Nokia Has a Billion Reasons To Love WP7 318
theodp writes "A report from Bloomberg notes it ain't easy, or cheap, to outbid Google. Microsoft has reportedly agreed to pay Nokia more than $1 billion to 'promote and develop' Windows Phone devices under the agreement between the companies. Bloomberg says the agreement for the payment was 'part of a campaign by Microsoft to keep Nokia from choosing Google's Android operating system.'"
Might not be a horrible mistake (Score:2)
We'll have to wait for the NEXT version of Windows for Handhelds (whatever it will look like and be called by then) to know how big a mistake this was for Nokia.
If it's going to run on ARM anyway they can always just defect back to Android if they ever come to their senses.
Re:Might not be a horrible mistake (Score:5, Insightful)
The next version? It took them years to develop this and it didn't even have copy/paste at launch. They will have minor updates periodically but the next major version is long off. They are so far behind on mobile they don't know what to do.
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The iPhone came out years before and had nothing for a point of reference, ms was trying to build something better than iPhone and android years after the first iPhone and couldn't even release something with the same basic features.
Desktop/laptop windows owns the market and they have no real competition so they had the luxury of being able to release a poorly received product. In the phone market they don't have that luxury. I don't see what they can do know to compete since they have little market share
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Oh come on, copy/paste still sucks on Android 2.2.1 on my Droid X. Works OK for some things (phone numbers) in some applications, but it was still definitely a step back from WinMo 6.5 in this regard. For one, the stylus was just a must better select tool than my fat finger. I still miss it sometimes. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and reason that it was not ready and rather than delay the entire release they are patching it, supposedly soon. Let's see if they come up with something better th
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The iPhone came out years before and had nothing for a point of reference .
PalmOS.
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The iPhone came out years before and had nothing for a point of reference
Seriously? My old Nokia phone (not smartphone), running S40 - not a smartphone OS by a long shot - had copy/paste when iPhone just came out. Most certainly all actual smartphones then on the market also had it.
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It's kind of odd that MS didn't have copy/paste either after the flack that Apple received for that move.
What's funnier is the other way around. When pressed with the copy/paste issue, iPhone users had a long list of reasons why copy/paste isn't useful, or how a smart phone doesn't need it, or how it's not a big deal. Now these same people act like it is the most important feature in a smart phone. The same thing happened with multitasking. Before, it drained battery and you didn't really need to do it on a smart phone, but now it makes or breaks the platform.
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The difference is that MS had the vicarious learning opportunity, seeing the flak that Apple got for three years, and still released WP 7 without C&P. Apple users seem to buy the Apple company line or come up with their own reasons why it's not necessary, I don't know if Microsoft has that kind of pull with its users.
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On android you couldn't copy/paste in the browser [android.com] until 1.5, released 7 months after 1.0: MS is releasing a system wide copy/paste in the next couple of weeks.
Also, wasn't Android lacking multi touch at launch? All this crying is from people who wouldn't even consider using the platform.
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So if I release a single-tasking desktop operating system today would you let me off the hook since "well, DOS couldn't multitask either when it was launched!"
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"I can count on zero fingers the number of times that I've missed copy/paste"
Are you serious or are you just trolling?
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Nokia dropped 20% in value (Score:3)
8 billion US dollars.
1 billion... Really doesn't cover that...
When I see "WP" I still think "WordPerfect" (Score:5, Funny)
When I saw the headline, I thought: "Nokia is rolling out WordPerfect v7???"
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When I saw the headline, I thought: "Nokia is rolling out WordPerfect v7???"
That would actually make more sense.
Re:When I see "WP" I still think "WordPerfect" (Score:4, Funny)
How about "Windows Highly Integrated Nimble Ecosystem", or WHINE. It's tag-line? "Better than WinCE".
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Wordperfect Lives. [corel.com]
Sadly, only available for Windows.
