7 ms·

I'm more than a little confused about MS "mobile" strategy. Continuum sounds like a good idea, in theory. For enterprise I can kinda see it be attractive to jus

by mhomde 10y ago

I'm more than a little confused about MS "mobile" strategy. Continuum sounds like a good idea, in theory. For enterprise I can kinda see it be attractive to just give your employees mobile phones and hook the office up with continuum docks. But it seems problematic in more than one aspect. For starters it's based on the fact that people are going to want to use a windows mobile as their primary device to start with. MS could have been there, in fact they almost were there, but they've let the mobile side drift aimlessly to the point were neither vendors nor third-party developers have any faith left in their mobile efforts. I could never wrap my head around how strategically MS could just let mobile go and not take the fight. It seems so integral to so many other efforts. Another problem, is continuum really a good idea for anything else than niché scenarios? I have trouble coming up with use-cases. A laptop you can bring with you to meetings, on planes etc. With continuum you need a lap dock for that.. but then you have a sub-par laptop and a phone. I guess if I were travelling it could be nice to just bring a mobile and connect it to a setup at a co-working space. But is carrying a dell xps 13 around really such a big deal? and what if I want to use a computer outside of the co-working space/office? Then we have x86 apps on the mobile platform. There's been a lot of people wanting to see "Desktop" apps on mobile... I can understand that from a "continuum as a computer" perspective, if you buy into the continuum premise, but I can't see x86 software ever work well on a mobile form factor with the battery limits and UI challenges that comes with that. So what is Microsoft's plan, now it seems they're just throwing stuff on the walls and to see what sticks. I'm a bigger UWP and .Net proponent than most, but I wish Microsoft would get their shit together and start executing across the board. There's a bunch of stuff in UWP that could make the windows platform larger than the sum of its parts if you are in the ecosystem. Roaming settings/files, Notification mirroring and synchronization, universal apps, continuum, continue on another device etc etc. But it requires that there actually is an viable windows mobile that people wants to buy.

