Is Microsoft unwise to ignore their own platform?

[spaulagain]

So you want to have all Pc and phone software and OS all packed into a phone? Be my guest. Lol

It's more like they're using the same name, but underneath they're different. Though efforts will be made to unify the code as much as possible.

That's basically what they are doing. Obviously things that aren't used on ARM or phones won't be installed on those devices. But the core OS will be the same as well as the app architecture/environment.

 

[spaulagain]

Although I don't agree with your overall conclusions you make some very good points and this has been your most useful post on this thread. At least up until the last two paragraphs which contribute nothing useful to the discussion. Your ideas can move the conversation forward. It is unfortunate that in this thread they have frequently been presented in such a condescending and insulting fashion. Even if we were all working off of the same set of "facts" reasonable, intelligent people can still honestly reach very different conclusions.

I come across condescending because we've all repeated these same things multiple times in this thread but no listens. And people complaining are literally making stuff up that isn't true at all. So ya, I'm a little agitated when responding, my apologies.

 

[Harry Wild]

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is saying that the purpose of Microsoft is to show other manufacturers how to develop better hardware. In other words; Microsoft don't really care about how good their hardware sells in the marketplace or their market share as long as the hardware is premium and has critical acclaim! They want the other manufacturers to make solid devices so that Microsoft in the long run does not have to! LOL! They are the opposite of Apple! Apple cares about direct promotion to the end users! After all; who has all the people waiting in line for their new mobile devices days before they are release? Who has the news media doing coverage on the iPhone as it was a newly discovered invention every year? Why do the Apple fanboys and fangirls buy all Apple devices from Macs to iPods? It because Apple knows how to sell stuff! Microsoft does not!

So, Microsoft could give a rip what current WP users want or need. Their concern is focus with the U.S. cellular carriers and other cellular manufacturers wants and needs. **** the end user in other words. I guess the strategy is that the U.S. cellular carriers will promote and sell their exclusive locked WP for them and that way increase their market share. The actual WP users will either go to the carrier they want the WP model or not! It up the carrier's sales staff to switch them over again!

In interviews with the former Nokia management; it was Microsoft that held up the hardware on Nokia high end phones. WP OS was always a year behind in terms of SoC and display resolution of that of Android. It would always have to ask the Microsoft WP development team to work on upgrades to their needs. Microsoft even now; does not have 2K screen resolution in their WP8.1, 810 SoC and hopefully it will be in the WP10 in April!

Microsoft should find some way to run Flash videos on their mobile devices; since Adobe does not support it in mobile devices. I have to use other competitors that have apps for network shows like: ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, etc... in order to watch their shows on my mobile device. If Microsoft can include it in the IE12 browser; it would be a "HUGE" win for them; since everything you do in smartphones is done in video format these days!

 

[a5cent]

The fundamental questions are these:

Why is MS releasing Android and iOS apps on a different schedule than WP?
Why is WP often trailing?
What does this say about MS' commitment to WP and its future?

Particularly that last question makes this an emotional topic, because without MS' full support, WP won't be going any farther, pretty much guaranteeing it a place in the hall of irrelevant technologies. I'm just not convinced we really know the answers to any of those questions.

For example, it's fine to prioritize Android and iOS as a means to protect and promote Office, OneDrive, and MS' other franchises. That is also vital to WP's survival. If MS can't postpone those efforts and requires them to achieve a dominant position on all mobile platforms now, just to ensure they remain relevant, then we should pretty much all be in agreement that is a good move. However, if MS has since decided that WP is unlikely to ever provide them with a competitive advantage, and that from now on they will compete primarily via their services rather than their mobile platforms, then that is an entirely different situation in which WP loses all strategic relevance. One situation I'd be fine with, the other would make me want to start looking elsewhere. Finally, I'm not even convinced MS is deliberately prioritizing anything over WP. I think it's very well possible that Office for WP is on a different schedule only because MS wants to develop a single version of touch-office for both tablets and phones, which would necessitate that W10 mobile has sufficiently progressed towards completion. If W10 mobile wasn't ready, then why not allow the Office division to work on the iOS and Android versions in the meantime? Coincidentally, W10 mobile probably would be reaching the point where one could start developing for it right about now, so iOS/Android versions releasing now would make sense in that way too. Such an approach would eventually provide us with the best version of mobile Office bare none. It just wouldn't provide that right now. How comprehensive Office on WP ends up being, will be very telling.

The point of all this: just the fact that Office for WP is on a different schedule means nothing. The real question is why! I'm not sure if we can really be so sure about why... maybe MS has decided iOS and Android are more important. Maybe it's just technical realities related to W10 mobile. Maybe it's something else entirely...

