The United States Dept. of Justice wants Google to give up the keys to Android — Should Microsoft give the "Surface Phone" another try?

HeyCori

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Hot take: Microsoft should either stick with Android or build a custom OS using AOSP with pre-configured easy sideloading of the Play Store.

Hotter take: Microsoft should build phones exclusively for the Surface ecosystem. Every Surface Phone should come with a mobile version of the Snapdragon X and offer deep integration with ARM Surface PCs. The same level of integration that you can get with an iPhone and Mac is exactly what MS should be offering, if not more given the numerous services that MS offers.

Hottest take: This should all be aimed at businesses. Embrace the niche. An organization that goes all in on Surface PCs might also take a chance on a Surface phone IF it offered a level of integration that other manufacturers can't.

Unfortunately, Satya seems allergic to such a notion. Take the Surface Duo for example, it lagged in features behind Samsung phones. It's shocking that a CEO would allow themselves to be upstaged by a competitor on their own platform. And it's not just the Duo. Windows Mixed Reality never integrated with Hololens which never integrated with Xbox. There's a slew of gaming handhelds being held back because Microsoft hasn't customized Windows for them. Microsoft Movies & TV still hasn't made it to other platforms. And that's despite the fact that the its predecessor, Zune Video Marketplace, was released in 2006!

Basically, if you buy one Microsoft product, buying another won't enhance your MS ecosystem any differently than buying a competitor's product. Sometimes, Satya's one-size-fits-all approach is great for certain situations. But sometimes you just want your $1,000+ device to be able to do something that cheaper devices can't.
 
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Laura Knotek

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Hot take: Microsoft should either stick with Android or build a custom OS using AOSP with pre-configured easy sideloading of the Play Store.

Hotter take: Microsoft should build phones exclusively for the Surface ecosystem. Every Surface Phone should come with a mobile version of the Snapdragon X and offer deep integration with ARM Surface PCs. The same level of integration that you can get with an iPhone and Mac is exactly what MS should be offering, if not more given the numerous services that MS offers.

Hottest take: This should all be aimed at businesses. Embrace the niche. An organization that goes all in on Surface PCs might also take a chance on a Surface phone IF it offered a level of integration that other manufacturers can't.

Unfortunately, Satya seems allergic to such a notion. Take the Surface Duo for example, it lagged in features behind Samsung phones. It's shocking that a CEO would allow themselves to be upstaged by a competitor on their own platform. And it's not just the Duo. Windows Mixed Reality never integrated with Hololens which never integrated with Xbox. There's a slew of gaming handhelds being held back because Microsoft hasn't customized Windows for them. Microsoft Movies & TV still hasn't made it to other platforms. And that's despite the fact that the its predecessor, Zune Video Marketplace, was released in 2006!

Basically, if you buy one Microsoft product, buying another won't enhance your MS ecosystem any differently than buying a competitor's product. Sometimes, Satya's one-size-fits-all approach is great for certain situations. But sometimes you just want your $1,000+ device to be able to do something that cheaper devices can't.
I never knew Microsoft had a movies & TV. Then again, I have Netflix.
 
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GraniteStateColin

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The thing is, for consumers, Microsoft products are commodities. Windows and Office are what they use for work. The average consumer at home isn't interested in using at home what he or she spends using all day at work. The brand value Microsoft has it for business purposes, not for consumers to enjoy.

Laura, I know you're right for many business-only users. But MS does have consumer-facing brands. Xbox is the most obvious, but Windows USED TO BE one too. It still has consumer value for gaming. Probably less than Steam at this point, but consider things like the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go: to the extent those have appeal over the Steam Deck, it's largely because they run Windows out of the box.

Microsoft is one of a small handful of giant corporate members of the Movies Anywhere alliance (the only safe group to purchase movies because buy it from any of them and watch it across all and if any go out of business, your movies are still yours to watch digitally) and is one of the best places to purchase or rent new movies. This was a capability that seemed especially important when the Xbox One was new (and when MS also had a decent chunk of the music market). The Xbox One was one of the best tools for playing movies whether disc-based or streaming, the only mainstream device that you could play and control entirely with voice controls (I still miss it).

A lot of us also use Excel and OneNote for personal notes and tracking. Kids use PowerPoint for school presentations. I'm (slowly, on my personal time) writing a novel in Word. If MS hadn't stabbed Skype in the back by rolling out Teams Personal without any transition plan, Skype would also be a powerful personal brand. There are others outside of gaming; these are just a few examples.

Oh, and arguably, the Surface line has been more of a consumer line than a business line (Surface PCs and phones weren't even sold through typical enterprise retailers for its initial iterations, though I believe Surface PCs are now).

The key point here is that MS has brand value with BOTH enterprise and consumer users, but it's pissing away the consumer brand (maybe it's almost already all gone). Ultimately, that will harm the enterprise brand too, because enterprises are comprised of people who are consumers outside of work. And if those people love Google or someone else for competing products or services that resemble what they use at home, then some of them will flip their enterprises to what they know and love (ironically, this is probably why MS released Teams Personal, but the rollout was so consumer-naive that MS damaged both brands). Even if the IT manager at their enterprise ultimately decides to stay with MS, it makes it more work for MS to keep those customers. This is the importance of brand value -- it's easiest to win a sale when you're already top-of-mind and viewed favorably; it's cheaper to keep customers than to win new ones or win back previously lost customers; and brand-positive customers are far more likely to try out something new and react positively than brand-apathetic or brand-angry customers.
 
