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Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

bbc.com

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Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#131

Post by [deleted] »

rbanffy wrote: post #115
brudgers wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've already told me many many times that you don't like Microsoft. And if I didn't know, I could just look at your user profile where it is stated explicitly. There's about zero content in your response. Just scattershot contradiction using the pick apart technique in hopes of trolling an inflamed response.

If you disagree with my argument, you should discuss it. If you disagree with my taste, you can do so politely. > Just scattershot contradiction It's appropriate when many of the statements are simply false. - All competitors have Skype. This is not an advantage. - The interface being "more thoughtfully designed" is debatable. I am hardly alone in preferring vanilla Android over Metro and it remains to be seen how we…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#132

Post by ossreality »

bunderbunder wrote: post #103

What this says to me as a developer in the Microsoft ecosystem (admittedly, enterprise side and not mobile): "Four years ago we had you writing all your apps using Silverlight. Two years ago we chucked that out the window (ahahahaha) and told you to switch over to WinRT. Now we're going Android. We hope you've got the message by now. But in case you haven't, let us restate it in plain English: Dear developers, GO THE…

" But in case you haven't, let us restate it in plain English: Dear developers, GO THE @$#!% AWAY.""

You haven't been paying attention for the last 6-8 months then. I can assure you 100%, everything we are doing right now is about appealing to devs and "winning" by building a platform devs WANT to build for.

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#133

Post by declan »

bunderbunder wrote: post #121
zanny wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real message is: "Hey, we're a company. We have things. That doesn't mean users use our things, or that developing for said things is going make you money or a userbase. That requires looking at the market and seeing where users are." They create the supply side. If there is no demand, blindly working in their tools is just a silly mistake. I think it has been plainly demonstrated nothing Windows Phone of…

In part, that's because of the poor app ecosystem. I've been very interested in Windows Phone as a mobile platform, but there's just too much stuff I've come to rely on my phone for that a Windows Phone doesn't do because there aren't any apps. And part of the reason for the poor app ecosystem is that they've actively discouraged developers from developing for their platform. Heck, there's a huge number Android and i…

Not sure why the above comment was downvoted -- it seems to make a sensible point. (Though I don't know if I'd agree with "actively discouraged.")

If I were Microsoft, I'd give significant $$$ to folks who have created cross-platform app development platforms. Then I can improve the number of Windows Phone apps pretty quickly. I may not get apps optimized for my platform, but at least I'd have something, and then I could offer additional incentives for optimization. That's what Amazon is doing with the Fire phone and developer credits.

Xamarin would be one example, and PhoneGap (or whatever it's called now) can probably be made far nicer and faster. Last year Microsoft did announce a partnership with Corona, but as far as I know nothing has come of it yet in terms of a public release of the SDK: http://coronalabs.com/blog/2013/10/29/windows-phone-8-and-wi...

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#134

Post by BigChiefSmokem »

I'm a C# developer (and strong supporter of .NET and Xamarin) and this signals to me that I have that many more options now - its great and very exciting for me to hear all this great news coming out of Microsoft almost every other week.

DevDiv's tools and frameworks is where it's at when it comes to building big multi-platform codebases - backend, front-end, desktop, mobile, cloud, whatever. Add to that the immense infrastructure and operations support I get from the MS business ecosystem and it's just icing on my Productivity Cake. I don't mind paying them because I get great stuff for the price.

I never understood how tech-intelligent people would hold so much hate towards a company that pretty much provides some of the broadest selection of tools and solutions geekdom has ever known.

Side Anecdote: A little bird recently told me that while working at Box, the attitude from management was so hateful against Microsoft that they were willing to blow through huge amounts of money just to roll their own HR system. What?! As an investor I want my investments to make me more money any way possible - and NOT be wasted trying to recreate wheels just to satisfy some sort of nonsensical personal grudge. This opinion people have with the brand loyalties (and grudges) they hold are non-sense through and through and bad for business.

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#135

Post by ntakasaki »

bunderbunder wrote: post #103

What this says to me as a developer in the Microsoft ecosystem (admittedly, enterprise side and not mobile): "Four years ago we had you writing all your apps using Silverlight. Two years ago we chucked that out the window (ahahahaha) and told you to switch over to WinRT. Now we're going Android. We hope you've got the message by now. But in case you haven't, let us restate it in plain English: Dear developers, GO THE…

>Four years ago we had you writing all your apps using Silverlight.Two years ago we chucked that out the window (ahahahaha)

The runaway success of the iPad killed Silverlight and even much more stronger plugins like Flash. I am glad they killed yet another proprietary browser plugin. Plus, Silverlight XAML is very similar to WinRT and Windows Phone.

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#136

Post by sirkneeland »

yourad_io wrote: post #94

> "The whole idea of bringing more people into Microsoft Cloud through these services is the very core of the strategy," Jussi Nevanlinna, vice-president of mobile phones product marketing at Microsoft, told the BBC. That blade cuts both ways: By providing full/native MS cloud support on Android, you are allowing people who would otherwise be "locked in" to WP, to escape into Android. Couldn't this potentially end up…

If you assumed they were at all likely to buy WP. But most of them were not. The choice MS faces is not "sell them WP or sell them Android" but "sell them Android or someone else will"

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#137

Post by sirkneeland »

retejo wrote: post #30
dm2 wrote: post #17

"It will cost 99 euro ($135; £80) when released in July." Is that the price with a 2-year contract or is this going to be a great value phone? Will I be able to wipe this phone and install stock Android? Skype, Outlook, Bing, and all that other MS crap is unwanted. I'm actually a MS supporter and understand the need for them to create all of those services but I personally don't/won't use them. Also, why are UK citiz…

Beacuse, at the moment, the Great British Pound is exactly that. It's stronger than the euro, it's regulated by britan and it is minted in the royal mint. Long live the queen (or something like that)

God Save the Queen, I think is the proper phrasing here :)

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#138

Post by sirkneeland »

lyndonh wrote: post #66
n0body wrote: post #34

it had already been developed, it would have made no sense for them to scrap it.

It was developed before or after Elop's burning platform speech ?

Elop's burning platform speech (memo, really) was from February 2011.

So the Nokia X came way, way after...

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#139

Post by sp332 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #103

What this says to me as a developer in the Microsoft ecosystem (admittedly, enterprise side and not mobile): "Four years ago we had you writing all your apps using Silverlight. Two years ago we chucked that out the window (ahahahaha) and told you to switch over to WinRT. Now we're going Android. We hope you've got the message by now. But in case you haven't, let us restate it in plain English: Dear developers, GO THE…

They're not moving to Android. RT is still right where it was.

Re: Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset

#140

Post by bunderbunder »

ntakasaki wrote: post #135
bunderbunder wrote: post #103

What this says to me as a developer in the Microsoft ecosystem (admittedly, enterprise side and not mobile): "Four years ago we had you writing all your apps using Silverlight. Two years ago we chucked that out the window (ahahahaha) and told you to switch over to WinRT. Now we're going Android. We hope you've got the message by now. But in case you haven't, let us restate it in plain English: Dear developers, GO THE…

>Four years ago we had you writing all your apps using Silverlight.Two years ago we chucked that out the window (ahahahaha) The runaway success of the iPad killed Silverlight and even much more stronger plugins like Flash. I am glad they killed yet another proprietary browser plugin. Plus, Silverlight XAML is very similar to WinRT and Windows Phone.

Not entirely. A huge percentage of iOS apps are written using Flash.

The iPad (and HTML5) did kill Silverlight and Flash (to some extent) as browser plugins, but not as platforms in general. Flash seems to be hanging in there outside of the browser plugin space, and Silverlight died because Microsoft thinks it's more fun to respond to market challenges by sweeping everything off the table and into the dustbin than it is to just pivot and keep moving forward.

Here's an alternative strategy that I strongly suspect would have been less expensive for Microsoft in terms of both development cost and social capital: Keep Silverlight as the mobile development API, and carry it forward as the platform for developing on both WP8 and Windows tablets. Pay Xamarin to incorporate support into their dev tools. Deal with performance considerations by expediting the AOT compiler for .NET, which clearly ended up needing to happen anyway. Deal with cross-language goals by . . . wait, you're still on .NET, cross-language is one of its core competencies. No need to sink resources into developing yet another iteration of COM, so that's a huge time saver. And as an free bonus, take advantage of the fact that Silverlight's already got an OS X implementation to let your developers use the technology to ship cross-platform desktop apps, similar to what Adobe's doing with Air.

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