 

[tgp]

The fundamental questions are these:

Why is MS releasing Android and iOS apps on a different schedule than WP? Why is WP often trailing? And what does this say about MS' commitment to WP and its future?

Here's my question (to these questions!): does development on iOS and Android affect WP development at all? Wouldn't Microsoft have different dev teams for each platform?

It seems to me that Office for WP, Office for iOS, and Office for Android would have 3 different teams working on them. If that's the case, then the resources put into iOS & Android would not affect WP. This would mean that the reason for the "lag" on WP's Office development would be from the dev teams working on something for WP other than Office.

This idea of course is null if the same developers work on Office for all 3 platforms.

There's also the known WP OS restrictions that cause some functionality to be impossible, although I don't know if any of that applies to Office. Not to mention that the problems with OS restrictions and API availability are lessened with WP8.1.

 

[Silence#WP]

The fundamental questions are these:

Why is MS releasing Android and iOS apps on a different schedule than WP? Why is WP often trailing? And what does this say about MS' commitment to WP and its future?

Particularly that last question makes this an emotional topic, because without MS' full support, WP won't be going any farther, pretty much guaranteeing it a place in the hall of irrelevant technologies.

I'm just not convinced we really know what MS is thinking or planning or prioritizing in this regard.

For example, it's fine to prioritize Android and iOS as a means to protect and promote Office, OneDrive, and MS' other franchises. That is also vital to WP's survival. If MS can't postpone those efforts and requires them to achieve a dominant position on all mobile platforms NOW, just to ensure they remain relevant, then we should all be happy that is what MS is doing and be more than willing to accept a delay on WP's end for that to get done. If MS has however decided that WP is unlikely to ever provide them with a competitive advantage, and they have now decided that their services will be the offerings doing the competing, while their mobile platforms become nothing more than minor "players" in MS' schedules, then that is an entirely different situation. One situation I'd be fine with, the other would make me want to start looking elsewhere. I'm not even convinced MS is intentionally prioritizing anything at all. I think it's very well possible that Office for WP is on a different schedule only because they want to develop a single version of touch-office for both tablets and phones, which would necessitate that W10 mobile has sufficiently progressed towards completion. If W10 mobile wasn't ready, then why not allow the Office division to work on the iOS and Android versions in the mean time? Coincidentally, W10 mobile probably would be reaching the point where one could start developing for it around now, so iOS/Android versions releasing around now would make perfect sense in that way too. It would also eventually provide us with the best version of mobile Office bare none, just not right now. How comprehensive Office on WP ends up being, will be very telling.

The point of all this: just the fact that Office for WP is on a different schedule means nothing. The real question is why! I'm not sure if we can really be so sure about why... maybe MS has decided iOS and Android are mire important. Maybe it's just technical realities. Maybe it's something else entirely...

You've brought up some excellent points and hit the nail on the head with the questions you present. I think the question "what does this say about MS' commitment to WP and its future?" is where this thread may have the greatest divergence of opinion. As you state, we don't really know MS' intentions so all we can do is speculate leading to some very different conclusion. While I hope Windows 10 will be a game changer, issues like the subject of this thread, the lack of a viable Lumia flagship phone for much of the US market, missing or less fully featured 3rd party apps, and the (in my opinion) slow pace of development since the debut of WP7 don't fill me with confidence.

 

[Silence#WP]

There's also the known WP OS restrictions that cause some functionality to be impossible, although I don't know if any of that applies to Office. Not to mention that the problems with OS restrictions and API availability are lessened with WP8.1.

When I come across apps that are better on iOS I've often wondered why. Take the Amazon family of apps. Are they better on iOS because Amazon chooses to make them that way for business reasons or limited resources, or is because WP doesn't provide the access and/or APIs needed to build feature parity? If WP is the problem (even after 8.1) will Windows 10 move things a step in the right direction?

 

[tgp]

When I come across apps that are better on iOS I've often wondered why. Take the Amazon family of apps. Are they better on iOS because Amazon chooses to make them that way for business reasons or limited resources, or is because WP doesn't provide the access and/or APIs needed to build feature parity? If WP is the problem (even after 8.1) will Windows 10 move things a step in the right direction?

My answer to this is: I don't know! Not sure about Amazon, but for some apps it's probably some of both. I would imagine that for a business like Amazon, lack of resources isn't an issue. But the relatively small amount of WP customers might make it a poor investment to put too much resource (read money, since they probably outsource the job) into the app, even if it's technically possible to make a 1st rate app.

My whole post is surmising. I have no idea whether any of it is actually valid. But pretty much all the ideas here are guesses anyway. :wink:

 

[rodan01]

It's pretty obvious that this thread is all speculation. But that doesn't mean there is 50%-50% of probability in the outcome, you have to take the available information and analyze.

