So it's happened. Microsoft will adjust its books and its staff roster to largely erase its purchase of Nokia. Yesterday, CEO Satya Nadella announced an "impairment charge" of $7.6bn related to the acquisition, along with a reduction of 7,800 employees, primarily from "the phone business". The announcement makes sense to the …

COMMENTS

Post your comment

House rules Send corrections

Add to 'My topics'

Thursday 9th July 2015 13:43 GMT Anonymous Coward

where's the new hardware

so Windows 10 goes gold in two weeks. but where's the shiny new hardware to ride that marketing wave? is there a new Surface? do Lenovo have some fabulous new device with all the biometric sensors Windows 10 supports? have HP got a new quirky device like the Sprout (if you don't know what it is, do yourself a favour and have a look) ... and the phone market ... crickets. and unlike PC users who know when the rollout starts there's not even any rumours as to when the update to the phone I have (and the Insider build I'm running really isn't prime time, so I assume the phone version of Windows 10 is a going to be a long way behind)

while I hope Windows 10 is a success - on the desktop it's a decent service pack for 8.1 - I worry that despite the rhetoric of their new leadership the OS business is still as clueless and focused on shiny new features vs getting the core rock soild as it ever was

8 1 Reply
1. Thursday 9th July 2015 14:10 GMT dogged
  
  Re: where's the new hardware
  
  > so Windows 10 goes gold in two weeks. but where's the shiny new hardware to ride that marketing wave?
  
  Win10 Mobile isn't due before September/October, apparently.
  
  And there's been a Lumia 940/940XL in the rumour mill for quite some time. If the aforementioned rumour mill is correct and it supports handwriting natively, I might even get one.
  
  3 3 Reply
  1. Thursday 9th July 2015 15:14 GMT AMBxx
    
    Re: where's the new hardware
    
    Hasn't Surface 3 just been released too? All these tablets looks so much alike, I can't keep up.
    
    Would love a Surface Pro, but ££££
    
    4 4 Reply
    1. Thursday 9th July 2015 17:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      @AMBxx - Re: where's the new hardware
      
      Perhaps the person who down-voted your post would care to explain why do I have to pay more than double for a surface tablet instead of an Android one ? Just because it can run MS Office and other desktop applications ?
      
      If I am not mistaken millions of people turned to iPad and Android tablets and phones knowing precisely they will not run MS Office and they did pretty well for years. What tells Microsoft we all crave to run their applications on our tablets/phones when we can still run them just fine on our desktops/portables. I admit that to a certain number of persons that would be a valid use case but why maim a decent desktop OS for that ? Besides that, for anyone having more than one single neuron it is obvious that you can not have the same functionality on a small, touch-oriented screen and on a large display. Just have a look a those websites "optimized" for mobile and compare how they look on a phone screen and on a standard display. It's simply sickening!
      
      Let's face it, Microsoft, some people will find use for these universal apps. For the rest, it will be a choice between staying or leaving Windows ecosystem altogether and some will decide to leave.
      
      14 2 Reply
      1. Thursday 9th July 2015 18:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: @AMBxx - where's the new hardware
        
        Didn't Microsoft port Office to iOS & Android? The experience will be better with full Office on a Surface Pro, but honest how many people are worried about getting all the features? Most of those who need Office on a mobile device just want to read documents, or at most make a few edits. Hardly anyone will want to create new complex documents from scratch and justify needing the full Office experience on a tablet. Those who do basically bought the Surface Pro instead of a laptop, rather than in addition to. I'd hardly even count those sales as tablet sales since they're really a wonky laptop format, and their users mostly use them as that with a keyboard and not as a true tablet.
        
        5 0 Reply
        
        Thursday 9th July 2015 23:39 GMT mmeier
        
        Re: @AMBxx - where's the new hardware
        
        Try an S/P3, you might be surprised what the pen and One Note or Journal can do for creating content. I rarely use a Keyboard for mine and actually never bought the cover. If I need one at the desk I plug in a USB dock and normal Keyboard. Rarely happens and never in mobile use. Writing and drawing is easier and 92+ percent of the desktops can read the produced files.
        
