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Microsoft Businesses The Almighty Buck Hardware

Microsoft's Nadella Says Company Will Make More Phones, But They Won't Look Like Today's Devices (zdnet.com) 150

Posted by msmash from the not-giving-up dept.
As he told the Make Me Smart podcast, Microsoft is looking for something far more transformative, like an entirely new category of smartphone that's so original and appealing that OEMs won't be able to resist tagging along. From a report: "At this point we're making sure that all of our software is available on iOS and Android and it's first class and we're looking for what's the next change in form and function," he said when asked whether Microsoft would make another phone. Nadella doesn't discuss what form these mobile devices could take, though Microsoft does have some candidates, like its HoloLens augmented reality (AR) headgear. No doubt he's keeping close tabs on Google's early progress with its Tango phone AR experiments.
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Microsoft's Nadella Says Company Will Make More Phones, But They Won't Look Like Today's Devices More

Microsoft's Nadella Says Company Will Make More Phones, But They Won't Look Like Today's Devices

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  • Future Windows phone... (Score:3)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Wednesday May 03, 2017 @12:48PM (#54349341)
    My friend works at a Sprint store. They have a Microsoft Windows phone that sits in the storage room and no one ever asks to see it. Unless Microsoft is willing to put money behind their promotions like Samsung, HTC and LG, my friend has no incentives to sell a Microsoft Windows phone.

    • Re:Future Windows phone... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Wednesday May 03, 2017 @12:59PM (#54349437)

      It's not a promotion problem. It's a device problem. Which Windows Phone devices compete with the Galaxy S8? The iPhone 7?
      They are always 6-12 months late (especially if you compare to Android, where they use the same components).

      You simply get more with the competition.

      • There advertising was OK, but they did not provide the necessary incentives to the carriers and their salespeople -- nothing like what the Android purveyors were offering. Microsoft could buy the entire markets for phones, game consoles, or whatever they want to sell, but they always seem to undermine their own investments. They spent over 7 billion on Nokia, but couldn't spend a couple hundred million to bribe some folks to sell the damn phones.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          but they did not provide the necessary incentives to the carriers and their salespeople -- nothing like what the Android purveyors were offering.

          *bzzzt*
          Try again. Most of the "Android purveyors" (Samsung, HTC, LG, etc.) were the same OEMs hawking windows phones. The real answer is Windows Phones don't sell because Windows Phone OS sucks.

        • Re: Future Windows phone... (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Microsoft did try to buy the market. Don't you remember the Nokia bribe, followed by the Nokia purchase when that didn't work?

          They easily sunk 30 billion into that turd, and that's not even counting the free marketing that at&t gave to them.

          • That Nokia purchase reminds me of Apple's purchase of Power Computing, when they decided to pull the plug on the Mac clones

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by bondsbw ( 888959 )

        Yep, and they really can't compete by just having a comparable product. It has to be better for a lot of people if they ever want market share.

        That's a good thing... either it will be good and gain traction, or bad and go away.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gmack ( 197796 )

      My friend works at a Sprint store. They have a Microsoft Windows phone that sits in the storage room and no one ever asks to see it. Unless Microsoft is willing to put money behind their promotions like Samsung, HTC and LG, my friend has no incentives to sell a Microsoft Windows phone.

      They tried this while I was in Spain. They spent a fortune on advertising and discounts as well as unleashed a full on FUD campaign against Android. It worked, sortof, Their share jumped by 7% but many people switched back when they bought their next phone and now Windows Mobile is back down to almost nothing.

  • How about a phone that folds in half!

    It's gonna be revolutionary!!

    • They could make two models. A small one to carry in your pocket, and a big one with a full sized keyboard. Revolutionary, indeed.

  • and get no where. That ship has sailed, and IOS and Android own the mobile market. But M$ will toss endless amounts of money after it in a vain hope to gain traction, much like they keep pouring money into Bing to no end.