drawnwren 10y ago
My personal take away from your critique is that the problem is not just the computer. We also need a mobile display solution. Whether MS thinks they have that solved with their coming AR devices or they are looking farther down the pipe, I'm not sure. I think MS's plan right now is to not have a plan. Many of their products point to them thinking that we are at a point where computers are making a fundamental shift in the way we interact with them (Surface, AR, this) but not necessarily being sure where the shift is going.
- mhomde 10y ago
  I have a little hard time seeing AR-glasses and minority report like gloves/hand waving (or virtual keyboards) being feasible (at least before a couple of generations of improvements), but perhaps that's lack of imagination on my behalf. It seems like it get's more expensive/more complicated while not solving the same problems. Sure in the far far future there might be feasible solution but in the meantime it would be nice if Microsoft had an idea of where they were headed instead of shrugging and going "well let's just see" :) They need to keep their ecosystem competitive to be positioned to take advantage of that future, whatever it is.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    I have a little hard time seeing AR-glasses and minority report like gloves/hand waving (or virtual keyboards) being feasible (at least before a couple of generations of improvements), but perhaps that's lack of imagination on my behalf AR-glasses should be given to programmers and traders. What if AR-glasses could somehow be synchronized with what you're looking at in your IDE/editor? How about "diff-vision?" -- You could have a visual overlay that diffs the currently shown method/function with another bit of code from a stack? I think the gloves are silly. Hand gestures would be a nice supplement to function keys. Heck, I could envision a bunch of good gestures that would mean less finger travel than function keys.
    - mhomde 10y ago
      What's the benefit against just visualizing it on the screen? Another problem is how comfortable it is staring through AR glasses hours at and end. I don't want to be the person to only see problems however, there might be some nice scenarios.
      - stcredzero 10y ago
        What's the benefit against just visualizing it on the screen? If it was somewhat independent of any particular tool, it's possible that I could diff faster and more conveniently. If I can do it 5x faster than with a desktop tool, then I would probably use diffs a lot more often. It's the kind of change that happened with git vs. svn: certain information became much easier to use, and so the way that information was used fundamentally changed. I'd also use such a tool differently. Instead of going statement-by-statement or character by character, I'd want to see at a glance the degree of similarity, then transition to a desktop tool to look at details.
LeanderK 10y ago
i have immediately thought of that. Also Microsoft has Office Apps for Smartphones. I downloaded them once, but never used them. For a quick view a browser based solution would be sufficient, i really don't need full editing capabilities on my smartphone. Speaking of tablets is entirely different, but microsoft already has the surface computer/tablet mix.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  I use Word on Android + the MS fold-able mobile keyboard (pic in the article) to edit documents a lot. It works well for me on my P8 max. I am not the average user but I can't wait to never need a laptop or tablet again and just take my phone (or, better yet, clam shell) and fold able keyboard.
  - LeanderK 10y ago
    well, use cases might differ. I do most of the stuff on my laptop and only use my smartphone for reading in the train and social messaging.
- int_19h 10y ago
  Why can't there be a smartphone/tablet/desktop mix? With a single device, so that your apps are always running, you're always in the same place, all your data is always there (connectivity or no) etc. ASUS actually already tried a smartphone/tablet device with PadPhone, but it lacked the productivity angle that full-fledged Win10 would bring to the table. Also, I think the idea of physically docking the phone into the tablet is counter-productive, because it results in a bulky device, and you cannot use the phone. A simple tablet that is basically just a wireless display with touch makes a lot more sense, and the phone can stay in the pocket. I also wonder how much lighter the tablet could be made if it didn't have to have a powerful chipset, and cooling for it.
stcredzero 10y ago
I could never wrap my head around how strategically MS could just let mobile go and not take the fight. Senseless Corporate Priority inversions are most often some combination of internal politics and/or money grabs. I have trouble coming up with use-cases...but then you have a sub-par laptop and a phone. People who prioritize for ultra light weight already have a "sub-par laptop." So what if you could get rid of the laptop? A large company that standardized around docks would make that possible. All large companies standardizing around, say USB-C connectors and a Windows ubiquitous wireless "dock" standard would make that possible for US corporations in general. I wish Microsoft would get their shit together and start executing across the board. It's just sad seeing the mix mash of wasted potential. Despite their huge success, such a statement could apply to Microsoft throughout most of its long history. I suspect that internal politics is behind much of that.
- mhomde 10y ago
