Concern about smaller OEMs

[xoxoGeorges]

It's great that Microsoft has gotten a great number of manufacturer and brands to have WPs on stock, but now the fragmentation issue will arise. How will the MS solve this, sure using qualcomms solved a bit (the rising mediateks cannot be updated) but these manufacturers won't be able to update their phones.

Should MS bypass the update system and push to all devices? I'm sure most of them use reference designs which mean identical hardware under different name. And let the firmware updates come later?

 

[theefman]

) but these manufacturers won't be able to update their phones.

Sorry but how do you know this? None of these phones has been out for more than a week so how can anyone say they wont get updates let alone claim there is "fragmentation"?

 

[xoxoGeorges]

Sorry but how do you know this? None of these phones has been out for more than a week so how can anyone say they wont get updates let alone claim there is "fragmentation"?

That's because their androids blow.

 

[Jas00555]

But why would you assume they *cant* be updated? I think you mean the OEMs won't push them.

 

[Cleavitt76]

That's because their androids blow.

Android really has no standards at all though. If an OEM wants to throw together some crazy collection of hardware they can make Android run on it even if the "standard" Android images aren't compatible. They can just modify and compile their own variant of Android for their specific hardware. That is how the hardware fragmentation occurs in the Android world.

Windows Phone does still have standards, it's just that the new and less restrictive standards align with the most common Android hardware. Windows Phone won't run on all of the "non-standard" devices that run customized variants of Android though, so I don't really see fragmentation being any more of an issue than it was previously.

 

[bilzkh]

I hope Microsoft's strategy with smaller OEMs is similar to Google's Android One. Just offer them a standard reference platform and manage their updates directly.