It's not fair

[jlzimmerman]

Google won't share there apps with windowsphone like YouTube, google earth, dropbox and so .. The question is WHY DID MICROSOFT SHARE BING APPS, ONEDRIVE AND OFFICE WITH ANDROID ?? It's really not fair they get our apps and we don't get theirs

MS sees users of android and Apple as customers, which overrides their competition against google and Apple. They are a software and user services company first, software and services competitor second. With that said, MS just doesn't have the market share to ignore 95% of smartphone users. It does not make good business sense. Also, MS owns several patents that Android/google uses, so it's not a total lo$$ having so many Android users. And it's not a total loss against Apple either as Siri uses Bing and I think Yahoo still does too.

If you watch Gates and Jobs when they took the stage for the 2007 D5 conference, you'll understand MS business vision as described by Bill Gates. Even way back then Gates understood what needed to happen today.

 

[fatclue_98]

MS sees users of android and Apple as customers, which overrides their competition against google and Apple. They are a software and user services company first, software and services competitor second. With that said, MS just doesn't have the market share to ignore 95% of smartphone users. It does not make good business sense. Also, MS owns several patents that Android/google uses, so it's not a total lo$$ having so many Android users. And it's not a total loss against Apple either as Siri uses Bing and I think Yahoo still does too.

If you watch Gates and Jobs when they took the stage for the 2007 D5 conference, you'll understand MS business vision as described by Bill Gates. Even way back then Gates understood what needed to happen today.

Thank you for injecting the voice of reason to this thread. People seem to forget that just a few years ago, before there was an Android, Google was hanging off Bill Gates' nutsack to get their services on Windows Mobile devices. Remember Goosync anyone?

 

[colinkiama]

At least we have the official Google search app

 

[Mike Gibson]

MSFT, as others have noted, has to support iOS and Android. It's their Plan B in mobile. Plan A, wielding the Windows club in an attempt to get users accustomed to and eventually switch to WP by adding the WP UI to Windows 8, failed miserably.

For us outsiders it's difficult to know what MSFT's true goals are with their iOS/Android work and what that means for WP. Is MSFT simply trying to stay relevant in the mobile consumer space and are content being an app+services company for other mobile OSes while WP withers away? Or are they trying to get people onto their services with the goal to eventually transition them to WP in the future?

 

[spaulagain]

MSFT, as others have noted, has to support iOS and Android. It's their Plan B in mobile. Plan A, wielding the Windows club in an attempt to get users accustomed to and eventually switch to WP by adding the WP UI to Windows 8, failed miserably.

For us outsiders it's difficult to know what MSFT's true goals are with their iOS/Android work and what that means for WP. Is MSFT simply trying to stay relevant in the mobile consumer space and are content being an app+services company for other mobile OSes while WP withers away? Or are they trying to get people onto their services with the goal to eventually transition them to WP in the future?

There isn't some plan A or B. It's simple, Microsoft as a company has recognized that they can no longer thrive as a company from OS sales. And that the real money comes from services like Office, Azure, etc. Especially when they become subscription based services that bring a more consistent income flow than the traditional big OS sales every 3 years.

The key to being successful as a services company is a) Good service b) Service accessibility aka, platform agnostic.

Windows 10 will make WP vs Windows share completely irrelevant to each other. Screens are so infinitely variable in size now that this division between phone, tablet, and desktop is going to blur to nearly invisible. And W10 will make the interface agnostic to input method as well.

Of course they'd rather have everyone be on Windows, but that's not where their revenue opportunity is, so their focus will be on executing their services as well as they can.

Windows will simply be the OS where these services are more seamless with the OS. For example, OneDrive is built into the file manager on Windows, where it's not on iOS, Android, OSX, etc.

 

[pjs37]

The ideal way for Microsoft to go is to use Google's own tactics against them. Remove ALL Microsoft apps from the play store, tell them that under no circumstances are they allowed to add outlook.com support into the Gmail app and then tell Android users that the mobile websites for Microsoft services are perfectly functional for them.

All while improving the experiences on Windows Phone.

That wouldn't bother Google in the least. They have competing services and products. It would give them an opportunity to remove a major competitor from one of the largest mobile platforms.

Microsoft's Strategy currently is probably one of the better ones they could do. Support all platforms and make excellent products across the board. Windows/Office Licensing for consumers is not going to be any real long term profitable future and they know it. But if they can make services that people will pay subscriptions for on ANY platform IS their future as they see it.

Let's not kid ourselves. Windows Phone's market share globally is very low. It is not viable to make products only for that platform. Let's take the iPod for example:

The iPod came out and it only worked on Mac's which was a tiny tiny market share. A solid device but not very popular. Once they supported Windows and release iTunes on Windows (Which has a 95% market share at the time) sales started increasing dramatically. It pretty much drove Apple's future forward leading to the iPhone, the iPad and iTunes Store which make up the largest portion of their profits. All which have made Apple the largest corporation. The Mac for all its supporters remains a small and rather insignificant portion of their overall profit (around 3.7%).