        2 2 Reply
      2. Thursday 9th July 2015 23:31 GMT mmeier
        
        Re: @AMBxx - where's the new hardware
        
        I just replaced my old Asus E121 with a Surface Pro 3. Well actually the EP replaced a Note 10. 1 because even an old Windows tablet pc that due to a four year old battery need to be on permanent AC power is a LOT more usefull than a high and Android as soon as working with multiple complex documents and printing becomes part of the job. The Note barely handles showing two complex and graphics heavy PDF where the EP takes half a dozen without even switching the CPU to full power. And adds stuff like commenting that just work.
        
        Same for Note taking, WACOM beats on screen Keyboards and there is still no equivalent to the full scale One Note Application or even the full capabilities of Journal. Or for drawing etc. And then there is Lightroom. Works decently on a core i5 and an external SSD drive and makes it a nice tool for quickly developing a few RAW.
        
        Oh and being able to simply run a Power Print without having to think about compatibility and using stuff like external links is very useful. Again the ability to write on it addsfunctionality as does Miracast
        
        The S/P3 is even better since it basically is A4in size and great for reviewing and commenting documents be they PDF or word
        
        3 4 Reply
  2. Friday 10th July 2015 05:59 GMT big_D
    
    Re: where's the new hardware
    
    @dogged the ad platform results for the last quarter have 2 quad HD Windows Phone devices cropping up (check out Thurrott.com).
    
    So it looks like the new top end phones are at least in testing.
    
    0 0 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 13:44 GMT Captain Underpants

So the possible/maybe disappearance/reduction in focus of one part of the ecosystem on which Windows runs means "Windows everywhere is dead"? Despite not knowing what plans are for the next 12 months in that context, or whether anyone else will be releasing devices (probably business-oriented) with Windows Phone? And despite the unified platform paradigm still makes sense given that Microsoft have various platforms which are currently doing quite well?

There's extrapolating from limited facts, and then there's outright pulling something out of your arse because there's no clear information to go on...

7 10 Reply
1. Thursday 9th July 2015 14:11 GMT Dan 55
  
  It is, to all intents and purposes, dead on ARM. Surface RT is gone, the phone division is at a bare minimum, and the Lumia range will be drastically cut back.
  
  There's nowhere to run Universal Apps apart from x86 desktop/laptop and x86 tablet. And to do that developers might as well use Win32 instead of a whole new API which is more limited than Win32. So making Universal Apps DOA too.
  
  So everything that MS has done after Windows 7 has been a waste of time. At least Ballmer tried to get MS to go forward in the right direction, Nadella has just put MS in reverse gear.
  
  20 3 Reply
  1. Thursday 9th July 2015 14:38 GMT Captain Underpants
    
    For my money, Ballmer's steerage of MS (at least in the last few years) consisted of panicking when he saw rivals bringing products to market, then trying desperately to rush out shoddy versions of them in order to compete. Hell, windows on phones should've been in a much better state than it currently is - they had Windows CE working for enterprise devices a decade ago. (Though I suppose I should credit him with the fact that the Xbox business was developed during his tenure).
    
    As for Universal Apps - it's a bit disingenuous to say there's "nowhere to run them except x86 platforms" when they aren't out yet. I imagine that from an end user perspective being able to run the same app on an XBox One as on your Dell Win10 tablet as on your self-build Win10 workstation could turn out to be pretty useful. And the Pi 2 is a useful demo of an IoT type device that could make the idea more useful still, even before Windows 10 Mobile arrives.
    
    4 5 Reply
    1. Thursday 9th July 2015 15:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      Universal Apps
      
      I agree with you that Ballmer was just panicky - and he gave us the stinking heap that was Windows 8.
      
      As for Universal Apps, if phones are gone, ARM tablets are gone, then yes, you're sort of left with x86.
      
