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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

#281

Post by bousaid »

pjc50 wrote: post #208
Spooky23 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They threw about $500k at my employer at the time to hire some Eastern European company to build an app. They ended up stringing something together that got deployed on like 10 phones. The problem was that a big enterprise customer is clueless about mobile apps, and Microsft’s endemic NIH syndrome made it difficult to work with business systems that aren’t Microsoft platforms. O365 is a great example... the office pl…

Outlook+Exchange is really the thing keeping Microsoft alive.

Nah. Azure revenue is growing dramatically every year.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#282

Post by CaptSpify »

unethical_ban wrote: post #194
CaptSpify wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that only works on linux systems.... The state of Linux is not great. We still can't get the basics like sound, wifi, etc out of the box. I get why it's a problem, and it's generally not the fault of Linux devs, but it's still a problem that turns people away. I really want to see Linux take over on the desktop, but turning a blind eye to our problems is a poor way to do it.

>We still can't get the basics like sound, wifi, etc out of the box. Complete and total fabrication. Video for gaming is still trouble, but I have no more issue with Linux wifi or sound output than I do with Windows. In fact, Linux networking to me is better than Windows.

"It works for me" has never been proof that a problem doesn't exist. I find it hard to take such comments seriously.

To be frank: You are wasting everyone's time with such comments.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#283

Post by dagaci »

One of the biggest failures of windows mobile was constant abandonment and reset,

+ all the mobile developers and users from the pre-iphone days were simply dropped with no path to wp7,

+ the earliest and devs of wp7 were all dropped in favour of wp8,

+ MS execs then approved of a slightly less damaging strategy with 8 to Wp10 but at this time it was already too late

Microsoft could not solve the app-gap problem because the problem was caused by a lack of trust.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#284

Post by garganzol »

WorldMaker wrote: post #159
samfisher83 wrote: post #137

While WM was clunky at least you could run any random piece of software you wanted. Then Microsoft tried to copy apple. I think if they had put a relatively open OS and sold highend phones for $200-300 bucks I think they could have made it. They probably would have had to sink billions and billions, but they could have done it. Look at Xbox its viable platform today.

You can sideload applications in Windows 10 mobile easily enough. Like Android it's been on by default for some time and just a matter of downloading an .appx package file. The ability to sideload doesn't help if there aren't apps to sideload. I don't think the problem was ever the openness of the platform. An open platform doesn't guarantee developers either (look at decades of people not support Linux ports of thei…

The problem with sideloading is that it requires a lot of hops. So many hops nobody does this.

Usually "a hop" is represented by some required certificate, a special "container" the app needs to follow, a special API voodoo call you should make to sideload the app. It quickly decays from being a reliable reproducible computer science, and turns into the joke of marketing greed you would never trust.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#285

Post by criddell »

Const-me wrote: post #245
criddell wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sooner or later there will be x86 based phones Sure, but right now Apple and their ARM designs are running away from everybody else. Plus Windows is terrible from a security and power consumption point of view. Can Microsoft fix that without breaking everything? I think MS is conceding the entire phone space. Full screen form factors (like laptops is and large tablets) are very important but for small devices I don…

> Windows is terrible from a security and power consumption point of view Windows is way ahead in both security and power efficiency. About security, here’s an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10410833 In Windows, clipboard access was restricted to foreground app since WP7. About power efficiency, WP is very restrictive on what apps can do in background. See this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library…

I'm talking about x86 Windows. Windows Phone is dead.

The fact that a viable mobile OS has to be restrictive about background operations is exactly what I was talking about when I said they can't fix it without breaking everything.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#286

Post by emodendroket »

dtx1 wrote: post #224
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…

I worked 3 years as a windows phone dev and i'm sorry to say but Microsofts efforts were ... almost insultingly bad. It started with windows phone 8 and the Metro UI. Bad Idea. The UI was too far away from Android/iPhone to be easily ported and adding corporate design to it was hard as it was too different. Silverlight and XAML was okay for the time. Then came windows 8.1 and windows desktop 8 which was universally h…

The biggest frustration, to me, is that WPF was basically left on the vine while they pursued this WinRT stuff.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#287

Post by emodendroket »

cjsuk wrote: post #250
narrator wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about the MS platforms that has always been an issue is that they change the developer APIs around all the time. Every year they come out with the latest greatest way to access a database or whatever and it really isn't that much better than what they had last year, but it still requires a rewrite.

Yes. They also rewrite stuff half way through and tell you it's the same project just to piss you off. Windows Workflow and Windows Communication Foundation for example. I'm really disinclined to invest in any of their technology because my headspace is finite and I want to deliver business value, not change the unworn carpets once a year.

Most of the legacy stuff continues working long after it's the hot new thing, though.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#288

Post by toast0 »

JamesUtah07 wrote: post #269
toast0 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of apps was annoying at time, but what made me leave was probably Microsoft Edge. The rendering was clearly better than IE, but Edge would crash my phone, or become non responsive, or both so often (creators update on Lumia 640 LTE). If the browser doesn't work, and there are no apps, it doesn't make sense to have the phone.

I don't understand why Microsoft has keep IE/Edge around. It's just embarrassing. Event my technology illiterate friends and family rag on IE and everyone installs chrome these days. If they spend less time building IE and focused on other platforms they'd waste a lot less time for everyone including themselves.

Well, when Mozilla wanted to build Firefox for Windows Mobile, Microsoft told them no. If they removed IE/Edge, they would have no browser for the deployed windows mobile devices. :P

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#289

Post by flyGuyOnTheSly »

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 ran promotions for students and independent developers giving away free phones etc. But nothing was enough to get over the problem of the lack of an initial user base.

Is anyone else surprised that "giving away free windows phones" was not a recipe for success in terms of incentivising capable app developers?

Most every app developer already owns their favorite phone because they can afford it.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#290

Post by emodendroket »

vidarh wrote: post #240
joenathanone wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know how untrue this is, couple of things. First lets start with this qoute "According to Kantar's October 2013 report, Windows Phone accounted for 10.2% of all smartphone sales in Europe and 4.8% of all sales in the United States." and then this one "Microsoft announced new data from IDC indicating that Windows Phone is the second-most-used mobile platform in Latin America." Lastly, do you not remember the…

Consider that his perception might explain why those numbers are so awful. It's perfectly possible for the phones to be accessible to those kind of numbers of users and still be totally unavailable in the outlets a huge proportion of potential customers would look for them. E.g. I live in the UK, and I can't remember ever having seen a Windows phone in the stores. I'm sure they're available, because I've seen people…

You seem to be implying they were much more readily available in the United States, which seems like a stretch.
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