So Microsoft is actually in sort of the same position but on the software front. Microsoft's largest profits come from their software front clearly. Windows and Office Licensing more specifically make about 50% of their revenue. So they need to keep that going. Windows sales are basically flatlined there is no growth there really so that leaves Office and its under attack by Google Docs and Apple's iWorks and are available on very popular platforms. So MS has portable Window Platforms in Windows RT and Windows Phone but neither has taken off and even including Office for free has done little to help either platform. So if you need to sustain revenues somehow the best way? Take your profit making products and make it widely available.

It makes perfect sense to me. You may not like it. You may think its silly but the simple fact is Microsoft needs Google a heck of a lot more the Google needs Microsoft. They got along just fine without them before and no one is going to wait around for Microsoft's portable OS's to become viable that much is for sure.

 

[neo158]

That wouldn't bother Google in the least. They have competing services and products. It would give them an opportunity to remove a major competitor from one of the largest mobile platforms.

Microsoft's Strategy currently is probably one of the better ones they could do. Support all platforms and make excellent products across the board. Windows/Office Licensing for consumers is not going to be any real long term profitable future and they know it. But if they can make services that people will pay subscriptions for on ANY platform IS their future as they see it.

Let's not kid ourselves. Windows Phone's market share globally is very low. It is not viable to make products only for that platform. Let's take the iPod for example:

The iPod came out and it only worked on Mac's which was a tiny tiny market share. A solid device but not very popular. Once they supported Windows and release iTunes on Windows (Which has a 95% market share at the time) sales started increasing dramatically. It pretty much drove Apple's future forward leading to the iPhone, the iPad and iTunes Store which make up the largest portion of their profits. All which have made Apple the largest corporation. The Mac for all its supporters remains a small and rather insignificant portion of their overall profit (around 3.7%).

So Microsoft is actually in sort of the same position but on the software front. Microsoft's largest profits come from their software front clearly. Windows and Office Licensing more specifically make about 50% of their revenue. So they need to keep that going. Windows sales are basically flatlined there is no growth there really so that leaves Office and its under attack by Google Docs and Apple's iWorks and are available on very popular platforms. So MS has portable Window Platforms in Windows RT and Windows Phone but neither has taken off and even including Office for free has done little to help either platform. So if you need to sustain revenues somehow the best way? Take your profit making products and make it widely available.

It makes perfect sense to me. You may not like it. You may think its silly but the simple fact is Microsoft needs Google a heck of a lot more the Google needs Microsoft. They got along just fine without them before and no one is going to wait around for Microsoft's portable OS's to become viable that much is for sure.

I hear what you're saying and maybe Microsoft should say, you're using our products on a competitors platform you need to pay for it. That seems fair doesn't it?

 

[jonnaver]

So, why don't we start a class action suit against Google?

Isn't there a minimum number required though? Would the 5 or 6 WP users meet that requirement?

Kidding, kidding lol

 

[pjs37]

I hear what you're saying and maybe Microsoft should say, you're using our products on a competitors platform you need to pay for it. That seems fair doesn't it?

They pretty much do that already with Office but you can't charge for say Outlook.com access people would just dump your service instead.

 

[Visa Declined]

Isn't there a minimum number required though? Would the 5 or 6 WP users meet that requirement?

Kidding, kidding lol

 

[neo158]

They pretty much do that already with Office but you can't charge for say Outlook.com access people would just dump your service instead.

On Android and iOS the Office 365 requirement was dropped and honestly, how many Android users use Outlook.com compared to Gmail?

 

[Sunandan Mahant]

Microsoft changed hardware requirements for Windows Phone 8 -
Minimum 512mb ram and at least a Dual Core Processor.

 

[trekgraham]

I think the problem with services like office365 is IOS users get iWork for free and descent space on icloud same with Google docs and gdrive. Computer businesses' are giving upgrades to operating systems for free now. It's looking like the major area for revenue is in cloud storage and advertisements.

 

[jonnaver]

On Android and iOS the Office 365 requirement was dropped and honestly, how many Android users use Outlook.com compared to Gmail?

I don't use my phone for business so I've always been fine just using Gmail, Drive and Google docs

 

[neo158]

I don't use my phone for business so I've always been fine just using Gmail, Drive and Google docs

That's fine, I've always believed people should use what they want to use.

 

[hisham691]

I hear what you're saying and maybe Microsoft should say, you're using our products on a competitors platform you need to pay for it. That seems fair doesn't it?