      I can't really imagine what kind of app that I'm going to run on both a Pi 2 and my desktop.
      
      IoT apps really just work with the Things, and I don't think I'll want to be running Office on an Xbox, either.
      
      The intent with windows 8 [and 10] to make unified OS/ apps that run on content consumption devices, content creation devices and small sensors/controllers all with the same phone-style interface is puzzling to me.
      
      9 0 Reply
      1. Thursday 9th July 2015 23:18 GMT Charles Manning
        
        Re: Universal Apps
        
        But isn't everyone turning away form the concept of Universal Apps anyway?
        
        Websites have different views for phone browsing vs PC browsing because people tend to use the platforms differently.
        
        Presentation and consumption/usage tend to vary on the device you're using due to where you are, graphics footprint and whether or not you have keyboard & mouse or touch.
        
        Hence the most successful multi-platform player - Apple - have iOS and OSX.
        
        The whole one-size-fits all idea is fundamentally broken, yet MS have been trying to make this work since they launched the retarded-and-quickly-killed Kin phone. They took that one feature (that could perhaps be a good idea on mobile) and tried to make it work everywhere.
        
        Previous to that they tried using the Start Button UI everywhere on desktops and WinCE devices.
        
        Somehow the obvious - that different platforms have different usage models and need different UIs - seems to have escaped them.
        
        1 0 Reply
        
        Friday 10th July 2015 07:49 GMT Robert Grant
        
        Re: Universal Apps
        
        Websites have different views for phone browsing vs PC browsing because people tend to use the platforms differently.
        
        This is a perfect analogy for what MS are trying to do - responsive views/layouts based on screen size.
        
        An analogy that would help your point would need to argue in favour of going back to totally separate mobile and desktop websites.
        
        I remember those days. Don't miss 'em.
        
        0 0 Reply
    2. Thursday 9th July 2015 20:05 GMT Richard Plinston
      
      > panicking when he saw rivals bringing products to market, then trying desperately to rush out shoddy versions of them in order to compete.
      
      That is what Microsoft has always done. Except between 'saw' and 'rush' they did 'vaporware' to slow down the market for 'saw'. Sometimes they simply bought rivals to shut them down. MS-DOS 1 was a shoddy version of CP/M or CP/M-86. Windows 1 was a shoddy version of Lisa/Mac and GEM. MS-DOS 5 was 20 months after DR-DOS 5.
      
      7 0 Reply
    3. Thursday 9th July 2015 20:27 GMT Richard Plinston
      
      > And the Pi 2 is a useful demo of an IoT type device that could make the idea more useful still,
      
      While Windows IoT is another example of jumping on the band wagon it does not make it 'more useful'. A Pi, even the cheapest ones, can be useful as a complete computer (with Raspian or other) and can be used stand alone to develop 'normal' programs as well as ones that access the GPIO for sensors and motors. Microsoft requires a full Windows 10 PC to develop on while the 'Windows' Pi 2 only operates like a Arduino to run a single 'sketch' at a time. This also _requires_ it be a Pi 2, cheaper devices need not apply. If analogue input is required then a ($35) Pi 2 need an additional board (or an Arduino) to provide this. For many IoT jobs just the Arduino is required and these can be as cheap as $3 (for non-brand clones).
      
      Also Microsoft is aiming IoT devices to communicate via Azure. Who wants to operate their lights or heating via servers possibly in another country ?
      
      Many companies are developing products to give simple and cost effective solutions to linking 'intelligent' commodity products together. Microsoft is jumping on the band wagon to control and suck revenue from this market.
      
      9 0 Reply
    4. Thursday 9th July 2015 22:43 GMT Dan 55
      
      @Captain Underpants
      
      Can't think of any reason why you'd want a Universal App to write something which works on desktop, tablet, and XBox apart from possibly casual gaming. It's not going to save Windows 10.
      