Two years ago, Microsoft was holding back Office for iOS to help the Surface. The most promoted feature was -It run office is not a toy-. Sadly the Surface was a total failure.
Last year they decided to launch Office for iPad, but a week after the launch event, they demoed the soon to be released Office for Modern UI.
Many months later Office for Modern UI was delayed until late 2015!, and Microsoft introduced Office for iPhone and Android.
Maybe in late 2015 they will release a buggy beta, or the project will be canceled, who knows? who cares?

About a year ago the plan was to push WP in the enterprise market. Good luck with that, now the iPhone have a great Office app and in early 2015 Microsoft will release a new feature to manage Office from the EMM solution, they call this a game changer.

Office is not the only app that is better on iOS and Android, almost every single Microsoft mobile app is better on iOS and Android.

The public discourse of the company has changed, from Windows only, to Windows first and better, to Windows also, to who cares about Windows?

Fans like to think that Windows 10 will be the magic unicorn release that will solve all the problems, will be a game changer, and new amazing apps will be released for It. I think that's a bit unrealistic.

I'm 90% sure that Windows is dead in mobile, not only as a market fact, but also because It's the last priority for Microsoft. Microsoft units aren't working for or even coordinated with the Windows mobile efforts.

By late 2015 probably WP will be under 1% of market share.

 

[a5cent]

Here's my question (to these questions!): does development on iOS and Android affect WP development at all? Wouldn't Microsoft have different dev teams for each platform?

Some WP apps are made by the WP team. Some apps aren't, particularly if they have full time teams or entire divisions dedicated to their development, like the Office division.
In general, every product/service has a core team looking after it somewhere at MS, but most projects go through phases, rather than being run at the same intensity all the time. Teams will get built up or torn down as necessary. I don't know specifically how these Android/iOS apps were built, but if they followed the usual pattern, these teams ramped up earlier this year. Most of the time people will take care of the same issues they did in their original teams, while being coached by the core team on the OS or framework related complexities they aren't familiar with. I admit I'm just guessing that this is no different, but I doubt I'm wrong. Not because this involves Android/iOS, but because these are apps... the most trivial software products developed at any large software company. I'm not aware of any large and permanent team ever being dedicated to something so trivial.

 

[spaulagain]

It's pretty obvious that this thread is all speculation. But that doesn't mean there is 50%-50% of probability in the outcome, you have to take the available information and analyze.

Two years ago, Microsoft was holding back Office for iOS to help the Surface. The most promoted feature was -It run office is not a toy-. Sadly the Surface was a total failure.
Last year they decided to launch Office for iPad, but a week after the launch event, they demoed the soon to be released Office for Modern UI.
Many months later Office for Modern UI was delayed until late 2015!, and Microsoft introduced Office for iPhone and Android.
Maybe in late 2015 they will release a buggy beta, or the project will be canceled, who knows? who cares?

About a year ago the plan was to push WP in the enterprise market. Good luck with that, now the iPhone have a great Office app and in early 2015 Microsoft will release a new feature to manage Office from the EMM solution, they call this a game changer.

The public discourse of the company has changed, from Windows only, to Windows first and better, to Windows also, to who cares about Windows?

Fans like to think that Windows 10 will be the magic unicorn release that will solve all the problems, will be a game changer, and new amazing apps will be released for It. I think that's a bit unrealistic.

I'm 90% sure that Windows is dead in mobile, not only as a market fact, but also because It's the last priority for Microsoft. Microsoft units aren't working for or even coordinated with the Windows mobile efforts.

By late 2015 probably WP will be under 1% of market share.

WP won't exist next year. It will just be Windows. Whether or not they are small 4 inch devices or 27" devices doesn't matter.

The reason Windows isn't doing well in mobile is because of feature gap, app gap, and people stuck in their ecosystems.

With Windows 10...

1. Feature gap should be completely gone and probably reversed. Unless they oddly strip out every feature of Windows RT, then Windows will have more features than Android or iOS.

2. This is hard to fight right now. If Windows 10 actually takes off and does better than Windows 8, then just from a pure user base standpoint, it would be really silly for companies to ignore it when develop apps.

3. This just takes time and new users added to the market. But Windows will have a pretty powerful ecosystem over the next year.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I don't see MS as ignoring their own platform. MS is not just a cell phone company. They are enterprise, they are Office, they are Asure, email and browser, anti-virus, gaming, software development, they are many governments computer backbone as well as business and a lot more. They have to be on top of all that and more 24/7. To think that this phone, even as good as it is, (and I say it is awesome in spite of the haters that say to the contrary) , is of a higher priority than all that is amazingly naive. It is not being ignored. The whining however, is.

True, but then again, here is what Thurrott recently reported Mr. Nadella (MS-CEO) attempting to differentiate Microsoft from the companies with which so many compare it.