Re:When I see "WP" I still think "WordPerfect" (Score:5, Funny)
The problem with WP7 is... (Score:5, Insightful)
that it could be the single best operating system on the planet that is superior to every other system in every possible way, but...
It's still A Trap(tm).
Microsoft has a very long history of blatantly destructive behaviour. They have a lot to make up for before they should be considered trustworthy enough to rely on.
Anyone who willingly buys microsoft products should be pitied, because clearly they're trapped in an abusive relationship. "Oh! He's not like that anymore! He's changed! Oh no, I got that black eye from falling down the stairs!"
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thank you good sir, for that mental image of Admiral Ackbar shouting "It's a trap!" in the face of milions of WP7 phones swarming out of a star destroyer, with Ballmer at the helm, complete in Grand Moff uniform
Re:The problem with WP7 is... (Score:5, Funny)
It's like the old joke...
Scene: a bar in Helsinki. Microsoft has flown in from Redmond....
Microsoft: Would you let me stick my operating system in your phone for a billion bucks?
Nokia: *sips a glass of wine* Yes...
Microsoft: How about two shares of stock?
Nokia: What, do you think I'm some kind of whore?
Microsoft: We've already established the relationship. We're just negotiating price now.
--
BMO
In a meeting between Nokia and Microsoft.... (Score:5, Funny)
Nokia: We've had a good think about it and we're going to start developing for Android
Microsoft: What would it take for you to start using and developing for Windows Mobile?
Nokia: *Has a think* *Pinky moves towards mouth* ONE BILLION DOLLARS!
Microsoft reps: *look at each other, shrug shoulders* Yeah, OK, I can't see any reason why we can't do that..
Nokia: Err, OK, I guess we're using Windows Mobile then....
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Microsoft:There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you.
[pauses]
Microsoft:: Nokia, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.
Sendo: The cat's out of the bag now (Score:2)
So serious sweetners are the only way to pull it off again [stashbox.org].
30 pieces of silver... (Score:3)
1 billion dollars US.
No difference, really.
It's still selling out. The scale is just different.
--
BMO
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The scale is just different.
i wonder what 1978 years of inflation amounts too :P
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MS 1, Nokia 0 (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes yes, I know we all hate Microsoft, but on the face of it this was a very shrewd business decision. Nokia was getting killed by the fact that people now want their phones to do such exotic things as email and Web browsing. They had no real internal direction in terms of software development, as evidenced by the schizophrenia of Symbian and Maemo, and the fact that they were trying to do it all in-house wasn't helping things any.
Meanwhile, Microsoft comes along with a ready-made solution to Nokia's woes in the form of a pretty complete mobile platform and a $1 billion payout to help with the transition. To Nokia's idiot board of directors this probably looked like a no-brainer. Meanwhile Microsoft gets amazing value in the form of a very, very large company now pushing out its software products worldwide. This isn't going to put WP7 ahead of Android or iOS, not by a long shot, but it will do wonders in terms of shoring up their position.
On the flip side of things, consider Motorola. At one point they were kind of in the same boat as Nokia, having missed the first wave of the smartphone epidemic, and went from being the company that had it all with the once-super cool RAZR to an also-ran. They got behind Android in a very complete and enthusiastic way and the results have really paid off for them. I'd venture to say that they make some of the best Android phones out there, and they're taking a great stab at the tablet market. And no one had to pay them $1 billion to do it!
In short, this is great news for MS, bad news for Nokia fans. I always thought the path to Palm's demise was paved by Windows Mobile ending up on Treo smartphones. They just couldn't be bothered to invest in an innovate mobile OS of their own until webOS, and that was obviously a day late and a dollar short...
Re:MS 1, Nokia 0 (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think the iPhone revolutionized the space by offering email and web browsing, it just means you have missed the entire picture. What Apple brought to the table is *much* more than a featureset. It brought an experience. It's the glue between the features that got them ahead of the competition - even if the features were way ahead of the competition as well.
