Microsoft Reportedly Seeks To Put Windows Phone On Android Devices 182
quantr draws your attention to a Bloomberg report that Microsoft has reached out to HTC to see if the company would be interested in adding Windows as a second OS to its Android handsets. From the Bloomberg story: "Its willingness to add Windows as a second operating system underscores the lengths to which Microsoft will go to get manufacturers to carry its software. HTC, the first company to make both Windows and Android phones, hasn’t unveiled a new Windows-based handset since June and has no current plans to release any more, said one person. Microsoft, with 3.7 percent of the market, is finding it necessary to make concessions after agreeing to acquire Nokia Oyj’s handset unit, which competes with other smartphone makers.
[Microsoft operating systems head Terry] Myerson was planning to visit Asia this month and meet with senior executives at Taoyuan, Taiwan-based HTC to discuss his proposal, one of the people said."
Re:Wrong way round. (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, "BeOS" has come back to haunt Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, if only the license terms for Android FORBID dual booting, and allowing the user to make such a choice.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft/
Re:Wrong way round. (Score:2, Interesting)
According to a few inside accounts, Elop originally wanted to have Android on Nokia phones. When Elop visited Google's HQ, he was rather surprised how hostile Google was to him. Google was willing to give a decent licensing fee if Nokia used the stock Android firmware but were charging hand and leg if Nokia were to add their own features to the device. According to rumors, Google was being complete jerks about it too.
When we heard about that account, we all assumed that Elop's "burning platform" was Symbian and he was going to put all of his efforts in MeeGo. When he made the Windows Phone announcement, we all knew it was the end of Nokia.
Re:Wrong way round. (Score:3, Interesting)
Carrier approval is utterly irrelevant except in North America where you have corporations making the laws. Anywhere else people can just buy a phone and use it.
Now obviously the North American market is a good place because it's full of suckers who will cheerfully pay you $50 per month for two years to buy a $500 phone, but it's not necessary. If you can't recoup the cost of deliberately arcane "Carrier approval" processes from the money those suckers will pay you then you simply don't sell into America.
how about them... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm trying here...so I'll give you partial credit. You're definitely begging the question, but it is important to acknowledge that other companies make similar mistakes as M$ (though they are not as bad).
Apple's design flaws are just as annoying as any other design flaw.
The question is, what about Apple's process allowed them to do right what M$ did wrong?
As others have pointed out, Apple is the exact opposite of M$: a successful and popular company. There is no debate on that point worth having.
So what about Apple kept them from screwing up as bad as M$?
> Was it Steve Job's megolomania combined with good design choices and lucky market conditions? Any CEO can pound their fist and force their way, but just by law of averages, when JOb's did it, it had marginally better results in the end product, perhaps?
> Is the answer in the engineering department? like where they actually write the software...,did they quietly refuse to do things like Internet Explorer tried to do in the 90s?
> Lack of the government contracts forcing them to innovate at Apple? See, M$ only exists b/c IBM needed a lackey to put stripped down PC boxes on every government office desk...M$ was the operating system....credit Gates for profiting by leveraging his govt contracts into forcing users to use his product...but...that didnt' really encourage R&D. Apple had to fight to survive
Re:Wrong way round. (Score:2, Interesting)
Europe and Asia. Now what?
Re:From HTC's perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
I just don't see anything helpful coming out of that-
For a site dedicated to nerds, there's an utter dearth of imagination...and memory.
See kids, back in the day, HTC made this little phone called the HD2. It shipped with Windows Mobile 6.5 and was intended to ship with Windows 7, but Microsoft told them "no can do" for the sole reason that it has an inconsistent hardware button configuration with the rest of the Windows Phone 7 handsets. However, because of the intended dual-OS compatibility, HTC released a phone that was impressively consistent and relatively easy to flash. This lead to the development of MAGLDR and CLK, which were alternative bootloaders that enabled users to flash Windows Phone 7 (unofficially, though completely functionally if you can get MS to give you a product key), Android (more versions of Android than any other handset; everything from Froyo to Jellybean and I think some of the earlier versions were available, too), Meego, Ubuntu, FirefoxOS, and proof-of-concept compatibility with WP8 and WinRT. To this day, it has one of the most active communities on XDA, certainly moreso than any other phone that was sold during the same time period.
When HTC builds a phone to boot a pair of OSes, especially ones as different as Windows Phone and Android, odds are better than ever that HTC will end up shipping a phone that's more mod-friendly than most of the phones that ship with just one OS, even a Nexus. Don't you think that there's something "helpful" about a phone that is sufficiently hackable that it can have its software kept current long past its EOL date according to the carrier? I do.
While we're at it, I know that hating Microsoft is cool around here and all, and yes, I do walk around with an Android phone because a phone without a user-exposed file system is a dealbreaker for me, but are we seriously going to sit here and say that it's better for Google/Samsung and Apple to each have ~50% of the market rather than having Google/Samsung/HTC, Microsoft/Nokia/HTC, and Apple all having ~33% of the market a piece? I always thought competition was a positive situation, and even if HTC gets screwed over by Microsoft somehow (like they did by not being able to officially software upgrade the HD2), it still means more mod-friendly phones for everyone - something I thought that a group of people who like installing Linux on everything with a processor would appreciate.
Don't think this is about dual boot (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would MS have any interest in a dual booting phone? I find it more likely that MS is begging HTC to still make Windows phones and are trying to make this more attractive by suspending demand for the mandatory 17 Windows buttons or whatever they usually demand to certify the hardware.
That way HTC can use exactly the same hardware for both their Android and Windows version, thereby reducing their development costs.
MS probably have to sweetening the deal by making their OS free for HTC to use too.
It is difficult to understand why any phone company would still want to make windows phones now that MS now are competing directly against them with their own large ex-Nokia production line. Yes, for sure, MS is no longer a software only company.
Nokia already sold their Windows phones with a hefty loss, so now MS either have to raise prices as to not out-compete other Windows phone makers (not going to happen), or compete for market share by dumping prices, thereby out-competing other Windows phone makers like HTC, or dump prices and compensate anyone desperate enough to still make Windows phones.
Re:Wrong way round. (Score:4, Interesting)
huh who the f modded this up?
funny insiders you have.
now what elop did was say that nokia had looked into android and COULD NOT CUSTOMIZE IT ENOUGH for their needs so they had to partner with MS. seriously. that's what he claimed as one reason. that with android they couldn't differentiate enough so they went with an os that in all practicality can't get any customizations and a phone platform where they could not even choose which soc providers to use!
now if you don't see the bullshit in that then you're kind of hopeless and I have a bridge to sell for you and an investment opportunity in a potentially multinational ladder business.
(that is to say that nokia had insiders working for them who on purpose were to find reasons not to use android, including elop. nokia was so dysfunctional at that point though that they would have on purpose looked for reasons not to use android even without elop. but this was back when elop bothered to even keep up a charade about what's going on)