  I dunno, take the Dell xps 13, depending on your specs you have pretty powerful laptop in a 11" format. Compare that against the HP Lap dock (https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/HP-Elite-x3-Lap-Dock/productID.5069318900 https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/HP-Elit...). Expensive and it isn't even a full laptop. I think the problem I'm having with continuum is that it's based on us only using the computer in a few fixed places, whereas the good thing about laptops is that they can be used anywhere.. I agree that internal politics is most definitively the bane of Microsoft's existence :)
  - noveltyaccount 10y ago
    > I think the problem I'm having with continuum is that it's based on us only using the computer in a few fixed places I'm still holding out hope for a "Surface phone" with a laptop dock. The dock would really just be a battery, keyboard, trackpad, display, and probably a few USB ports.
    - stcredzero 10y ago
      I'd add a GTX 1060 GPU.
wysiwyg3826 10y ago
Personally, I like the idea of having one compute device that is always with me BUT only if it can be both a good phone and a good PC. Windows Continuum made no sense to me because Windows is a niche platform on mobile so it wasn't a good phone, and it didn't run my favorite Windows apps in PC mode either! With Windows 10 on Snapdragon, however, it could be a decent desktop PC (assuming a good dock with KVM and connectivity) but will it also be a good phone? That remains to be seen but I won't be surprised if some people start buying the new devices as low-end PC replacements (then using them as phones). If enough people do that, then developers might be persuaded to port native apps to Snapdragons, thereby enticing more people to buy these devices (iteratively)...
pedalpete 10y ago
"So what is Microsoft's plan, now it seems they're just throwing stuff on the walls and to see what sticks." Yes, and this is exactly what they should be doing. In some ways, it is what Microsoft has often done in the past. Remember Windows Tablet circa 2004? It may have been a complete failure, but it shows Microsoft was looking toward and understood the future. Unfortunately it came at a time when Microsoft was not executing quite as well as they are now (in most areas I'd say - up for debate). Many comments in the parent thread are about how this will lead to 'sub-par' laptops and 'AR isn't good enough', but they aren't building this for today, they are building this for 5-10 years from now. It may be released next year (I hope so), but it will take a while for interaction and hardware and possibly social norms to catch-up. Yes, this is what Microsoft should be doing now. Try 1,000,000 things, get 100 out into the market, see what people respond to. This is what we tell start-ups to do all the time, and we suggest that big corporates should imitate start-ups, but then we bludgeon them when they put out an incomplete product.
- roryisok 10y ago
  Absolutely agree. "seeing what sticks" is also called innovation. It's what Amazon and Microsoft are excelling at and what Apple has forgotten how to do
  - blauditore 10y ago
    I think the problem at MS is indeed not the lack of innovation, but the lack of synchronizing the different efforts and listening to feedback (i.e. checking if it actually sticks). In years of using and developing for WP, I've been baffled several times by how unsynchronized some of their actions looked from the outside. One thing always enraging WP users was that Android and iOS counterparts of MS apps received new features earlier than their WP counterparts, if at all. While the other platforms are surely important, it looks like even MS doesn't really believe in its own mobile platform. I just never could get rid of the impression that one layer of management isn't doing it's job propery.
    - roryisok 10y ago
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
> I could never wrap my head around how strategically MS could just let mobile go and not take the fight. It seems so integral to so many other efforts. Real men have mobile platforms.
petra 10y ago
The continuum stuff is maybe the long term plan. But i think they could have a decent short term plan: What about an affordable 7"-8" tablet that can offer windows mobile gaming(with an add-on joystick) and media + serve as a computer + serve as a media center ? could be a great fit for a the gamer niche, teens , and frugal consumers. And a 7" platfrom is a great beachhead to encourage app development for 5" phones.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  >frugal consumers I feel like nobody is attempting to hit that market anymore in the US. As the income gap widens it seems foolish to ignore the majority of the marketplace.
  - dpark 10y ago
    You can buy a 7" Fire tablet for $50. The market is not lacking options for frugal customers.
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      It's a start, Amazon is smart to move in that market. I say put Linux on it and add a keyboard and we'd be getting somewhere.
      - dpark 10y ago
        The market for people who care about Linux on a 7" tablet is effectively zero. I'm also pretty sure it supports keyboards. Attaching one permanently and turning it into a 7" laptop would make it unsellable.
        majewsky 10y ago
        I still have a WeTab at home that used to run Plasma Mobile (or whatever it was called back then). Those were the times.
        10y ago
petecox 10y ago
> For starters it's based on the fact that people are going to want to use a windows mobile as their primary device to start with. WP10 as the main OS, launch Android in a hypervisor, which ARMv8 supports.