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Laura Knotek

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Laura, I know you're right for many business-only users. But MS does have consumer-facing brands. Xbox is the most obvious, but Windows USED TO BE one too. It still has consumer value for gaming. Probably less than Steam at this point, but consider things like the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go: to the extent those have appeal over the Steam Deck, it's largely because they run Windows out of the box.

Microsoft is one of a small handful of giant corporate members of the Movies Anywhere alliance (the only safe group to purchase movies because buy it from any of them and watch it across all and if any go out of business, your movies are still yours to watch digitally) and is one of the best places to purchase or rent new movies. This was a capability that seemed especially important when the Xbox One was new (and when MS also had a decent chunk of the music market). The Xbox One was one of the best tools for playing movies whether disc-based or streaming, the only mainstream device that you could play and control entirely with voice controls (I still miss it).

A lot of us also use Excel and OneNote for personal notes and tracking. Kids use PowerPoint for school presentations. I'm (slowly, on my personal time) writing a novel in Word. If MS hadn't stabbed Skype in the back by rolling out Teams Personal without any transition plan, Skype would also be a powerful personal brand. There are others outside of gaming; these are just a few examples.

Oh, and arguably, the Surface line has been more of a consumer line than a business line (Surface PCs and phones weren't even sold through typical enterprise retailers for its initial iterations, though I believe Surface PCs are now).

The key point here is that MS has brand value with BOTH enterprise and consumer users, but it's pissing away the consumer brand (maybe it's almost already all gone). Ultimately, that will harm the enterprise brand too, because enterprises are comprised of people who are consumers outside of work. And if those people love Google or someone else for competing products or services that resemble what they use at home, then some of them will flip their enterprises to what they know and love (ironically, this is probably why MS released Teams Personal, but the rollout was so consumer-naive that MS damaged both brands). Even if the IT manager at their enterprise ultimately decides to stay with MS, it makes it more work for MS to keep those customers. This is the importance of brand value -- it's easiest to win a sale when you're already top-of-mind and viewed favorably; it's cheaper to keep customers than to win new ones or win back previously lost customers; and brand-positive customers are far more likely to try out something new and react positively than brand-apathetic or brand-angry customers.
I'd consider school use to be in the business category. Other than potential gaming, kids aren't using Windows for enjoyment. The PC gaming industry isn't doing well at this time, either. https://www.businessinsider.com/vid...nsive,and sophisticated, costs are ballooning.
 

GraniteStateColin

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I'd consider school use to be in the business category. Other than potential gaming, kids aren't using Windows for enjoyment. The PC gaming industry isn't doing well at this time, either. https://www.businessinsider.com/video-games-xbox-playstation-spider-man-movie-business-trouble-why-2024-2#:~:text=Games are getting more expensive,and sophisticated, costs are ballooning.

Just an anecdote, but my daughter uses her Surface Laptop Studio for all her artwork, which is how she spends most of her free time (she's still in high school, but I have no doubt will be a professional artist one day). Occasionally she games, including playing Minecraft with her younger brother, which works for free natively over our home LAN. Now she may have a bias, because I am a Microsoft supporter (or at least have been, getting fed up with them) and probably pushed her in that direction. But Chromebooks are horrible (just worthless in terms of what they can do and available software tools). Macs, while popular among artists, lack the Windows (and iPad Pro) touchscreen with pen support. Also, where Windows has a rich set of keyboard shortcuts for everything, something most of us power users thirst for, and a standardized right-click action menu from the mouse, the Mac OS is simplistic to the point of being crippled. It's pretty, but just a very inefficient OS to get things done, plus it still has paltry hardware support.

My son games on both Xbox and his Windows gaming PC (home built). Don't tell him, but he's getting a Lenovo Legion Go for Christmas this year to have something to play on when we travel that's better than the old Kindle Fire he had been using. That Legion Go also runs Windows.

My wife does all her home stuff that requires typing more than a few words on Windows (Surface Pro). She uses her Android phone for simpler things, but when she needs to write an email, fill out some form, or look up anything more than a paragraph in length? Always back to her Windows PC.

I don't go anywhere without my HP Spectre x360. Just last night I used the pen to draw notes on some artwork I was reviewing on the HP. Yeah, that's work, but I did it sitting on the couch at home while watching TV (either FBI or Tulsa King). I'm working right now on my potent 13th gen Core i9 with 64GB RAM and 3 monitors, including a 43" 4K main screen. One of the screens is a small 13" touchscreen, the other a vertical 30" for my Outlook email and occasional long-form documents. Nothing but Windows could handle such a hodgepodge of hardware in my custom configuration. This is my main work computer when I'm not on the road, but it's a pretty good gaming system too. It also stores over a thousand CD's I bought before streaming music was big and connects to our game room so I can play any album using the Samsung TV remote to play the music from my Windows computer (thanks to windows built-in DLNA media server).