      2 0 Reply
      1. Friday 10th July 2015 10:07 GMT Captain Underpants
        
        Re: @Captain Underpants
        
        @Dan 55:
        
        It's not the Universal App by itself that makes it (potentially) useful, it's the Universal App combined with a Microsoft account and storage space. Personally, I'm not massively keen on it - but being able to have stuff like a single Netflix app, calendar/diary, office suite, fitness app, or whatever the hell else you want to use that can work across a multitude of devices seamlessly with access to the same cloud-sync'd data, can be useful. You've only got to look at how Apple have made this work with the iDevice range (and, to a lesser extent, Google with Android) to see that there are a lot of people who will use this sort of thing and find value in it if it works.
        
        I have no idea whether Microsoft will be successful, but over the last ten years of people having multiple devices that are used for accessing online services, it's become clear to me at least that keeping all the devices in sync is a ballache if there hasn't been careful thought given to it. A range of OSs that can share applications and handle the UI elements locally combined with shared storage accessible from all devices/OSs on which the user account has access coud, if implemented well, be a very good solution to that problem (if you're willing to buy into the model).
        
        1 1 Reply
        
        Friday 10th July 2015 19:17 GMT Richard Plinston
        
        Re: @Captain Underpants
        
        > A range of OSs that can share applications and handle the UI elements locally combined with shared storage accessible from all devices/OSs on which the user account has access coud, if implemented well, be a very good solution to that problem (if you're willing to buy into the model).
        
        Microsoft wants to increase its revenue from each user. This involves selling several devices to each, and then selling services to link them together.
        
        Other companies are working on a different plan: each user only requires a single device. For example a convertible laptop/tablet, or a phone that becomes a desktop when plugged into a monitor or TV.
        
        0 1 Reply
    5. Monday 13th July 2015 22:22 GMT Loud Speaker
      
      Anyone who every used WInce would never intentionally touch another mobile Windows product again - not only did it routinely lose your apps and data, every software upgrade left your existing product lying dead on the desk. You were expected to buy a new product from a company that had just sold you a duff one!
      
      If I could run Android on my Wince5 Satnav/tablet, I might be tempted to buy more Win hardware, but no. Sammy for me! (Provided the Note 5 has removable SD card and battery, otherwise I buy Chung Hwa brand).
      
      0 0 Reply
  2. Thursday 9th July 2015 14:59 GMT Paul Shirley
    
    " At least Ballmer tried to get MS to go forward in the right direction, Nadella has just put MS in reverse gear."
    
    You assume reverse isn't the 'right direction' and confuse Ballmer 'trying to go forward' with Ballmer 'succeeding in going forward'. Quite a lot of us would welcome some genuine reversing, instead of the pretending MS have been doing.
    
    This isn't reversing, it's MS skipping the temporary sideways excursion into WP. If the end goal was Win10 everywhere then WP had no long term future, it would be just another view of Win10. Given the state WP is in heading straight for the unified endgame is almost no risk. What damage can they do to a failed product they have to give away for free?
    
    8 0 Reply
  3. Friday 10th July 2015 11:40 GMT TheOtherHobbes
    
    >So everything that MS has done after Windows 7 has been a waste of time.
    
    Win 8 - pointless.
    
    Win 10 - pointless.
    
    Purchase and trashing of Nokia - pointless.
    
    WP - not quite pointless, but a footnote also-ran in the phone market.
    
    Surface - mostly pointless.
    
    Office on iOS - not pointless, but proves MS have lost control of the platform.
    
    It's one hell of a record.
    
    0 1 Reply
2. Thursday 9th July 2015 14:48 GMT Teiwaz
  
  Widows everywhen?
  
  Well, I took the "Windows everywhere is dead' as in the slogan and business strategy of one windows across many devices, yadda yadda yadda..
  
  Not, 'windows, everywhere is dead' as in this is a death-knell for windows full stop, because of some surprising cut-backs on what was seeming being hailed as the focus a year (or so) ago.
  
  Doesn't inspire confidence in the platform though, and as with the Surface RT 'fiasco', would certainly deter me from buying a device with any confidence that is was not going to be dead-ended in a year.
  
