate that something new could be something good for everyone. Maybe google will bring some more innovation and give you android users a better camera to use after the Lumia 920 dominates the market for phones with a good camera.....maybe they will just keep spitting out the same crap they have been though for the past couple of years too. Enjoy mediocrity, I am gonna enjoy my Lumia 920!!

    1. Richard Plinston

      Re: Android Fanbois

      > it already looks a thousand times better than android and ios

      Exactly, that is why it has such a high market share, if it didn't look so much better then the market share would be much less.

      > but Open Source is NOT always the best by the way

      Exactly, if it was always the best then Android would have a much higher market share than the miserable 75% that it has.

      > the xbox360 was about the most popular gaming system on the market and MSFT makes Billions of Dollars

      2012Q1 """Microsoft's entertainment and devices division has not been too lucrative lately, with figures revealing a loss of $229 million in the three months ending March 31. As this console generation begins to wrap up, news arrives of Xbox 360 sales falling by nearly 50%."""

      2012Q2 """one thing that stood out was a $263 million loss in the Entertainment and Devices division."""

      1. The_Regulator
        FAIL

        Re: Android Fanbois

        Tell me that the OS for WP is not more attractive than iOS or Android please.......market share has nothing to do with visual styling.

        Your 2nd point again market share has no relevant point with that comment.

        Your 3rd point is also irrelevant, I didn't say Xbox earns MS Billions of Dollars, I said MS (As a Whole) earns Billions of dollars.

        Learn to read before you flame!!!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Android Fanbois

      Are you RICHTO ?

      I think you must be !

      "after the Lumia 920 dominates the market for phones " - after the Microsoft 920 dominates the market for phones - fixed it for you

    3. M Gale

      Re: Android Fanbois

      "enjoy needing to carry on rooting and side loading to get the FULL experience."

      Why would I need to root my phone or tablet? You know that takes you outside of Google's walled garden and means malware can dig itself in deep? Not to mention the void warranty.

      As for "sideloading", named like it's some massively technical procedure, do you really take the average user to be such a plank that they can't drag and drop the APK file, find it in the phone and click on it? To be honest, Average User doesn't need to sideload to do what they want.

      As for open source not being always the best, it damned well is in this case. You could argue that Microsoft almost invented the GNU GPL, because Linux and the Gnu project probably wouldn't have gotten half the traction it has without them. It's a great defense against Microsoft's (or anybody else's) monopolistic practises. Just what you want in something essential to an entire industry, like a common operating system.

    4. N13L5
      Facepalm

      Re: Windows Phone already looks a thousand times better than android and ios combined???

      LOL

      Only fools are deluded by their own personal taste...

      ...into believing everyone else must have the same taste.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm

    Isn't this still based on the NT kernel?

    So they've slapped a new gui on it and called it macaroni... and they want $15-20 for tech that had its cost amortized rather a long time ago?

    That strikes me as a lot of margin if you're selling millions of the things and they don't have a locked-in base as they do for PCs.

  9. Christian Berger

    No they wont

    They might, at most design their own phone, probably even just "designing" it as in "coming up with specifications". Microsoft surely won't produce it, they will out-source that to a Chinese company, possibly Foxcon.

  10. N13L5
    FAIL

    Rearranging deck chairs on the MS-Windows as its heading straight towards...

    ...two icebergs named Apple and Google.

    After destroying other markets, I think nobody wants Microcruft to embrace-and-destroy the mobile market.

    I don't think anybody would really miss Microsoft. The company was built on basically screwing the Programmer of DOS in a great trickery. I think we could all do without any more sleazy business practices.

    Not that Google and Apple would exactly be holding still anyway.

    Microcruft's Office has long seen nothing but cosmetic alterations screwing corporations into having to retrain their employees for very little functional benefit if any.

    Charts in Excel 2010 are now less adjustable than they were in Excel 2003. But we have a 'nifty' RIBBON that takes up 3 times as much screen space as the menu.

    I call that and the Windows 8 changes "Rearranging deck chairs". There are some benefits of Windows 8 over Windows 7 on the desktop, but they are hidden under a pile of sillyness designed for Phone screens that doesn't work on large computer displays at all.

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