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Microsoft admits the death of Windows 10 Mobile


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#1 alacran

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 04:12 AM

After many years making the PC OS's look like Smarphone's, they finaly understood there is no place for them on the smartphone/movil market, something already knew for everybody in this world several years ago before them.  It seems to me people working on top levels in that company have very slow brains.

 

 

Microsoft somehow realized that users are not interested in Windows rather they want Andriod software. So, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella dropped the mantra of “Mobile-first” and adopted the new one; “Cloud-first”.

.

Source: https://www.techjuic...dows-10-mobile/

 

alacran



#2 Guest_AnonVendetta_*

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 04:16 AM

And good riddance, Android is far superior anyway, especially in terms of hackability. I'm no fan of Google, but they do make a damn good mobile OS.

"Ding, dong, the witch is dead!"

The Wizard of Oz

#3 misty

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 04:44 AM

Sad news for me. I love my Windows (8.1) phone. For a cheap handset it does everything that I need in a phone. Whilst I'm due a handset upgrade from my provider, due to the lack of Windows phones on the market I have decided to stick with my two year old handset rather than upgrade.

When my mother wanted to upgrade to a smart phone two years ago it was a Windows phone I recommended to her. Cheap as chips and a very simple UI. My own experiences with android phones put me off recommending one for my elderly mother. Whilst android is customisable and has a wealth of apps, it's not particularly user friendly in my opinion. The fact that my mother has not constantly hassled me about the phone and settings speaks volumes for just how user friendly Windows is.

Whist I'm sure iPhones are amazing - I refuse to part with that much money for a bloody phone!
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#4 erwan.l

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 10:06 AM

Well I would not be surprised that Microsoft comes back in a few years with another attempt to gain back their marketshare on this business.

So far it has been a long history of "come back" and then "abandon" : windows ce, pocket pc, windows mobile ...

 

About 10 years ago, Microsoft was quite an important leader on this marker (specially in the US) with near 50% of phones running the MS OS.

Nowadays, this is very marginal with less than 1%...

 

Thus, between Google/Android and Apple/Iphone, it is a tough game :)



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Posted 13 February 2018 - 10:46 AM

@erwan.l: Gain back their market share? It's my understanding that they were never the leader (in mobile OSes) to begin with. So how can they take back what they never had? First Apple was the leader with the iPhone, then Google gradually overtook them, and it's been that way ever since. Perhaps they were the leader elsewhere in the world, but here in the States I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

Edit: And before Apple there was the BlackBerry. I'm talking smartphones here, not dumbphones.

#6 erwan.l

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 11:46 AM

Dont forget there was a life before the first iPhone (2007) and actually this was when (2004-2007) Microsoft was the most successfull with their mobile OS (no competition...).

So yes, as surprising as it may sound, Microsoft has been a market leader on the smartphone market before iPhone came to life (i.e in the early years of this market).

 

And Blackberry always had a smaller user base compared to other vendors mainly because it has often been seen as a device for profesionals.

 

I will not debate which phone is best as this usually quickly lead to stupid and useless discussions.

 

I personally think it does make sense to ask for a microsoft/windows phone when you are a microsoft/windows user similar to have an apple/iphone when you are an apple/iphone user : it makes your IT ecosystem consistent.



#7 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 11:55 AM

As I noted elsewhere, I have a small Chuwi tablet that dual boots Android and Windows 10 :w00t: :ph34r:

 

This opened my mind, as for the (very limited) use I have of the little device, Windows 10 is actually a good alternative to Android, the two (mobile/touch) OS's - more or less - achieve the same, and led me to justify the otherwise senseless horror that Windows 10 represents.

 

So - somehow - I could understand the reasons behind the "continuum" experience idea, a same OS (and graphical interface) that sucks (and sucks big) on desktop and notebooks, but that somehow works on smartphones, phablets and tablets (i.e. essentially for internet activities), offering on the final users' desktops and notebooks (which in the MS guys' forecasts were deemed to represent a marginal amount of devices, outnumbered by small. portable, touch devices) the same experience.

 

It had some perverted logic, but now that the greatest number of these devices (the smartphones) are not a target anymore, the rest (phablets and tablets) should be not anymore enough in number to justify specific development.

 

A number of them had Windows only because the good MS guys made licenses free for devices with a screen smaller than 9' :

https://www.theverge...eens-under-nine

 

More generally, it seems to me that all the hype about tablets and touch has toned down a little, possibly the only device that possibly has a future is the (not-so-cheap) Surface (which more or less is a good competitor to the iPads) or similar devices (i.e. "large" tablets that can work - to a certain degree - as laptop replacement).

 

At least I have noticed looking around myself in airports and similar places an increase in the number of conventional notebooks/laptops and a decrease of tablets, these latter plainly replaced by (largish) smartphones.

 

About Windows previous diffusion on mobiles, actual data:

https://www.statista...rating-systems/

 

Shows that Q1/2009 MS had 10.1% BUT rather than "less than 1%" nowadays it has "N/A" erwan.l -1 Whateverishisnametoday +1

Last point in the graph is Q4 2016 when it had 0.3%, since Q1 2017 it is bundled in the "Other" that make 0.2%

 

Here is another source, only 2016/2017 that confirms the utter irrelevance of the OS since Q1 2017:

https://www.idc.com/...market-share/os

 

The above are market share (i.e. new shipments/sales), Statcounter has some more recent data on usage (understandably with a slightly higher set of values) January 2017 1.14% January 2018 0.61%.

 

@erwan.l

No, MS NEVER was a market leader, before the iPhone there was Symbian (NOT Rim/Blackberry):

https://en.wikipedia...em#Market_share

 

:duff:

Wonko



#8 erwan.l

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 12:05 PM

 

@erwan.l

No, MS NEVER was a market leader, before the iPhone there was Symbian (NOT Rim/Blackberry):

https://en.wikipedia...em#Market_share

 

:duff:

Wonko

 

You stand correct, I had forgotten about Symbian :)

It was just too ugly for me to remember (as a smartphone, not as a phone as I loved my early nokia phones).

Although IOS and Android were not there pre 2007 (obviously), and taking into account Symbian, MS comes last then.

 

Let me rephrase "a market leader" by a "a market player" then ;)

 

Thus, I would like to see years 2004/2005/2006 ... just to be provven completely wrong :)



#9 Brito

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 01:28 PM

No, MS NEVER was the market leader, before the iPhone there was Symbian (NOT Rim/Blackberry)


Come on.. You know that Microsoft WAS a market leader for a decade, starting perhaps in 1998 with the PocketPC edition and then rebranded as Windows Mobile. At the high-point before the iPhone, they had +60% market share for mobile devices: https://www.gartner....sroom/id/506328

 

Things were looking pretty good when started, then the mammoth didn't move for a decade:

  • Most Windows mobile devices were not connected 24/7 to Internet, unlike competitors
  • App install worked only through ActiveSync (no play store)
  • Dependency on the pen, while others supported fat fingers

 

It was this dust of a stagnated decade that made a thing like the iPhone shine by comparison.

 

Android is crappy, however, it is an open source crap and this is the big differentiation point. It was an easy path of integration with Android for the cheapest of phones made in China, plus the option for them to define different app stores.

 

The "new Windows Mobile" had a great interface and still manufacturers were not happy about a license model for a closed-source product, when they could now just run Android at lower cost. Then were the really bad things such as sabotaging/killing Nokia, the half-assed piles of money thrown to build a bad app store and the Windows 8 UI on desktops that made a really bad splash.

 

 

Only Nokia could have had a chance with the Maemo platform. After the sabotage, the disgruntled and forgotten Maemo team went on to build what is today called Sailfish, a very good alternative to Android that doesn't get the attention it deserves: https://en.wikipedia...iki/Sailfish_OS

 

:cheers:

 

 

 



#10 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 01:33 PM

You stand correct, I had forgotten about Symbian :)

It was just too ugly for me to remember (as a smartphone, not as a phone as I loved my early nokia phones).

Although IOS and Android were not there pre 2007 (obviously), and taking into account Symbian, MS comes last then.

 

Let me rephrase "a market leader" by a "a market player" then ;)

 

Thus, I would like to see years 2004/2005/2006 ... just to be provven completely wrong :)

We'll have to disagree again, you'll have to pry off my dead hands (besides my beloved HP-28C calculator) also my Sony-Ericsson P910i.

Anyway:

Picture_201-24.jpg

@Nuno

We are talking "Smartphones" NOT "early devices vaguely anticipating or similar to later Smartphones", such as the "pocket PC" platforms, which anyway had a very limited market, the gartner page you pointed to was about PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and similar handheld devices that (thank goodness, rarely phoned to anyone), from your very own link:

 

With Windows Mobile device shipments up over 1.2 million units from the first quarter of 2006, Microsoft has achieved a dominant position in the market for data-centric devices. However, Microsoft has faltered in the much larger smartphone market,” said Mr. Kort. “The reverse is true for Symbian and Nokia. RIM seems to be the only company making a balanced effort, although it still has a lot of catching up to do in the smartphone market.”

 

and:

 

Gartner Dataquest defines a PDA as a data-centric handheld computer weighing less than 1 pound that is primarily designed for use with both hands. These devices use an open-market OS supported by third-party applications that can be added into the device by end users. They offer instant-on/off capability and synchronization of files with a PC. A PDA may offer WAN support for voice, but these are data-first, voice-second devices

 

Of course we'll have to agree that the first "smartphones" (outside Japan) were sold on or around the year 2002:

https://en.wikipedia...s_outside_Japan

and that any device that has not a SIM or however can not make a phone call is not a "phone", let aside if smart or not.

 

:duff:

Wonko



#11 Brito

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 01:53 PM

We're talking about mobile, where Windows had 60% market share.