  6 1 Reply
  1. Thursday 9th July 2015 15:22 GMT Captain Underpants
    
    Re: Widows everywhen?
    
    @Teiwaz:
    
    To be honest I never understood what the hell Microsoft where doing with the Surface RT. Yes, I get it, cheaper than a Surface, but too bloody limited to be of use. IMO it should have either been using Windows Phone (with a goal of that being their touch device OS) or just skipped entirely. A Windows tablet, except you can't run any of your x86 software on it just doesn't make any sense, at least if you accept that the Windows Store is nowhere near as well populated with useful packages as the Google or iOS marketplaces are.
    
    Surface as an Atom device (ie the non-Pro Surface as a spiritual successor to netbooks) makes much more sense to me, not least because I've been using effectively the same thing in the form of a Dell Venue 8 Pro for the last year and found it surprisingly useful.
    
    4 0 Reply
    1. Thursday 9th July 2015 18:28 GMT Teiwaz
      
      Re: Widows everywhen?
      
      Yup.
      
      The atom is what they should have gone for. I could hardly believe it when I heard about the Surface RT. A Windows machine which could not run the vast library of Windows software - What was the point in that?
      
      I've an Acer netbook (2010 era) with a single code Atom N450. It used to run XP ok, it could run Win 7 (allegedly - it was an extra, 30 pounds). It now has Ubuntu on it, and an extra GB memory added to the original 1Gb (improved the response on Unity and KDE a lot), the battery is not holding a full charge any longer, but it's still getting used every day. It's a five year old chip, but I could see it would run real snappy if used as the base for a tablet. I've actually considered a touch screen upgrade for it on occasion.
      
      1 0 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 14:11 GMT Siv

I think too many journalists are Apple Fan Boys

I see a lot of people claiming that Windows Phone is dead from Nadella's last announcement, where I read it as a positive one for Windows Phone as to date he has not said much about phone. There was talk on the internet that he wasn't enamoured with Nokia at the time of the purchase under Ballmer's stewardship but went along with it reluctantly.

Given that his mantra on taking over was "cloud first mobile first" I would have thought that would be difficult to do without a mobile phone O/S brand, even if he feels quite rightly that Microsoft don't actually need to make them, surely to be all in on that mantra you would have to have a strong phone O/S offering to put you in that marketplace.

His other thing has been to focus on Microsoft's roots which is software development and it is very clear he sees Microsoft as a software company hence the opening of the floodgates when he took over releasing apps for Android and IOS and in particular Office on those platforms.

I think they may have a flagship Surface Phone waiting for the Windows 10 launch, probably a direct descendant of the 7" Surface mini tablet device that he scrapped a little while ago, perhaps they didn't send them to landfill and they are set to re-emerge as the Surface Phone!? Elsewhere in his announcement he did say that he was in on producing best of breed devices that show other hardware manufacturers what Microsoft sees as a best embodiment of their platform as the Surface tablets and in particular the Surface Pro 3 have done.

I think it's way too soon to be writing off Windows Phone. My other bet is that somewhere down the line we will see a very powerful phone device that goes with a docking station and can run full Universal and Win 32 Windows applications that really will embody the mobile first mantra as you can carry it about in your top pocket and use it like a phone nowadays and then when you are at work or at home dock it and turn it into a full blown desktop/laptop PC. To me that is what the Windows 10 vision is leading to!!

9 9 Reply
1. Thursday 9th July 2015 14:48 GMT 0laf
  
  Re: I think too many journalists are Apple Fan Boys
  
  "My other bet is that somewhere down the line we will see a very powerful phone device that goes with a docking station and can run full Universal and Win 32 Windows applications that really will embody the mobile first mantra as you can carry it about in your top pocket and use it like a phone nowadays"
  
  This was one of my thoughts too. A mid end phone is more than powerful enough now to run a basic desktop operating system. That could be a big step if your business phone was also your desktop, also your tablet etc. We've already got users happily using docked Windows tablets as desktops then picking up the tablet to take home at the end of the day. And that's using Win8.1 which is a dogs dinner.
  