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Right. The android marketplace is ridiculously full with all sorts of "me too" phones. I don't see why we need yet another lazy Android vendor who will put in basic UI tweaks, crapware, etc and delay updates.
I'm looking forward to competition from WP7. Competition will help the tech industry deliver better phones, especially since WP will be a lot more controlled by MS than Android is by Google. MS will be pushing out updates, not Nokia. I hope the Android vendors start upping their game. The status quo o
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Is there any reason that one of the largest software companies in the world can't make new software? I can't think of a reason why.
Management and internal politics; the people working on desktop Windows won't want to support anything that will harm their market.
Changing direction is extremely hard for any large company because there are so many people who have to be convinced to support that change or fired if they won't.
We are paying you more than $1 bn to (Score:3)
great case of forfeiting long term future for short term gain on behalf of nokia
nokia
Nokia announces MeeGo 1.2 for Developers w/ N900 (Score:4, Informative)
Jukka Eklund at Nokia writes to the Meego Dev list [meego.com]: "I am thrilled to announce a little thing we started at Nokia. Basically we want to have MeeGo running in N900 device, so that it's really usable as your daily development device. Basic Handset UX should work, phone calls, SMS, web browsing. So we are concentrating on a few selected features and polish those to be "perfect". It might mean that we leave out some things in MeeGo 1.2 trunk for this edition, but that is not the default intention.
We are doing this fully on the open, and I hope this is an interesting project where we all in the community work towards the same goal: have a great MeeGo edition in the N900. This work is naturally based on the great work done already by N900 adaptation team lead by Harri and Carsten.
The wiki is up here: http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/DeveloperEdition [meego.com]. It will populated with more information as we go, thanks for the patience.
Br, ...Also folks, be sure to stay tuned for the new Nokia N950 meant only as a (likely) unsubsidized Developer's hardware refresh of the N900. Only rumor has it that it will not arrive with a slide-out keyboard. How important is having a N900-style keyboard to you, along with the new Meego Love Nokia software continues to offer?"
Jukka
Developer Edition product manager"
[note this was posted as an article Saturday [slashdot.org] and wasn't accepted as newsworthy by Slashdot. I cannot imagine why not.]
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It's nifty that they did this, but wouldn't you say this was a day late, dollar short overall? I seriously doubt that Nokia would market anything like an N950 because they've sold Qt off to someone else and they've said they're pretty much ditching MeeGo and Symbian for Windows Phone- unless they don't have clauses in there to sneak it in under radar and the current upper management is going to quietly develop a backup plan for this if it doesn't work, the N950's not terribly likely to happen.
Interesting... (Score:2)
Sounds like (Score:2)
Whores (Score:2)
Whores.
Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:5, Funny)
Hi, Microsoft marketing department, we almost missed you guys here.
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It's not about whether it's good or not - it's that this guy obviously is shilling because of the way he talks, and the speed with which he responded to the story.
I've never used WP7, and only used iOS briefly. WP7 did look like it had a nice smooth flashy interface from the videos I've seen, but I don't base my choice of OS purely on how flashy it looks. Having said that, it's kind of funny how shit even Windows 7 (the desktop version) looks whenever I have to use it. I'm guessing Ubuntu does a lot more an
Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't have to use Java, I prefer to use Ruby (see Ruboto). Android is very open, you are allowed to use any language you want, even interpreted ones (those are banned on the iPhone, I don't know how the situation is on WP7)
My personal opinion is that WP7 is the first OS that actually has style. Android is ugly and iPhone is very plain, imho.
Nonetheless, I'm still very happy with my Android for these reasons:
- I was able to replace the OS with a customized version that allows me to use my phone as a wifi hotspot
- I replaced the home screen interface with a different one that is closer to how I want it to work
- I can program apps for it without owning a Mac, in fact the SDK runs on Windows, Linux, Mac and since it's open source some people are porting it to BSD
- I got Ruboto IRB from the market for free, wrote a little server directly on the phone, opened the terminal emulator that comes with the custom rom (Cyanogenmod), and used telnet to connect to localhost, all within maybe 5 minutes.
