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Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#331

Post by cjsuk »

dtx1 wrote: post #272
cjsuk wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly that. The feedback loop is shit as well. Out falls a broken pile of shit for a CTP. No one accepts any feedback. It hits RTM, no one accepts any feedback. Two years down the line, the same bugs are open. You should hear the partner reps wanting to cry when you report a bug in something that you NEED a fix for and are paying support for. You get fuck all other than a registry fix or a hack even if the mainline…

From the second ticket > It's only a matter of time before some enterprising journalist looking for a scoop picks up on this. The headlines here are not good: "Microsoft caught with sneaky program to spy on companies" Let me take care of that... Edit: Wrote several of germanys biggest tech sites with focus on dataprotection aswell as the german ministry for cyber security with a link to that ticket. Let's see what ha…

Good work - thank you :)

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#332

Post by guftagu »

itsmenotyou wrote: post #30

I was working in Microsoft about 5 years ago and Satya's not lying when they say they tried everything to incentivise app developers. It was a big focus of the company at the time. For keystone apps they tried to partner with developers doing most of the work for them. For more niche apps they ran promotions for students and independent developers giving away free phones etc. But nothing was enough to get over the pr…

Yeah, I won a WOWZAPP competition by making an HTML5 game in 2 days, wrapping it up in a Windows 8 app and publishing it to store. I got a Lumia 800 for it which ran Windows phone 7. When they already had Windows 8 devices out and the competition was to make Windows 8 apps. I still don't know what they expected me to do with this obsolete phone.

That phone was useless to me because there were literally no apps on the Windows 7 store. When I tried to sell it few days later, no one was even willing to consider it and I had to sell it for peanuts.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#333

Post by pjmlp »

taormina wrote: post #318
pjmlp wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they work at any big enterprise it is either Outlook or Lotus Notes. The latter will make them love Outlook.

Or Gmail. Or Inbox.

If they don't care about internal company information landing in the hands of Google.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#334

Post by pmontra »

> We have tried VERY HARD to incent app devs. Paid money.. wrote apps 4 them.. but volume of users is too low for most companies to invest.

The problem is that no customer I knew was keen to have to pay for the same app three times. Android and iOS cost enough money. Windows Mobile only choice would be to overcome one of those two platforms quickly, but it started the race way too late. Everybody was hoping it died quickly. A market split evenly in 3 would be a budget nightmare.

However let me say that only one platform would be unhealthy. Nothing good comes from mono cultures, as IE demonstrated after winning the browser wars some 15 years ago.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#335

Post by kllrnohj »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #72

Windows Mobile is my favorite example of ecosystems being more valuable than individual user experiences. They came out later and really managed to hit a bright spot in between the customizability of Android and the sleekness of iOS. But without the deep app ecosystem backing them up, I'm not sure we're going to see any new players emerge in this current form factor of mobile computing. So far we've seen: - Amazon fa…

Amazon is a bit of a weird one and it's hard to really say they "failed"

Their Fire phone failed, for sure, but they have had success with some of their Fire products. Fire TV is nearly as big as Chromecast & Roku, for example, all 3 of which dwarf Apple TV, and of course Kindle was a smashing success. The Fire tablet is also seeing some success.

But these products don't hinge on app support, crucially, they are just content delivery platforms for Prime.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#336

Post by mtgx »

ngold wrote: post #328

Apple was the 1st and got to dictate the terms of their walled garden. The told Adobe from day 1 to get lost with flash, but for a wall it had walls amazingly low for what had been tried in the past. And people lost their minds with excitement, except those pesky open source kids. Google looked around and said we want in but how? Get rid of the wall and let any carrier and everyone use it. All the carrier's saw they…

The saddest part of the story was that Nokia's amazing hardware division was lost because of this. Sure, Nokia made some classic innovator's dilemma errors, too, but they were still huge at the time Samsung got into Android (about 2x as big in phone market share). About a year or two later they decided to go with Windows Phone - the ever 2% OS of the mobile market, because it was "different".

It was stupid, and also the final fatal mistake that Nokia made. It was clear Android was well on its way to become the "Windows" of smartphones, which meant, ironically, that WP would be relegated to being at best the macOS or Linux of the mobile market. Plus, Android already allowed OEMs to be "different".

Nokia was basically making an argument for a "different ecosystem" at that point. But they should've known that it was too late to attract developers to a third ecosystem. Android had to fight hard to even reach more or less parity with the iOS ecosystem in terms of revenue for developers, even with its 5x larger market share. There was no hope WP would win in these conditions.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#337

Post by Dragonai »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #88
itsmenotyou wrote: post #30

I was working in Microsoft about 5 years ago and Satya's not lying when they say they tried everything to incentivise app developers. It was a big focus of the company at the time. For keystone apps they tried to partner with developers doing most of the work for them. For more niche apps they ran promotions for students and independent developers giving away free phones etc. But nothing was enough to get over the pr…

They even held a funeral for their competitors devices: https://www.engadget.com/2010/09/10/microsoft-celebrates-win... This didn't age well.

Goodness gracious.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#338

Post by 201709User »

pmontra wrote: post #334

> We have tried VERY HARD to incent app devs. Paid money.. wrote apps 4 them.. but volume of users is too low for most companies to invest. The problem is that no customer I knew was keen to have to pay for the same app three times. Android and iOS cost enough money. Windows Mobile only choice would be to overcome one of those two platforms quickly, but it started the race way too late. Everybody was hoping it died q…

Now we have two garbage GUIs without pressure to improve. More competition is better!

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#340

Post by r00fus »

201709User wrote: post #338
pmontra wrote: post #334

> We have tried VERY HARD to incent app devs. Paid money.. wrote apps 4 them.. but volume of users is too low for most companies to invest. The problem is that no customer I knew was keen to have to pay for the same app three times. Android and iOS cost enough money. Windows Mobile only choice would be to overcome one of those two platforms quickly, but it started the race way too late. Everybody was hoping it died q…

Now we have two garbage GUIs without pressure to improve. More competition is better!

Hey, PalmOS was there early and with a decent UI. But the hardware was not up to the task.

It's really a pity that no one interested in mobile picked up Palm. HP - what did they do with it other than throw it away?

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