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back to article Microsoft's Master Chief calls time on Cortana as a standalone AI platform

Culling Cortana, poking Phone users and feeding the UWP XAML developers – it's all in a week's work for Microsoft. For whom Nadella the Axeman cometh We noted last week that Microsoft's unloved assistant, Cortana, had been booted from desktop search in the latest Windows Insider build (how Microsoft avoids spanking its …

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  1. tentimes

    What a shame.

    If Microsoft of all people (joking aside) cannot get this right then what can it get right? It has all the skills and the people to get this right but it is bowing out too early. They should have stuck at it. I have an Alexa but I also use Google assistant (voice and text). Both these platforms are at a very early stage and with a bit of effort (and focus!) Cortana could easily and should have competed with them. It is early days in this sphere and if MS bows out here then what the hell can it compete at? Ok, it has Windows, but it has got to be more than a one trick pony. They bowed out too early with a Java dev platform and other languages it didn't even try to make Visual Studio available for. They should be pushing VS for all types of development. Come on Microsoft - grow a pair!!

    3 1 Reply
    1. tentimes
      Reply Icon

      Re: What a shame.

      (cue a "What have the Romans done for us post :)

      1 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What a shame.

      Microsoft have been a train-wreck for the last decade, anyone buying their products is a fool.

      3 9 Reply
    3. AMBxx Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: What a shame.

      It seems to be the standard Microsoft approach to new products:

      1) Release a buggy barely working release with some marketing

      2) Fix the problems, release something good without any marketing.

      3) Give up before it has time for any significant market share

      1 1 Reply
  2. N2
    WTF?

    Does not bode well

    "creating new backups of the handsets would stop working on 10 March 2020"

    So, if they can do that with their handsets, what about everything else?

    1 0 Reply
  3. Aladdin Sane

    #RememberReach

    0 1 Reply
  4. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Mushroom

    "It looks like you're trying to build a UI"

    with respect to "a free tool that it hopes will let devs prototype UWP XAML for user interfaces"

    One more CLIPPY clone and I think I'll *EXPLODE* [ok maybe it's not clippy but still... did they NOT see that one scene from Salmon Days when the BOFH started wrestling with Clippy screaming "I AM NOT! WRITING! A @#$%ING! LETTER! YOU STUPID @#$%ING PAPERCLIP!"]

    The tool would HAVE to be FREE, because NO self-respecting developer would EVAR *PAY* for such an abomination!!!

    UWP needs to be killed to death by burning it with FIRE.

    4 10 Reply
    1. Solarflare
      Reply Icon

      Re: "It looks like you're trying to build a UI"

      It look like you're trying to write an angry post about Clippy, would you like some help with that?

      3 0 Reply
  5. Wellyboot Silver badge

    Retail as a service

    When has it ever been anything else? The whole point of retail is to provide an alternative to everybody knocking on the manufacturers door.

    3 0 Reply
  6. graeme leggett Silver badge

    Looking for the MS Phone replacement.

    "You might still be able to restore devices or upload photos until 10 December 2020, but the company isn't making any promises"

    There's a couple of Black Fridays and another January sale betwixt now and then. Wonder how long I can eke mine out.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Looking for the MS Phone replacement.

      Don't forget the 2nd oldest profession (a.k.a. Pawn Brokers)

      They are a great source of used iPhones. Makes them just about affordable to the masses.

      0 0 Reply
      1. ROC
        Reply Icon

        Re: Looking for the MS Phone replacement.

        Purism should have an open source (including hardware?) available in a few months:

        https://puri.sm/posts/end-of-year-librem-5-update/

        Looking forward to an escape to phone (infrastructure) freedom after being conned by Windows Phone 8.1/10, which I miss now and then, and my wife even more so.

        0 0 Reply
    2. Dan 55 Silver badge
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      Re: Looking for the MS Phone replacement.

      One thing on my to-do list is to try Sailfish on a Sony Xperia X/XA. You can try it for free and if you like it, buy it for 50 euros.

      There's also a community version which may be ported to other phone hardware but I haven't looked into that very much.

      0 0 Reply
  7. mark l 2 Silver badge

    I am pretty sure that these smart speakers will all eventually die off in a few years when people realise that having a device in your home that is constantly listening to everything you say is not a great idea. So perhaps MS see this coming too and have decided to get out now rather than throwing load of money at trying to gain market share.

    1 0 Reply
  8. Chris King

    Turning her evil in Halo 5 wasn't enough...

    ...so SatNad just threw her under a Warthog.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Turning her evil in Halo 5 wasn't enough...

      You don't need to throw her under a Warthog, it has a big cannon for that.

      1 0 Reply
      1. DCFusor
        Reply Icon

        Re: Turning her evil in Halo 5 wasn't enough...

        Indeed - happy brrt day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvIJvPj_pjE

        That's the plane that is too expensive to keep in the force! The much cheaper F-35 will replace it at lower cost (in some other galaxy with different laws of physics, that is - oh yeah, the pentagon).

        0 0 Reply
  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows Phone

    Has a smallish dedicated user group who would like to be able to continue using the platform. Instead of killing it and shutting down functions, it would be great if Microsoft could open source it and drop the whole lot into GitHub. No such luck I guess

    1 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows Phone

      There's too much Windows code in it for that to happen.

      Until Nadella will have crippled Windows 10 enough it will follow the fate of its mobile cousin.

      It looks he has become fixated to piggyback someone else's efforts just to add some "services" atop them, linked to Azure. I'm sure in the long run it will be a loser strategy - MS won on platforms where it lead development and had an inherent intrinsic advantage because of that. Coming second or third won't help it, as it never helped its competitors. Maybe he thinks open source is flattening the field, but most products, even if based open source code, are far more proprietary than they look - especially the backend that is what really runs them.

      1 0 Reply

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