While Android is the perfect thing for tech savvy people, I honestly don't know which device I would recommend to the "average" user. Maybe it depends on the integration: WP7 for Microsoft users (Outlook, XBox...), iPhone for the Maccies (iTunes) and Android for the Google users (Mail, Calendar, GTalk etc.)
Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:4, Interesting)
I wish I had a link to the last post I accused of this. It was the first post ever on a just-created account, one minute after the story was posted, with probably more words in the comment than is humanly possible to type in two minutes.. all pro-MS BS.
I wasn't quite sure before that that any company would even bother to do such things as post shill comments to Slashdot, but I know now I'm sure that it does actually happen, rather than just seeing the accusations. We do perhaps overreact a bit though.
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My next telephone is going to be a Android whit full qwerty keyboard if Nokia don’t make a new Maemo or a good Meego phone within 6 months.
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On the iPhone the first homescreen is for search.
On Android every homescreen is the same.
On Windows Phone 7 the left homescreen is pretty badass, but the second one (used for apps) sucks.
Apple came with the iPhone 4; better battery life, faster, HD recording and banned Flash.
Android came with a simple update that simply doubled the battery life, made the phone 3 times faster, included HD recording and included Flash (the phone's now 3 times faster and Flash draws back 2/3rd of performance, still making the
Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit, 1 minute after the story is posted no less. Saw something similar happen around the end of last year too, but it probably happens more often than that and I just have missed it.
If it wasn't for the "best possible tools" crack then it wouldn't have been quite so obvious, but the rest of it is just another "part of a campaign by Microsoft to keep Nokia from choosing Google's Android operating system" as the summary says. Interesting that they'd rather see people buy iPhones than Android. And that they think that they can change our opinions just from some noob saying how great MS is. Slashdot does have a lot of groupthink, but it doesn't quite work like that.
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He's not a n00b, he's a highly trained and experienced marketing person, selling the same old 'viral memes' that they think is a good way to get "mindshare" for a dud product.
They do give themselves away by banging on about the developer experience, when its a product aimed at consumers who don't give a fig about development. you could program the things using goats blood sacrifices for all consumers care, and someone trying to explain how good the product is should really be describing how intuitive it is
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most phone devs want C/C++ development, not to rewrite everything they do for other platforms in .NE. If MS really was interested in "developers, developers, developers" they'd realise that devs want a common platform upon which to code so we can reuse code and don't have to write the same damn thing several times.
It's not hard to use MSVS with portable C/C++.
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I prefer Smurf blood sacrifices.
Let the streets run blue with Smurf blood!!!
Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:5, Insightful)
Because no one wants a web controlled by MS technology. You laugh now because competition exists with Flash, etc. But what happens when MS starts throwing around billions of dollars for exclusivity on major sites? MLB comes to mind.
It's not about technology. It's about a company that thinks in terms of total control, not competition.
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Except it isn't a full OS. If you use the web browser, it just frames the pages with your browser. It isn't running its own. A "full OS" would run entirely within silverlight and not rely on your native browser. To test, right click anywhere within the "OS." Now open a web page. Now right click within the web page. Magically, you get your browser's context menu and can open new tabs outside the "OS".
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It's not running in "bog standard Firefox" if it's using Silverlight, any more than DirectX games run in "bog standard Linux". To run Silverlight you need to install an extra framework. One which is currently only available for MS controlled platforms. Even if there was a Linux port I still would try to avoid it where I could.
I wouldn't want to develop apps in Mono in case MS manage to shut Mono down somehow for example.
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What's wrong with Silverlight - well, to be fair to it, its not a language, its declarative XML-based markup that has C# behind it to do the good bits. Its a bit like HTML + javascript overall.