  I'm sure they'd be happy to drop the 10" tab for a 5" phone.
  
  2 5 Reply
  1. Thursday 9th July 2015 23:51 GMT mmeier
    
    Re: I think too many journalists are Apple Fan Boys
    
    Having had the pleasant experience of a Lumina 535 recently and almost ditching my Not 2 for it (1) I would love to see an NTRIG equipped Lumnia to finally clean out the last Android.
    
    (1) In the end my love for my father won out and I allowed him to use the fast, stable phone with good telephone component, great navigation and a chance for patches and updates twelve month from now. Even if that forced me to keep the Not2
    
    1 3 Reply
2. Thursday 9th July 2015 18:38 GMT Teiwaz
  
  Continuum-ing with convergence
  
  > "My other bet is that somewhere down the line we will see a very powerful phone device that goes with a docking station and can run full Universal and Win 32 Windows applications that really will embody the mobile first mantra as you can carry it about in your top pocket and use it like a phone nowadays and then when you are at work or at home dock it and turn it into a full blown desktop/laptop PC."
  
  IF Microsoft have truly abandoned it's continuum plan - the only player left pursuing that line seriously is Canonical with the Ubuntu Phone/Desktop convergence.
  
  Win 32 applications - maybe, as long as Wine plays ball. Full Universal, maybe, with .net now crossing platform boundaries (or mono).
  
  1 0 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 14:18 GMT Anonymous Coward

Re: I think it's way too soon to be writing off Windows Phone

Nadella has just written it off, to the tune of $7.6bn

13 3 Reply
1. Thursday 9th July 2015 17:39 GMT Phoenix50
  
  Re: I think it's way too soon to be writing off Windows Phone
  
  No, they haven't.
  
  Nokia != Windows Phone
  
  1 2 Reply
  1. Friday 10th July 2015 00:39 GMT veti
    
    Re: I think it's way too soon to be writing off Windows Phone
    
    Nokia == Windows Phone to all intents and purposes.
    
    Microsoft needs a "partner" it can trust - i.e. one that it owns, either in fact or in effect, if it's ever going to expand its footprint in the phone biz. No company that's free to make its own decisions is going to choose WinPhone over Android, not while the lists of available apps are so lopsided. To get more apps, you need more users. To get more users, you need to sell more phones.
    
    And to sell more phones - well, somebody has to be making and marketing them.
    
    6 0 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 15:16 GMT AMBxx

They'll change their mind, just watch.

There'll be some marketing line about phone, pc, xbox all being the same really, so that's what he said when declaring phone dead. He meant phone as a standalone device, not phone as in blagh, blagh, blagh

Just love marketing.

2 1 Reply
1. Thursday 9th July 2015 15:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: They'll change their mind, just watch.
  
  So my phone can't be a standalone device?
  
  So we'll all have landline smartphones?
  
  1 0 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 15:33 GMT Anonymous Coward

I think it's time to defenestrate him...

1 0 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 15:57 GMT Anonymous Coward

one interpretation

That with an underlying common system or systems below all versions of Windows 10, a load of specialists in the Windows phone division are superfluous to requirements, and the rest are jettisoned to encourager les autres that remain in the rest of the corp.

1 0 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 17:45 GMT Phoenix50

Hang on.

From the title "Is that really what Nadella wants?"

No it isn't because that's not what's happening.

Windows Phone "written off".

No it isn't, because that's not what's happening.

Someone show me, from Nadella's statement exactly where it states either that Windows Everywhere will now not include Windows Phone, or that Windows Phone is closing down. It doesn't.

You must all be so upset - so I'm sorry to burst the bubble of so many journo's frothing at the mouth declaring Windows Phone has "done a Blackberry" but it hasn't.