"Apple's very, very clear," he [Mr. Nadella] said. "I think Tim Cook did a great job of even describing that very recently where he said they sell devices, and that's what Apple is all about....And Google is about being ... you know, it's about data, or it's about advertising," he continued. "It is about serving you ads in a tasteful way, and they've done a great job [with] that business...."

So what's Microsoft? Maker of Windows? Builder of Windows Phones and Surface computers? Seller of Office?

Mr. Nadella replies:

"Our identity is really about empowering others to build products," he said. "It's not really about us and our products....The place where Microsoft can be distinct and where it comes naturally to us is from the creator of a document to a developer writing an app, and for anyone else who is in the business of producing their own creation, we want to be the tools provider, platform provider. That's the core identity."

(Source: http://windowsitpro.com/paul-thurro...find-its-niche-mobile-first-cloud-first-world)

Now, there is no problem with this. And, yes, given the kinds of businesses and markets that MS is involved in, this makes sense.

However, the question remains: Why then get into the hardware business in the first place? Why ask users of current MS hardware (Surface, the Lumia, the Band, among others) to spend their money on what is not the core identity and business of the company?#

 

[nallWhite]

The app gap is just the main apps. Like Starbucks, major banks, twitter, instagram (updates needed for the last two), and other social media apps. They need to work (pay them) on that

 

[spaulagain]

True, but then again, here is what Thurrott recently reported Mr. Nadella (MS-CEO) attempting to differentiate Microsoft from the companies with which so many compare it.

So what's Microsoft? Maker of Windows? Builder of Windows Phones and Surface computers? Seller of Office?

Mr. Nadella replies:



(Source: http://windowsitpro.com/paul-thurro...find-its-niche-mobile-first-cloud-first-world)

Now, there is no problem with this. And, yes, given the kinds of businesses and markets that MS is involved in, this makes sense.

However, the question remains: Why then get into the hardware business in the first place? Why ask users of current MS hardware (Surface, the Lumia, the Band, among others) to spend their money on what is not the core identity and business of the company?#

The hardware thing was technically left over from the previous CEO.

But I think their strategy going forward is using their hardware as an example for other OEMs. As in the past, and currently, OEMs suck. Their hardware pales in comparison to Apple's. Like it realllllllly sucks. So I think it's good MS is here to provide quality, Apple level, hardware.

Also, hardware is a part of productivity. They've shown that with the Surface Pro 3. And it's working. The SP3 is doing well, and even naysayers are admitting the SP3 is pretty awesome.

 

[Harry Wild]

I think it more then that! Network channels are very important factor in the selection of OSes. You want to watch TV episodes anytime and not having them on WP is a big negative! Also, foreign TV channels also need flash to work! EU does have WP apps for TV channels. It is pretty sweet! U.S. has no TV channel apps for WP!

 

[theefman]

Just keeps getting better for us WP users, doesn't it? Cortana may soon be ready to impart her knowledge onto iPhone, Android users | Windows Central

And before anyone asks, the only unique feature left in WP is live tiles. How's that for a mobile strategy?

 

[a5cent]

^ As long as it isn't more fully featured or more capable than on WP, no problem.

If it is, panik may be a reasonable option... /s

 

[spaulagain]

Just keeps getting better for us WP users, doesn't it? Cortana may soon be ready to impart her knowledge onto iPhone, Android users | Windows Central

And before anyone asks, the only unique feature left in WP is live tiles. How's that for a mobile strategy?

That article was written too loosely. No where did she say that Cortana would be on iOS or Android soon. Just that it will happen eventually. As it should.

Out of all the services Microsoft provides. A personal assistant should be the most cross platform app out there. What good is an assistant if she only works on half the devices I carry?

 

[theefman]

^ As long as it isn't more fully featured or more capable than on WP, no problem.

If it is, panik may be a reasonable option... /s

Going by current trends, that wont be the case. And I don't think panic is necessary, just scoping out which would be the better platform to switch to.

That article was written too loosely. No where did she say that Cortana would be on iOS or Android soon. Just that it will happen eventually. As it should.

Out of all the services Microsoft provides. A personal assistant should be the most cross platform app out there. What good is an assistant if she only works on half the devices I carry?

That makes sense from a service provider standpoint. From a mobile platform owner standpoint, it has no benefit. Lets not forget Microsoft did pay out a few billion dollars for Nokia's hardware division, I guess they are preparing to write that acquisition off like they did with aQuantive because this strategy they are on now is not going to get them any growth and return for their mobile platform investment.

 

[DoctorSaline]

And before anyone asks, the only unique feature left in WP is live tiles. How's that for a mobile strategy?

And Internet Explorer maybe? :winktongue: