8 years ago
15
Microsoft might dump Windows Phone in favour of Android
What do you think? Is it a good idea to drop the whole Windows Phone business and concentrate on good Android/IOS apps? Windows Phone didn't really take off, just 8% market share anyway. I never used one myself and I only now 1 colleague using a Lumia...
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I'm not sure if what I'm saying is correct, but aren't they making windows turn compatible to run android apps?
It feels like the logical step would be to do the same for their phones - use your own operating system and run their apps.
Well, why go all the way and build an OS which has to understand Android apps? They can just use Android (and probably pay a license fee to Google) and build a good UI and integration on that. Saves a lot of engineering power for the real customer value instead. No user would base her decision to buy a phone on the OS, only on the UX and the available apps. I think, it would be a good move for MS. They're already building good apps, they should stick with that and concentrate on it.
A main reason that Microsoft would want to retain their own OS instead of integrating with Android is to simply stay different. It allows them to be much more flexible with what they do. By just using Android, they are becoming a hardware based company - at least as far as phones go. Microsoft doesn't really want to do that. Instead, they're focusing more on the software and OS side of the coin.
An excellent example is Windows Continuum. This is a feature that would be significantly more difficult in the Android ecosystem...and almost impossible to do as seamlessly.
I think it matters to them because they want to keep control over what is theirs. They don't want their phones to depend on Google's updates when they're living under the impression that they're at the same level.
This is an article I could find on their plans regarding Android and iOS apps.
Well, they could always build their own hardware, but just use the Android base OS. That way they have control over the actual phone and the physical experience with the device and can concentrate on the applications that provide real value to the users. Anyhow, I think the recent moves of MS point in that direction. My bet is they will continue to sell non-core stuff that is not related to software (see the sale of Bing maps technology to Uber) and will focus on software again. MS was never a real hardware company like Apple, and even Google sees hardware as a side-product of building software like Android.
I'm still wondering that MS is investing in the Xbox, but that's more of a new market - you know, getting into the living room of customers. The race into the pockets of customers is already won by Apple and Google/Android.
Btw, I'm a linux guy myself. I'm using Windows for Games, but only if I really want to play a game that is not yet released for Linux - that still happens, but it gets better. :-)
I'd actually like an Android version with a windows-like UI and functions, it would be interesting to see how they make their own flavor of Android.
I just hope that they don't do what Amazon did with the Kindle Fire, where they used their own proprietary app store.
Ask RIM (the guys that make Blackberry) and Jolla. They probably want build there own stack with things that are not possible in Android but they still need to have a large number of apps to actually be able to sell devices.
I just woke up, but I read it as Microsoft will be putting the Android OS on their Hardware
The person that wrote this is an idiot, and doesn't know the difference between Android and Google Play. To ship Google Play you have to ship the whole Google ecosystem.
What Microsoft could do is release a flavor of android without Google Play services like Amazon does.
Which is a terrible idea. Amazon's phone has been a disaster.
If RIM can put Android apps on Blackberry devices, why is it impossible to think that Microsoft couldn't do the same thing? Or am I misunderstanding your point?
I'm not saying that Microsoft should do it's own flavor of Android, I was saying it could (as opposed to ship Play Services together with their applications). I personally also think they will do the same as RIM and Jolla and support android applications on Windows.
Since Microsoft is doing so well on desktop and so poorly on mobile, I think it would be in their best interest to incorporate their services into the Android OS. Kind of like what they're doing with Cortana and other Android/iOS apps. It allows people to keep what they're comfortable with but now be able to use them together. If Google made a desktop OS (that was more than just the chrome browser) I would be inclined to at least check it out since I'm so heavily invested in their ecosystem. On the flip side, it's hard to be successful with Android when you remove Google's services, as seen with Amazon's devices. But since people are already using Windows on their desktop it might make it easier to make that switch.
As a phone enthusiast, here's my perspective. I've got an LG G2 that I use daily, as well as a cheaper Lumia Windows Phone.
I don't believe they are planning to scrap Windows Phone entirely. If anything, they seem to be ramping it up with additional features. They've already discussed several really cool cross overs between Windows 10 and new Windows phones. It would be much more likely to see what bogdan suggested.
I....don't know exactly how well this will work out. While there's a number of apps that would work just fine (Mostly web-based, simple apps), I'm skeptical that more complicated apps would work in a sandbox type of environment. I think that as soon as you open up Windows Phones to all Android apps, Microsoft will be inundated with complaints of 'Appnamexyz isn't working. Windows phones are shit'. To avoid this, they'd have to curate a special Microsoft Appstore of Android apps...and that doesn't sound like a fantastic idea either.
I'll put it this way - I'm glad I'm not in charge of that project!
No one I know has a Windows phone, I myself had one.. Just wasn't what I wanted.
Doubt it, can't see Microsoft dumping windows phone.... Maybe slowing down or stopping on the flagship phones and just doing the cheap ones that seem to be doing well for them in some countries.