    • Re:They'll keep wasting billions on mobile... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday May 03, 2017 @01:24PM (#54349611)
      That's been their MO for several decades. Someone comes out with a hot product, they copy it, pour gobs of money on marketing it, take losses for the first few years, but eventually take over the market. Unfortunately for them, that MO usually worked because they were able to leverage their Windows monopoly to help the product gain acceptance (Office, Internet Explorer, disk compression, disk encryption, etc). The Xbox is one of their few successes at this independent of Windows, Zune probably the most notable failure.

      It would've been a lot easier for them if they'd actually thought ahead to what the future might bring, instead of copying others. Back in the 1990s they managed to displace Palm as the market leader for PDA OSes (by copying Palm but promising to make their OS share the Windows API). By the late 1990s it was obvious to most everyone that PDAs and phones would converge. All Microsoft had to do was add phone support to WinCE (which became Windows Mobile). But a few WinCE PDA companies tried to add phone functionality to their PDAs, and got no help from Microsoft. Their products were panned by reviewers for failing to work consistently as a phone, which is kinda important since phones are historically very reliable. The new smartphone market instead ended up being taken over by Blackberry (in North America) and Nokia (in Europe) who added PDA capability to their phones. And Microsoft has been trying to play catch-up ever since.

      • Re:They'll keep wasting billions on mobile... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Wednesday May 03, 2017 @03:24PM (#54350327)

        The Xbox is one of their few successes at this independent of Windows

        "Success" only in the sense that it wasn't an outright failure. Xbox never "took over the market" like Microsoft's more Windows-centric conquests. The Playstation 2 massively outsold the original Xbox, which only just edged out the GameCube. The Playstation 3 was neck and neck with the Xbox 360, both of which got outsold by the Wii. The Xbox One has lost decisively to the Playstation 4 and has been outsold by the Wii U.

      • I don't think Microsoft is still hemorrhaging from their struggles in the early 00's, I think there's more to it.

        First off, Microsoft didn't monopolize the market, but the Palm/Blackberry/WinMo split was vaguely even. I forget who was who, but even a 20% share of that three legged race was a good place to be. Microsoft also competed quite well with Blackberry for control in the server room - BES was an excellent product that made devices basically-interchangeable and management a breeze, but was much more e

        • One of the issues Nokia had was too many models. This was something they did previously w/ their Symbian phones, and which they continued to do now. So if you shopped, there was no good reason to prefer a certain phone to another. Also, on some of the initial phones, the case colors were too gaudy, and looked like kids phones. The first smartphone I ever had was the Lumia 520, which was a great phone. I used HERE maps & directions, OneNote, and it was the first time I started to text regularly. P

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sd4f ( 1891894 )

          Just a correction, the phones were backwards compatible with apps but old phones weren't forwards compatible. WP8 phones could run WP7 apps, and similarly, W10M phones could run WP8 and WP7 apps, but WP7 devices were stuck with WP7 apps.

          The big problem was that developersprogressively stopped supporting the platform, and last year, for instance has been really bad. WP7 and WP8 apps were getting pulled, while no replacement for W10M was being offered. I think the reboots caused a lot of this, and in hindsigh

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wjcofkc ( 964165 )
        I can testify that the Palm Treo line was intensely popular with business users at least throughout 2006. It was largely the Treo 650 from 2004 that carried the flame. I worked in Sprint's IT dept. at the time, so those phones were my domain. Users reported to me that everything past 7xx was slow buggy garbage. Finally Sprint forced everyone to start using something in the 7xx line. The users were royally pissed and just wanted their old reliable 650's back. I believe it was 2008 when Palm started using Win

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      As much as I despise MS and their slimy tricks, I don't want only two co's to control most of phone tech. A third (or more) player would be helpful overall.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Problem is M$ is far worse than the other companies in so many ways. Better for them to die and allow other new players in the market to compete against Google and Apple. M$ is just a rotting corpse sucking up market space due to product lock in. Currently mainly PC games and office. I for one stopped purchasing PC games 6 months ago and only use LibreOffice when it become obvious that M$ was not going to stop it's privacy invasive ways and forced software installs, done, finished, no more. They are just di

  • Same Company Had Mock Funeral for iPhone (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Remember boyz and girlz, this is the same company that held a mock funeral for the iPhone at Windows Phone 7 launch.