But my point is that I don't agree with the plethora of languages, frameworks and platforms that have appeared recently. I know MS is trying to provide a single, common platform based around .NET for all developers to use... the trouble is, that platform is common only for Windows developers, and I have issues with th
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Some of us actually quite like Microsoft's dev tools. We're familiar with them and they do the job they do fairly well.
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Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:4, Insightful)
No shit, 1 minute after the story is posted no less. Saw something similar happen around the end of last year too, but it probably happens more often than that and I just have missed it.
If it wasn't for the "best possible tools" crack then it wouldn't have been quite so obvious, but the rest of it is just another "part of a campaign by Microsoft to keep Nokia from choosing Google's Android operating system" as the summary says. Interesting that they'd rather see people buy iPhones than Android. And that they think that they can change our opinions just from some noob saying how great MS is. Slashdot does have a lot of groupthink, but it doesn't quite work like that.
See http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/03/08/1424243/Why-Do-Videogames-Struggle-With-Sex [slashdot.org]
See his/her first comment and the time and the time of posting the article. I guess you're just paranoid.
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I'm not saying that I think it's the best possible tool though as even if it was the best available tool, it wouldn't be the best possible. I haven't tried enough of the alternatives to be able to say how high it should rank, but I certainly wouldn't put it below even just using a text editor. I like being able to just hit one key to compile and run rather than bringing down my console, so in those terms any IDE would be better than a text editor.. also having a project tree is nice.
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I'm not going to argue that Visual Studio is bad, but saying "nothing comes close" is bullshit. I haven't even used a lot of IDEs in the last few years, but if we're talking Windows only IDEs, Borland's stuff is still pretty nice.
If I were to go back to an IDE over a text editor, I'd probably use Eclipse just for the cross-platform nature.
Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:5, Interesting)
In case you're wondering why you keep being modded down, it's because you're not putting any real information in your post. You don't explain what MS Visual Studio does better than other things. I can think of a few things that other programs do better than VS (although I've not used VS for a while, so these may be out of date):
I'm sure there must be some things that VS does well, but from your post all I know is that you like it. This seems like astroturfing - if you have a valid argument that VS does somethings better than other IDEs, then list what these things are and why.
[1] This one, at least, I know is current. I'm currently teaching a module on HPC at the local university, and some of my students decided to write the assignment code in VS then port it to the Linux lab machines later. They all found that it became much easier to find bugs when they tried compiling with gcc and got sensible error messages.
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Ha! Anyone who has anything positive to say about MS is a shill! Everything is black and white! Ha!
Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that at all, it's just obvious. 1 minute after the story was posted. At least this time they didn't make it quite so obvious. Last time I saw it they had several large paragraphs of pro-MS sentiment in the first post - again posted 1 minute after the story was up. The "best possible tools" line is a complete give-away though, seriously who outside of a marketing department would even say that? I certainly don't think that any programming tools available today are the best possible.
Re:1 minute (Score:2)
The truly scary question is which is better for the entire discussion thread, a MS AstroPost, or the improved Russian Goatse guy?
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Again, see his posting history and the other stories where he had long comments under a minute of posting the article... I guess you're just biased because it's MS.
Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:5, Interesting)
If its so great, how come they sold sweet f*** all of the things?
sure, the adverts were pitiful, but the reviews were generally positive. As such, I'd expect a lot more to be sold than the reported 2 million over 3 months. (eg Apple sells 40 million in the same time, Android sells 30+ million).
So, the only answer I can think of is either they'er not as good as some people make out, or people really don't want Microsoft products (ie they only buy Windows and Office because they have to).
Combine that with the great devices Nokia makes and you have ... a Windows 7 phone that still no-one wants. Nobody bough Nokias because of the hardware, it was a combination of HW and SW that did what people wanted. Sure, they fell way back int he smartphone stakes, but the old voice+sms phones were very popular and the software was comparitively very good for the time.