by mhomde 10y ago

drawnwren 10y ago

My personal take away from your critique is that the problem is not just the computer. We also need a mobile display solution. Whether MS thinks they have that solved with their coming AR devices or they are looking farther down the pipe, I'm not sure. I think MS's plan right now is to not have a plan. Many of their products point to them thinking that we are at a point where computers are making a fundamental shift in the way we interact with them (Surface, AR, this) but not necessarily being sure where the shift is going.

mhomde 10y ago
I have a little hard time seeing AR-glasses and minority report like gloves/hand waving (or virtual keyboards) being feasible (at least before a couple of generations of improvements), but perhaps that's lack of imagination on my behalf. It seems like it get's more expensive/more complicated while not solving the same problems. Sure in the far far future there might be feasible solution but in the meantime it would be nice if Microsoft had an idea of where they were headed instead of shrugging and going "well let's just see" :) They need to keep their ecosystem competitive to be positioned to take advantage of that future, whatever it is.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  I have a little hard time seeing AR-glasses and minority report like gloves/hand waving (or virtual keyboards) being feasible (at least before a couple of generations of improvements), but perhaps that's lack of imagination on my behalf AR-glasses should be given to programmers and traders. What if AR-glasses could somehow be synchronized with what you're looking at in your IDE/editor? How about "diff-vision?" -- You could have a visual overlay that diffs the currently shown method/function with another bit of code from a stack? I think the gloves are silly. Hand gestures would be a nice supplement to function keys. Heck, I could envision a bunch of good gestures that would mean less finger travel than function keys.
  - mhomde 10y ago
    What's the benefit against just visualizing it on the screen? Another problem is how comfortable it is staring through AR glasses hours at and end. I don't want to be the person to only see problems however, there might be some nice scenarios.
    - stcredzero 10y ago
      What's the benefit against just visualizing it on the screen? If it was somewhat independent of any particular tool, it's possible that I could diff faster and more conveniently. If I can do it 5x faster than with a desktop tool, then I would probably use diffs a lot more often. It's the kind of change that happened with git vs. svn: certain information became much easier to use, and so the way that information was used fundamentally changed. I'd also use such a tool differently. Instead of going statement-by-statement or character by character, I'd want to see at a glance the degree of similarity, then transition to a desktop tool to look at details.

LeanderK 10y ago

i have immediately thought of that. Also Microsoft has Office Apps for Smartphones. I downloaded them once, but never used them. For a quick view a browser based solution would be sufficient, i really don't need full editing capabilities on my smartphone. Speaking of tablets is entirely different, but microsoft already has the surface computer/tablet mix.

tluyben2 10y ago
I use Word on Android + the MS fold-able mobile keyboard (pic in the article) to edit documents a lot. It works well for me on my P8 max. I am not the average user but I can't wait to never need a laptop or tablet again and just take my phone (or, better yet, clam shell) and fold able keyboard.
- LeanderK 10y ago
  well, use cases might differ. I do most of the stuff on my laptop and only use my smartphone for reading in the train and social messaging.
int_19h 10y ago
Why can't there be a smartphone/tablet/desktop mix? With a single device, so that your apps are always running, you're always in the same place, all your data is always there (connectivity or no) etc. ASUS actually already tried a smartphone/tablet device with PadPhone, but it lacked the productivity angle that full-fledged Win10 would bring to the table. Also, I think the idea of physically docking the phone into the tablet is counter-productive, because it results in a bulky device, and you cannot use the phone. A simple tablet that is basically just a wireless display with touch makes a lot more sense, and the phone can stay in the pocket. I also wonder how much lighter the tablet could be made if it didn't have to have a powerful chipset, and cooling for it.

stcredzero 10y ago

I could never wrap my head around how strategically MS could just let mobile go and not take the fight. Senseless Corporate Priority inversions are most often some combination of internal politics and/or money grabs. I have trouble coming up with use-cases...but then you have a sub-par laptop and a phone. People who prioritize for ultra light weight already have a "sub-par laptop." So what if you could get rid of the laptop? A large company that standardized around docks would make that possible. All large companies standardizing around, say USB-C connectors and a Windows ubiquitous wireless "dock" standard would make that possible for US corporations in general. I wish Microsoft would get their shit together and start executing across the board. It's just sad seeing the mix mash of wasted potential. Despite their huge success, such a statement could apply to Microsoft throughout most of its long history. I suspect that internal politics is behind much of that.

mhomde 10y ago
I dunno, take the Dell xps 13, depending on your specs you have pretty powerful laptop in a 11" format. Compare that against the HP Lap dock (https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/HP-Elite-x3-Lap-Dock/productID.5069318900 https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/HP-Elit...). Expensive and it isn't even a full laptop. I think the problem I'm having with continuum is that it's based on us only using the computer in a few fixed places, whereas the good thing about laptops is that they can be used anywhere.. I agree that internal politics is most definitively the bane of Microsoft's existence :)
- noveltyaccount 10y ago
  > I think the problem I'm having with continuum is that it's based on us only using the computer in a few fixed places I'm still holding out hope for a "Surface phone" with a laptop dock. The dock would really just be a battery, keyboard, trackpad, display, and probably a few USB ports.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    I'd add a GTX 1060 GPU.