    I'd take any announcement like this with a huge grain of salt.

  • What are they going to do with them? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So they will make more phones that nobody will buy. What will they do with them? Hand them out for free? Force them in bundles onto customers that buy other goods or services from Microsoft?

    • Require you to buy one in order to get security updates for Windows 10.

    • Yesterday, I was at a Microsoft store, and the only phone they currently seem to sell is the HP Elite. I believe it comes in a package w/ the HP Elite book
  • The Xbox Phone - with Zune technology.

    MS, stay out of markets you do not understand and are far to late an entry to get any appreciable market share.

    • The Xbox Phone - with Zune technology.

      MS, stay out of markets you do not understand and are far to late an entry to get any appreciable market share.

      Comes in Unicorn Stripe and Fluffy Candy options. With real stickiness for the keys!

    • A Zune phone could be cool.
  • I've seen this happen before...they're gonna make something wildly different, and then they are going to make Windows look like it, and tell us all that we are all wrong for not liking it....

  • Similar in concept to the new laptop with the thin carpet on the keys, the new phones will have 1.5" shag carpeting.

    This will serve several purposes:
    1. Make it softer in one's pocket.
    2. No need for a third party case (not even possible)
    3. A convenient towel that one will always carry around.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      I was thinking it would look like a very large paperclip, you could clip it on any article of clothing or body part. It will have a snappy name, like Clippy.

      • I was thinking it would look like a very large paperclip, you could clip it on any article of clothing or body part. It will have a snappy name, like Clippy.

        The new Microsoft Phone AI assistant is actually a binder clip, called Bindy. He's into BDM. Sometimes he gets a little needy. Just slap him.

  • I don't doubt there will eventually be something new on the horizon, but I think it's definitely time for them to stop trying to force their way into the phone market. While it was in full swing, it bled over into every single product they made (Windows 8 and 10, the current Office design and subscription model, etc.) For a while it seemed they were obsessed with getting access to the magic ATM that is the 30% cut on all customer purchases. That's where the Store, Windows RT and now WIndows 10 S is coming f

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sd4f ( 1891894 )

      The problem MS has is that they can't ignore mobile. Yes their phone business is dead, but the industry isn't. MS's core business is seriously under threat if they ignore mobile or even fail to adequately provide for it.

      For instance, the new surface laptop is a direct assault on chromebooks. Google is keen on displacing windows/microsoft, and they're going about it rather methodically. I think that the future of any company is hinged on mobile, it's just how a very large amount of people access the internet

  • They should have a phone with the screen right on the retina. Microsoft could call it the eyePhone.

  • The new Microsoft Phones will be more like the Zune, but even more unusable. You have to go down five menu levels to change the volume, and the menus will change depending on how often you use them.

    For example, let's say you get a lot of spam cell calls. If you ignore them, the new Microsoft Phone will realize you really like them, but are afraid to admit it, and make the rings even louder and add phone vibration effects so that your car crashes when someone spam calls you from India.

    Especially India.

  • I can't wait to see the next device Microsoft puts out, then abandons 6 months later because it doesn't mystically sell like hotcakes right out of the gate.

  • Problem with today's Windows phones: they don't look or work like Apple or Android, so nobody wants them.

    Nardella's solution: promise new phones that won't look like Apple or Android products.

    Pardon me, I'm off to short some Microsoft stock.

    • Nadella more and more reminds me of the Soviet leaders of the old days. Things got worse and worse and they kept promising that it's all going to be really awesome really soon now.

      We know how this ended.

      And I have high hopes for a repetition of history!