Without Windows, we'd find alternatives, but nothing else could provide all of that anywhere near as well. There's just nothing else right now that could replace Windows for these functions. There's the rumor about Valve making its Steam OS available to other hardware makers. That could turn out to be a good gaming system, purely for gaming (but would it be better than Windows? probably not). And the iPad Pro has a passable UI and reasonable app support for artists (but no serious games and the versions of Office are weak compared to the Windows versions). Android and Chrome OS are not even close yet in terms of viable apps and real games. Only Windows still brings all those capabilities together in one place. It lacks the huge lead in capabilities it once had, but for me, as frustrated as I am with MS' abandonment of more and more of the things that made Windows great and ditching their efforts to extend it to other form factors (e.g., phone), it's still the best option available in the big tablet through desktop size range.
 
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Laura Knotek

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Just an anecdote, but my daughter uses her Surface Laptop Studio for all her artwork, which is how she spends most of her free time (she's still in high school, but I have no doubt will be a professional artist one day). Occasionally she games, including playing Minecraft with her younger brother, which works for free natively over our home LAN. Now she may have a bias, because I am a Microsoft supporter (or at least have been, getting fed up with them) and probably pushed her in that direction. But Chromebooks are horrible (just worthless in terms of what they can do and available software tools). Macs, while popular among artists, lack the Windows (and iPad Pro) touchscreen with pen support. Also, where Windows has a rich set of keyboard shortcuts for everything, something most of us power users thirst for, and a standardized right-click action menu from the mouse, the Mac OS is simplistic to the point of being crippled. It's pretty, but just a very inefficient OS to get things done, plus it still has paltry hardware support.

My son games on both Xbox and his Windows gaming PC (home built). Don't tell him, but he's getting a Lenovo Legion Go for Christmas this year to have something to play on when we travel that's better than the old Kindle Fire he had been using. That Legion Go also runs Windows.

My wife does all her home stuff that requires typing more than a few words on Windows (Surface Pro). She uses her Android phone for simpler things, but when she needs to write an email, fill out some form, or look up anything more than a paragraph in length? Always back to her Windows PC.

I don't go anywhere without my HP Spectre x360. Just last night I used the pen to draw notes on some artwork I was reviewing on the HP. Yeah, that's work, but I did it sitting on the couch at home while watching TV (either FBI or Tulsa King). I'm working right now on my potent 13th gen Core i9 with 64GB RAM and 3 monitors, including a 43" 4K main screen. One of the screens is a small 13" touchscreen, the other a vertical 30" for my Outlook email and occasional long-form documents. Nothing but Windows could handle such a hodgepodge of hardware in my custom configuration. This is my main work computer when I'm not on the road, but it's a pretty good gaming system too. It also stores over a thousand CD's I bought before streaming music was big and connects to our game room so I can play any album using the Samsung TV remote to play the music from my Windows computer (thanks to windows built-in DLNA media server).

Without Windows, we'd find alternatives, but nothing else could provide all of that anywhere near as well. There's just nothing else right now that could replace Windows for these functions. There's the rumor about Valve making its Steam OS available to other hardware makers. That could turn out to be a good gaming system, purely for gaming (but would it be better than Windows? probably not). And the iPad Pro has a passable UI and reasonable app support for artists (but no serious games and the versions of Office are weak compared to the Windows versions). Android and Chrome OS are not even close yet in terms of viable apps and real games. Only Windows still brings all those capabilities together in one place. It lacks the huge lead in capabilities it once had, but for me, as frustrated as I am with MS' abandonment of more and more of the things that made Windows great and ditching their efforts to extend it to other form factors (e.g., phone), it's still the best option available in the big tablet through desktop size range.

I used Windows more in the past before having Samsung phones. With my S Pen, I'm able to fill out/sign forms, take notes, and do other things. I'm not an artist, but there is a Samsung app called Penup that features both colouring and lets one do freehand drawing. Most of my emails are done on my phone, since I always have it with me, unlike my desktop gaming PC that I built. Almost all my forum activities are done using my phone, not my PC. The only thing I use the PC exclusively for is gaming. I don't do any mobile gaming, nor do I own any gaming console. For music, I play vinyl records at home and stream in the car or at the gym. My TV has the YouTube and Netflix apps, so I don't need the PC. The TV is on my home network, along with all my other devices. I also keep recipes on my phone so I'll have them in the kitchen while cooking. I also have Linux Mint on my PC in case Windows becomes worse with too much Copilot or further dumbing down of the taskbar and context menu. The context menu is terrible and takes more time to use when most of the time "show more options" is needed instead of just a right click. I also liked the small icon taskbar which is gone in Windows 11. Windows 10 was great, but it seems like Microsoft is deliberately making Windows 11 less productive by dumbing down the features that made work faster for long-time Windows users. New Outlook is terrible too. I'd like to use Windows more, but it's lost features that I like while adding features that are useless to me but can't be uninstalled.
 
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