wysiwyg3826 10y ago

Personally, I like the idea of having one compute device that is always with me BUT only if it can be both a good phone and a good PC. Windows Continuum made no sense to me because Windows is a niche platform on mobile so it wasn't a good phone, and it didn't run my favorite Windows apps in PC mode either! With Windows 10 on Snapdragon, however, it could be a decent desktop PC (assuming a good dock with KVM and connectivity) but will it also be a good phone? That remains to be seen but I won't be surprised if some people start buying the new devices as low-end PC replacements (then using them as phones). If enough people do that, then developers might be persuaded to port native apps to Snapdragons, thereby enticing more people to buy these devices (iteratively)...

pedalpete 10y ago

"So what is Microsoft's plan, now it seems they're just throwing stuff on the walls and to see what sticks." Yes, and this is exactly what they should be doing. In some ways, it is what Microsoft has often done in the past. Remember Windows Tablet circa 2004? It may have been a complete failure, but it shows Microsoft was looking toward and understood the future. Unfortunately it came at a time when Microsoft was not executing quite as well as they are now (in most areas I'd say - up for debate). Many comments in the parent thread are about how this will lead to 'sub-par' laptops and 'AR isn't good enough', but they aren't building this for today, they are building this for 5-10 years from now. It may be released next year (I hope so), but it will take a while for interaction and hardware and possibly social norms to catch-up. Yes, this is what Microsoft should be doing now. Try 1,000,000 things, get 100 out into the market, see what people respond to. This is what we tell start-ups to do all the time, and we suggest that big corporates should imitate start-ups, but then we bludgeon them when they put out an incomplete product.

roryisok 10y ago
Absolutely agree. "seeing what sticks" is also called innovation. It's what Amazon and Microsoft are excelling at and what Apple has forgotten how to do
- blauditore 10y ago
  I think the problem at MS is indeed not the lack of innovation, but the lack of synchronizing the different efforts and listening to feedback (i.e. checking if it actually sticks). In years of using and developing for WP, I've been baffled several times by how unsynchronized some of their actions looked from the outside. One thing always enraging WP users was that Android and iOS counterparts of MS apps received new features earlier than their WP counterparts, if at all. While the other platforms are surely important, it looks like even MS doesn't really believe in its own mobile platform. I just never could get rid of the impression that one layer of management isn't doing it's job propery.
  - roryisok 10y ago

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago

> I could never wrap my head around how strategically MS could just let mobile go and not take the fight. It seems so integral to so many other efforts. Real men have mobile platforms.

petra 10y ago

The continuum stuff is maybe the long term plan. But i think they could have a decent short term plan: What about an affordable 7"-8" tablet that can offer windows mobile gaming(with an add-on joystick) and media + serve as a computer + serve as a media center ? could be a great fit for a the gamer niche, teens , and frugal consumers. And a 7" platfrom is a great beachhead to encourage app development for 5" phones.

cmdrfred 10y ago
>frugal consumers I feel like nobody is attempting to hit that market anymore in the US. As the income gap widens it seems foolish to ignore the majority of the marketplace.
- dpark 10y ago
  You can buy a 7" Fire tablet for $50. The market is not lacking options for frugal customers.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    It's a start, Amazon is smart to move in that market. I say put Linux on it and add a keyboard and we'd be getting somewhere.
    - dpark 10y ago
      The market for people who care about Linux on a 7" tablet is effectively zero. I'm also pretty sure it supports keyboards. Attaching one permanently and turning it into a 7" laptop would make it unsellable.
      - majewsky 10y ago
        I still have a WeTab at home that used to run Plasma Mobile (or whatever it was called back then). Those were the times.
      - 10y ago

petecox 10y ago

> For starters it's based on the fact that people are going to want to use a windows mobile as their primary device to start with. WP10 as the main OS, launch Android in a hypervisor, which ARMv8 supports.