I think that people bought a Nokia because their previous phone was a Nokia and it ran almost the same SW, and all the menus and options were the same. Now, they have to really make a choice, and as a result, they have no loyalty - and that means more sales for Google and Apple.
There's one more nail in the coffin - if someone is going to buy a Windows 7 phone (to be different from their peers perhaps :) ), then why would they buy a Nokia one when there are phones from LG and HTC that are just as good.
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Your numbers are totally off. Apple sold 40million last year. Windows Phone 7 came out mid october 2010!
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yes, quite right - 14 million [appleinsider.com] for that quarter, not 40. sorry guys.
WP7 launched.... (Score:2)
and apparently followed a similar path to NASA GLORY....
http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/3/comScore_Reports_January_2011_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share [comscore.com]
Although the raw drop from 9.7% to 8% looks like a slight dip; remember that it really a more precipitous 17+% drop in its market.
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People don't buy MS because they want to, they buy it because they think they need to or because they don't realise anything else exists...
Phones are different, people know that alternatives exist...
Windows is associated with crashing, blue screens, viruses and other forms of malware. People don't want that on their phones...
When people see a product with the same name from the same company they assume it will be compatible, windows mobile has never been compatible with desktop windows leaving many users se
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Apple: Look, we've got an ultra-stylish phone with more cameras than you can shake a stick at that does everything you might possibly want to do with a computing device.
Android vendors: Apple already explained what a smartphone does so we don't have to. Expect similar stuff from us.
RIM: Our phones are made for businessmen but they work for everyone.
Microsoft: Are you sick of spending a lot of time checking your Twitter and Facebook with your smartp
Re:Nokia has amazing hardware, but not software (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I realise that this is either astroturfing or a troll, but responding to it still makes sense. This post essentially represents both Nokia's and Microsoft's best hopes for success from this partnership, and it is pretty clear that it is a very slim hope.
The major problem with the partnership is that Nokia doesn't have a Windows Phone to sell today. The best that they can do is sell people on the idea of a cool new Windows Phone that *may* be available before Christmas (not likely). Current Windows phones are getting slaughtered by everyone right now, and this announcement is only going to make things worse over the short run.
Think about it. Microsoft's current Windows Phone partners have just found out that Microsoft is willing to pay Nokia over $1 billion U.S. to compete with them. If Windows Phone sales have been poor to this point imagine what they are going to be like over the next year as all of the current Windows phone manufacturers begin their marketing campaign against Windows. Microsoft has just pushed everyone that isn't Nokia into the Android camp. Unless, of course, Microsoft is willing to make similar deals with other handset manufacturers (even less likely).
Not to mention the obvious fact that Apple and Google are both going to widen their developer lead over Microsoft while Nokia gets up to speed. Android and iPhone have tons of developers. Windows phone has almost none in comparison. A year from now the situation is going to be even worse. That means that when Nokia finally does launch its phone it will primarily launch with software Microsoft and Nokia have paid to develop internally, with a few 1.0 ports of popular software titles that Microsoft and Nokia have bribed independents to offer. Even if the hardware is sheer genius Nokia's phone is not going to be competitive on the software side.
Plus, all this assumes that Nokia's first Windows phone won't suck. I think that's a long shot. Microsoft has a long history of sucky phones, and Nokia has no history of dealing with Microsoft's idiosyncrasies. Those consumers brave enough to buy a Nokia-Microsoft phone are going to be beta testers, and if the phone is not flawless the blogosphere is going to crucify it. Not that it really matters. When it comes to phones Microsoft's brand is probably already toxic. The current WinPhones reviewed very well. That did *not* translate into sales. There are simply too many people that wouldn't buy a Windows phone if Microsoft paid them. The early adopters already have a smart phone, and they are happy with it. Heck, they probably have even invested a considerable amount of time and money in the software for their smart phone. Luring these people (and those people that invariably follow their lead) to a new platform is going to be very hard, especially considering Microsoft's history in the mobile sector.