  • In an attempt to complete with Apple: New phone unveiled! [goo.gl]
  • 1) Make a $500 or less phone that runs full blown windows. 2) Let the phone attach to any standard USB keyboard/mouse/monitor/speakers. 3) Do not focus on hardware for games. Focus on business/internet use. 4) take my money! All they need is a form factor that can replace a laptop and a phone with one device. Crap, even at $800, I'd buy one since I don't need a $700 laptop and $300 phone anymore. Microsoft has the software to do this along with Windows specific business apps written for windows and no o

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      Crap, even at $800, I'd buy one since I don't need a $700 laptop and $300 phone anymore.

      Now you know why they won't do it. You and many, many people will stop buying Windows licenses. For a huge number of people, once the phone docks to KVM, they are completely done with buying real computers anymore. At best its a net-zero long-term business prospect for Microsoft, at worst its an awful burden because they have to keep supporting a PC-centric Windows for the remaining (1/3?) of the market that wants an actual PC.

      You can also just hear the version 1 criticism if its not x86 compatible -- "M

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gfxguy ( 98788 )

      I've been waiting for something like that to come along, and found one on Indiegogo (Turn Your Smartphone Into A Laptop [goo.gl]). I don't own a compatible phone, nor do I see buying one any time soon, but I'd get the four pack for my family in a heartbeat if I did. It is compatible (in addition to Apple and Android) with some Windows phones.

      It's inevitable to me that we ultimately will have just the one device we take everywhere that can be used on it's own, but also attached to something that makes it more usabl

    • I agree :-)

      Unless a 'phone' can replace ordinary users laptops (eg. sales, finance, mgmt, marketing even), then it's nothing new and no use. A phone that can be controlled via a 'group policy' type mechanism, that stores all of it's data in 'the cloud' via a background sync mechanism (like OneDrive) and still allows the end user to do some personalisation and install a few apps (presumably from a controlled store, maybe even controlled by the company they work for).

      If it's anything less that this, then the

    • What's funny is they did most of this years ago.

      My ex worked at Intel and had brought a Wintel phone home (windows 8, low-power Atom chip). It was actually a very responsive, nice phone. Being x86 it could have handled a lot of different tasks. Unfortunately it didn't quite have the battery life it needed, the form factor was too blocky (think Nokia with less rounded edges) and plagued by Windows CE/8 Mobile (~5 years ago).

      I would have bought one if the kinks had been worked out. And I had one of the old wi

  • If Microsoft is looking for the "next change in form and function" wouldn't that imply it's something entirely different than a phone? I mean phones have been rectangular-ish slabs for the last ~20 years. Multi-touch smart phones is now ~10 years old. None of those concepts seem likely to change. Maybe you can invent something totally different that can sorta function like a phone just like a PC with a headset, but nobody's going to call that a phone. In fact, the name is pretty much an anachronism by now b

  • Retinal display and augment reality contact lenses (with a special security feature that releases cyanide into the eye of anyone the NSA dislikes.)

  • Not sure if it's a markedroid speaking or vaporware.

    Probably both.

  • kill, steal, control - lather rinse repeat (Score:3)

    by LesserWeevil ( 4776371 ) on Wednesday May 03, 2017 @04:40PM (#54350763)
    If MS can't kill it, steal it or control it, they're not interested in it. This is what results from a business model that disdains the new and seeks to be the late comer with overwhelming resources. Giving people what someone else is already providing seems a sucky future. Good luck keeping up with Apple and Google, Mr Nadella.

  • What's the silly bugger on about? Are they going to be triangular or something?

  • so original and appealing that OEMs won't be able to resist tagging along

    We have no fucking idea what we're going to do next, but we're totally playing it off like shits about to get real. Please, buy our phones! We will literally give you an HP laptop and a Windows Phone if you just promise to let everyone you know, know that you are using a Windows phone and you, like this guy [imgur.com], are really enjoying the phone and think it is hip. Why are you all not buying our phones!!?

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