In his statement, Nadella said, quite categorically that they will continue to release phones focusing on three segments. That's it! There's nothing else to say - Windows Phone is going to continue. I don't understand why everyone is so excited at the prospect of it "ending".

Or is everyone perfectly happy with Android or Apple for the foreseeable future? Just two? No other credible competition?

A Ford or a BMW? You choose.

6 3 Reply
1. Thursday 9th July 2015 17:55 GMT IJC
  
  Re: Hang on.
  
  Glad someone has the same basic understanding of the English language that I do.
  
  The negative spin being put on a reorganization of a purchased division is just ludicrous.
  
  When businesses buy other businesses that are losing money they do so with the intention of cutting the pieces that are not working to eliminate costs. This is normal business practice. Usually happens over the first couple of years.
  
  Sheesh!
  
  3 2 Reply
2. Thursday 9th July 2015 19:02 GMT Teiwaz
  
  Re: Hang on.
  
  I think you are confusing 'excitement' with 'shock' in most cases.
  
  No I don't think people really want either a monopoly, or even a duoply, such situations are not good for the consumer at all.
  
  But people love a circus, and besides the clowns, there is always the hope that somebody will be eaten by a lion.
  
  5 0 Reply
3. Friday 10th July 2015 07:36 GMT hplasm
  
  Re: Hang on.
  
  "A Ford or a BMW? You choose."
  
  Or the Trabant - Like you say- no credible opposition- from WP.
  
  1 2 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 18:32 GMT kryptylomese

I would much prefer to see computer professionals invest their time to gain knowledge and experience in being able to deliver/architect reliable/secure/performant solutions with a dev/ops methodology rather than fumble around with Windows that doesn't allow certified Microsoft guys to build their own solutions, but instead only utilise off the shelf products.

2 0 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 19:33 GMT vordan

I really don't see why people get so worked up about Windows Phone being dead or not?

It never was something that really succeeded or caught up with the consumers.

BTW, with Microsoft's announcement today about writing off $7.8 bln and 7800 jobs (presumably from Nokia), Windows Phone is nearly done.

3 0 Reply
Thursday 9th July 2015 21:47 GMT ceebee

they missed the boat on WP

WP should have arrived with a proper Exchange/Outlook integration and server-side tools for business from day one. The business market was still wide open in 2009 but chasing the consumer iPhone space was dumb. And then effectively dumping WP7 to go to WP8 etc compounded the disaster.

MS simply has not had a proper strategy for WP since that well know fruit company released the touchy phone thing.

The announcement this week is effectively the end for WP .. who is going to buy or develop for a device that is effectively EOL ....... this is as crazy as HP and Palm/WebOS.

And these guys get 7 figure salaries...couldn't run a booze-up in a brewery!

4 0 Reply
1. Thursday 9th July 2015 22:35 GMT Richard Plinston
  
  Re: they missed the boat on WP
  
  > this is as crazy as HP and Palm/WebOS.
  
  To be fair to HP the dumping of WebOS was not their idea. Microsoft came along with WoA (Windows on ARM, later Windows RT) and pointed out that 'loyalty discounts' over _all_ Microsoft products depended on selling Windows on all possible products. It would be a shame if they lost hundreds of millions of dollars of discount in trying to sell some tablets.
  
  It worked for netbooks.
  
  1 0 Reply
  1. Friday 10th July 2015 00:00 GMT bep
    
    Re: they missed the boat on WP
    
    It seems to me the dumbest thing Microsoft did was murder the Netbook market. Here they had their software running on cheap devices that people actually wanted to buy so they artificially crippled them so as not to compete with high-end devices. They are now doing exactly the same thing with the cheap Windows 8.1 laptops. If you are a software company, I would think the one rule should be 'Do not cripple your own software when you have active competitors in the same market'.
    
    4 0 Reply
    1. Friday 10th July 2015 02:57 GMT Richard Plinston
      
      Re: they missed the boat on WP
      
      > It seems to me the dumbest thing Microsoft did was murder the Netbook market. Here they had their software running on cheap devices that people actually wanted to buy so they artificially crippled them ...
      