Both Microsoft and Nokia needed to do something to remain relevant. From that perspective this deal makes sense. After all, they could hit the ball out of the park and become an actual contender. Their phone is going to need to be something special, however, or it is just going to be the smart phone without useful applications.
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>And i agree, i challange anyone finding such a pile of crap as Visual Studio in use today. Nothing compares to it.
Why is it a pile of crap? Seriously.
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The only Areafor MS is business if they convince their corporate customer to switch off Blackberry. Goto any store and watch what interests people its the iPhone and the big screen Android phones. I suspect Ms is regretting doing the "tile" thing
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There have been very few times where MS has done anything but play follow the leader. I'd say perhaps no times, but I'm sure someone will point out an exception. Any time they've done something cool it's usually a result of buying another company up, rather than having the idea in-house.
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I'd say perhaps no times, but I'm sure someone will point out an exception.
Bob?
I don't remember any other company doing anything similar before or since.
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And the really observant will notice that despite having "a burning platform", Nokia are about a billion dollars less desperate for a mobile strategy than Microsoft. RIM would be somewhere in between.
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Dear Microsoft: if you're going to shill your dev products on /., maybe you want to not be so obvious about it.
I'm a C freak, my first word was "ifndef" and my first book was Kernighan & Ritchie, and about the last thing I would ever say about any Microsoft dialect of the language is that it plays well with others. From incompatible bullshit like CreateFileMapping to linguistic trash like explicitly allowing casted lvalues to the endless parade of pointless clutter macros, MS was probably singlehandledl
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Erp. This was me, got logged out of /. for some reason.
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I think you seriously underestimate Android. Would be interesting to know what limitations you would hit that a complex 3D game dont.
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It couldn't be because many of us have watched these things play out, either up close, from a distance, or both (waves hand...). In short, I don't see much upside from this little relationship and state it from facts in evidence.
Stack
Novell
SEGA (Where do you think they got the idea for the X-Box from... No, I don't think MS had the same involvement as they did with Stack, etc. but they DID give it a bit of a shove all the same...)
Three right off the top of my head that didn't fare well. There's a history
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Have what available? I've been trying to get some decent information on NDK, but documentation is so sparse it's not even funny. All I've got so far is that new NDK can respond to "external actions" (touch,button etc). There is still no UI to the best of my understanding. Who's going to draw all the buttons, read text input, show keyboard, manage windows for pete's sake? I ain't writing my own GUI system :) Unless, of course, this is all there and Google just forgot to document it (no big surprise, look at
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You havent done your research. Windows Phone 7 doesnt allow native apps yet - they all run on Silverlight and I don't think any C++ at all
As far as I know this deal has to do with WP7, not Windows itself
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For #2, a large number of users using a single type of hardware device is not a bad thing for you as a software developer. J2ME and Android have the device fragmentation problem where you write once, but have to test everywhere. Even amongst the same BlackBerry device but for different carriers you'll run into issues where things won't work quite right on each device. It becomes very expensive to test and develop for each device. This is one of the main reasons apps for iPhone are so successful but for othe
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We've been "writing once/testing everywhere" for our desktop products for a while for all computing platforms - that's a non-issue.
A single hardware device would be ok if its specs met the needs of our users, but they don't quite fit. With OS not tied to the hardware as a developer I have a leeway with choice of hardware and can even go to a nice manufacturer out in China to ask for a specific modification which we can then offer our users. I doubt Apple would oblige :)
As far as optimization issues go - App
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In this case, it looks like WP7 is even worse than Android for you. And QT is coming to Android, although it's still young.
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This really sounds like a lame marketing post from a Microsoft employee. just saying.
LoB
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But it does allow C# development, cross compiling an existing Windows program and easily porting to XBox 360.
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Something just short of negative one billion dollars. At least, Nokia thinks so. I think they got screwed, but they can probably hang on for a couple years.
It is the customer who gets screwed.