Will Microsoft ditch WP?

[psudotechzealot]

in android central and imore you will never ever see threads like this.

To be fair, Android and Iphone are still selling.

 

[quotethepigeon]

this thread has run it's course, it's another wp will fail thread. we don't know what microsoft is planning but they are definitely not abandoning wp. in android central and imore you will never ever see threads like this. if you're saying wp will fail then keep it to yourself, stop making people feel bad for owning something, make them feel god for the choice they made

Have faith in WP.

It's a forum , a place for discussion regarding different points of view.
Just because you don't agree with an opinion it doesn't mean people should "keep it to themselves".

 

[StuBeck]

No, they won't. Cutting the Nokia staff was always going to happen no matter what the anti-MS fanboys want you to think. It unfortunately doesn't make sense to keep the entire staff when you buy out another company. They have invested enough in WP and Win RT to get rid of them as they are getting market share in emerging markets. They DO need to make a general purpose high end phone if they want the US and high end Europe market, but otherwise they are doing very well to get to where they are right now.

 

[TechFreak1]

Seriously? This defies all logic as a few have said WP 8.1 is running the latest version of the NT Kernal. If Ms going to call it quits, they would have after they dropped support for WM 6.x. The reason why WP hasn't gained that much traction in the USA as because they are to focused on polishing apps on competing platforms, not to mention not utilising their major brand asset - Xbox. Which is huge in the US, if all the games released on windows phone had Xbox live integration with achievements you can bet it would had pushed a lot of sales.

This is where the MS marketing team have failed, MS is in a unique position where they have a tremendous amount of Brand leverage and loyalty in regards to Xbox. They used this to sell Wp7 and that was a good idea.. but where it failed was the certification process, it was a nightmare for indie devs to get through it (let alone get the xbox live certification). The open source xbox live framework would have addressed this however it has gone the way of the courier tablet... in to thin air. The return of the 40+ xbox live titles, is a good start now they need to retain that momentum.

In terms of ditching the finns, they haven't.. phone development is still happening in Finland and majority of the cuts are factory workers and the Asha series (which makes sense as they have low budget windows phone devices).

in terms of Microsoft's phone engineering efforts, Elop indicated that future high end Lumia devices will continue to be developed in Salo, Finland, while the budget priced phones will be developed in Tampere, Finland. Elop confined that the company will "ramp down engineering work in Oulu", which helped to develop software for Nokia's Asha feature phone line.

Elop added:

While we plan to reduce the engineering in Beijing and San Diego, both sites will continue to have supporting roles, including affordable devices in Beijing and supporting specific US requirements in San Diego. Espoo and Lund are planned to continue to be focused on application software development. We plan to right-size our manufacturing operations to align to the new strategy and take advantage of integration opportunities. We expect to focus phone production mainly in Hanoi, with some production to continue in Beijing and Dongguan. We plan to shift other Microsoft manufacturing and repair operations to Manaus and Reynosa respectively, and start a phased exit from Komaron, Hungary.

Stephen Elop explains how recent job cuts will affect Microsoft's handset division | Windows Phone Central

 

[dgr_874]

I don't think that Microsoft is abandoning WP. Trimming the amount of products they are responsible for way down in order to support them better was a given after the purchase of Nokia's handset division. However, I firmly believe that WP is going to take a backseat to the software side of the house in order to focus on getting people to use Microsoft services over the next year or two. Just look at how many Microsoft services work on all the different platforms. OneDrive, Skype (better on iOS and android), Xbox music, and now Office on iPad(something people wanted for years). You can almost move from platform to platform and keep using Microsoft's services with hardly any interruption.

For me, I think its awesome they are doing that. By having Microsoft's services wherever I go, I have freedom in what hardware I use. If Apple comes out with a great phone, I can use it with little interruption in using my data. When I get bored with that, I can always switch to the flavor of the month Android and still keep using my data. Then if someone makes an awesome windows phone, I can just comfortably move back to that. I think that would be awesome. In fact, this reminds me of how Microsoft got started and their push for "a computer on every desk running windows" of so many years ago that was massively successful for them. I think they are going to do the same thing for services on all the other platforms.

Once they have all their software running well on everyone's platform, and have worked out the kinks with "threshold", then I think they will be in a good position to refocus back on the hardware. I'm sure some nice stuff will come along in the next year or two to try and keep people interested, but that's not going to be the focus in my opinion.

TL DR Version,
Software focus first (especially subscription based ones), hardware on the backburner until "threshold"

 

[colinkiama]

lol i blame xbox live certification. remove that and a flock of games will be released on the store

 

[colinkiama]

i also blame the fact that you can't make 8/8.1 apps on windows 7. most developers are on 7. they won't switch their os to develop for something with low marketshare. windows 7 is the key!

 

[Divjot Singh]

This pretty much makes me believe that they are 100% committed.

Windows Phone

 

[leo5122]

my 2 cents on the whole thing, calling MS A-Holes for laying off half the Nokia people is WRONG! know why??? because either "A" Nokia themselves were eventualy going to do a house cleaning "B" no matter who bought Nokia they 100% would have done same thing, say wow! you have 3 departments all doing the exact same thing GOODBYE!.... :winktongue:

 

[three_thoughts]

Killing the Nokia X and shifting the designs to making low cost windows phones is pretty much the biggest sign that MS is committed to the platform.

They are rapidly catching up. A year ago, not many people would have heard of Windows Phone and I pretty much never saw anyone using one. Now I see several every day on my commute here in the UK. It's mostly low end 520's, 620's and 625's.

As Elop said, they aren't trying to make money on the hardware, they are trying to get volume to make money on the services. So hopefully we will see more low end Lumia's with good specs for really great value much like the 630 and 635 and compete in the mid range with the Moto G.

Windows Phone doesn't need to be better at everything than Android or iOS to succeed. It just needs to be good enough at enough things for most people, and be offered at a good price.

 

[Pete The Penguin]

Originally the plan was to merge Windows RT and Windows Phone together, but then came Universal apps in Windows Phone 8.1 for PC and phone.

Now they are going a step further, the person above me has explained this pretty well.

WP is not dead, improvements are being made at a rapid pace.
Sent from my RM-914_im_mea3_380 using Tapatalk

Win RT and WP are being merged, hence Universal Apps.
Soon, there will be on OS to rule them all.

 

[rockstarzzz]

This thread has run its course (did it ever have one?) and we don't like FUDs at WPCentral. Also, its as aimless as any off topic thread we've created in the past. There are about 349 threads with similar things that we've talked about since 2010 on this forum - WP is still here.