      Not quite. Netbooks were designed to be really cheap internet access devices: DVD player screen, cheap atom CPU, SD card 'disk', Linux to avoid Windows licence, and cater for small RAM size. Microsoft resurrected XP at a small price (because Vista had no way of running) so that they could threaten the discounts of 'unloyal' partners. But even this required bigger screens, hard disks, RAM, faster and more expensive CPU, to the point where small laptops were the same price.
      
      2 0 Reply
Friday 10th July 2015 00:17 GMT W. Anderson

Microsoft coulda, woulda, shoulda

Even after several years Microsoft supporters on this and other Redmond worshipping user forums still do not understand that their “anecdotal” experience, even if proven true does not translate into real world mobile and general technology use and preferences.

Approximately 6 months back IBM announced an $3 billion agreement with Apple to bring their tablets and smartphones into major enterprise as a result of several credible and indepth studies showing strong preferences for Apple products "if" configured more efficiently for corporate use and with superior security functionality, areas of IBM strength.

Therefore the "exclusivity" of better Office 2016 or even Office 365 working on Microsoft mobile products shows to offer no discernable benefit. Furthermore, most all the European Union 27 countries, China and other Asian nation business behemoths, as well as South American countries are moving steadily but surely to Android or similar Linux and 'true' Open Standards based mobile technologies has a significant part to play in governments, corporations and community choices for mobile solutions, now that much of the world is inter-connected and growing more-so.

Mr. Nadella is doing his best to salvage the serious negative effects in the short-sightedness of Steve Ballmer and upgrade the very old 20th century technologies underpining most of Microsoft software products. Whether he will succeed is another topic of tech guessing.

2 1 Reply
Friday 10th July 2015 04:22 GMT Frank N. Stein

It's not odd for Nadella to kill Windows Mobile before Windows 10 arrives. Everyone thought of Elop as the "Trojan Horse", but what if Nadella is actually the "Trojan Horse". What if his killing off of Windows Mobile is actually going to cause more uptake of Mac OS and iOS. Kinda funny that iOS and Mac OS work so well together in the way that Windows 8.1 and Windows Mobile were "supposed" to work together. Nadella's interest is cloud, not a single app platform for developers to develop. Uptake of Office 365, Dynamics CRM, SQL and Windows Server. And since most businesses and consumers didn't bite into Windows 8 and 8.1, let's get them moved along to Windows 10. THAT is Nadella's ploy for killing Windows Mobile. Focus everyone on moving on to Windows 10. Later, he may allow the Windows Mobile platform to raise it's head, but that just isn't important to him, right now.

1 1 Reply
Friday 10th July 2015 10:43 GMT Anonymous Coward

Windows Phone is getting very good indeed. For Nadella to talk it into the grave seems as perverse and wrong as Elop's burning platform spiel.

My understanding of what a CEO is for and what they do for a company seems very flawed. If there are any corporate accountants or lawyers reading this, could one of you clarify whether publicly destroying shareholder value makes sense as part of a clever long-term tax planning strategy?

1 0 Reply
1. Friday 10th July 2015 13:01 GMT fajensen
  
  ... publicly destroying shareholder value ...
  
  Didn't Neutron Jack Welsh himself recently get religion and declare Shareholder Value the dumbest idea anyone had since Apartheid - or something?
  
  Anyway, the C-class of today is all about how much Shareholder Value they can transfer to their own numbered accounts in Zürich. Efficiency is not an issue. Probably the "Plan-Cxx" is that if they can burn the investors to the ground while extracting Shareholder Value, then there will be less money to pay the lawyers with when they get sued, thereby the frauds can obtain a better no-fault settlement out of court.
  
  Below is an example of typical "best practice" from the C-segment these days:
  
  http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/who-benefits-rising-generic-drug-prices-and-the-case-of-mylans-conflicted-property-purchases.html
  
  0 0 Reply