 

The difference between a smartphone and a mobile device is the internet/phone connection. What matters that Symbian is described as a smartphone when Windows Mobile had far more "mobile" apps by large number/quality.

 

For me on the most part of the 2002 and above, the mobile devices were connected to the Internet through bluetooth/infrared connection to my Nokia phone and this worked good enough.



#12 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 02:00 PM

We're talking about mobile, where Windows had 60% market share.

 

No, we are not, or we were not until you chimed in.

 

We were talking about Smartphones.

 

The "mobile" or PDA market, even if MS had surely a large share of it, was anyway a "niche" market, very limited in size (compared with the late large "mass" market that smartphone became).

 

:duff:

Wonko



#13 erwan.l

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 03:23 PM

Here below was my first "PDA" (no sim) in  2002/2003 : Dell Axim X5.

And it was windows based.

Was a good device.

 

I was pretty proud to show it all around :)

 

SCpuiec.png


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#14 erwan.l

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 03:30 PM

And below my very first smartphone around 2008 : kind of liked this one as well !

My first and last windows based smartphone.

 

865DX18.png


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#15 Brito

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 04:35 PM

And below my very first smartphone around 2008 : kind of liked this one as well !

My first and last windows based smartphone.

 

That was an amazing phone. Had a related model, it fit really well on the hand and you could already use them comfortably for music while moving around. Was also my last Windows phone, the next one was a cheap android that was quite a downgrade at the time.

 

Kind of sad that new phones are huge, I can barely grab them with one hand and do something on the display like on the smaller models from those days.


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#16 erwan.l

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 04:53 PM

 

Kind of sad that new phones are huge, I can barely grab them with one hand and do something on the display like on the smaller models from those days.

 

Tell me about it  :frusty:

I cannot manipulate with one hand and my thumb is not big enough to reach all parts of the screen !

 

Well, I guess there is no one size fits all :)



#17 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 06:29 PM

Well, I guess there is no one size fits all  :)

Yep :) too small a device and I cannot read on it (due to age, while I insist on not having - yet - a *need* for reading glasses I am walking on the very fine border line lately), a little larger allowing to read easily and you need two hands.

 

And still - at least in my perverted mind - nothing can beat the ergonomics of the rotary side wheel of some Sony and some Sony-Ericsson old models.

 

:duff:

Wonko


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Posted 13 February 2018 - 07:38 PM

Judging by the posted screenshots of Windows on mobile, I have to say that it's really ugly. And I simply can't grasp the reasoning of why someone would want to use the mobile version of an OS from a company that is known to produce an unstable desktop OS. Windows on desktop already crashes and hangs enough as is, Microsoft is synonymous with BSODs. Android has its' fair share of crashes but at least it's highly hackable/moddable and open source. If one of the Linuxes ever produce a smartphone OS (not Android, which isn't Linux but uses a lot of its' concepts) that is halfway decent then I'll gladly use it. As it is now I mostly use Windows for gaming, I'm still devising a way to run all Windows games in Linux (without dualbooting), so that I can finally relegate Windows to life as a VM/hypervisor. Microsoft's lock on the PC gaming market is crushing, if not for that I would have migrated to Linux long ago.

As for huge smartphone screens, I'm a fan of big screens and massive bodies. I have relatively large hands and can easily use any smartphone with one hand. And I have 20/5 natural uncorrected vision, reading tiny text is a breeze for me. I regularly surprise my doctor when I go for my annual physical, he always tells me that my eyesight is impeccable when asked to read aloud letters of varying sizes on a board across the room.

#19 Brito

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Posted 13 February 2018 - 09:18 PM

Windows CE and later Pocket PC were quite good for their time.

 

From my experience since about 1998, no BSOD were noted. Back in those days, Excel and Word were usable for real input of data. I remember writing really long notes and doing good part of my accounting from such mobile device. Nowadays using the fingers for this purpose it hurts very quickly. That's the drawback of doing a device that now needs to serve the large masses.

 

My favorite device that I got. Full shiny metal case back in 2003:

ppc_e330.jpg



#20 w1lson

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Posted 22 August 2018 - 05:28 PM

Bill Gates biggest mistake was the lack of vision Steve Jobs had for the future of the computing devices. Steve Jobs envisioned the desktop to become more of a centralized hub for other devices which would become dominant. Microsoft didnt see the desktop as becoming less important till it was too late. 
 
This is a "me too" move. Ironically all the "experts" in the 80s and 90s talked about how Apple had to become more like Microsoft to survive. Now, its companies like Microsoft and even Google that are trying to emulate Apple. Apple got it right when it comes to a tight integration of different devices and software. I do think there is room for having an open and free solution still in the mobile market. But what Microsoft and Google has is not quite that. The next "genious", will figure out that you can have an open source mobile solution.

Edited by Nuno Brito, 23 August 2018 - 07:59 PM.
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