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Microsoft did manage to port Windows to mobile platforms, with success to some extent. Notice that it's Windows for Desktop that maintains support for legacy so

by Pmop 7y ago

Microsoft did manage to port Windows to mobile platforms, with success to some extent. Notice that it's Windows for Desktop that maintains support for legacy software. Support for legacy software isn't necessarily detrimental to success. Microsoft's lost battle in phone market has nothing to do with it. In addition, Microsoft seems to be doing just fine in the other markets, and it's been growing on cloud, which we may consider to be a new market. The whole 'support legacy and risk being stuck on the past' argument makes no sense.

scarface74 7y ago
What “success” was that? Sure it had some modicum of success with Win CE/Win32/and .Net compact framework but success was fleeting. The development environment was nice but they ended up completely killing backwards compatibility with the newer versions and abandoned all of the enterprise/ruggedized devices. The last version of Visual Studio that supported then was VS 2007 while there were plenty of $1000+ ruggedized devices and kiosks that still ran Windows CE - I developed for them back in the day.
threeseed 7y ago
Windows on mobile was a mess. You couldn't just take any Windows app and run it. It had to be a specially designed UWP one of which there weren't many. And then there was different OSs depending on whether it was on ARM or not, running UWP exclusively or not. I am a developer and even I couldn't understand the rules. It's unquestionable that Microsoft's decision not to encourage developers to rewrite their apps (or at least offer a Carbon solution) really hurt them in the mobile space.
- cwyers 7y ago
  You can't run any Mac apps on iOS. I think Microsoft's big problem on mobile was if anything a first-mover disadvantage; they had Windows Mobile designed to compete with Blackberry and Java ME devices. The iPhone was able to basically produce a second-generation product that bested all of those things. Microsoft wasn't able to catch up the second generation by the time the market was entrenched, and I suspect that it was less an engineering challenge caused by backwards compatibility (backwards compatibility didn't hinder the NT kernel from powering the Xbox One) and more of a cultural challenge.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    The Xbox One isn’t a great example of a successful product. The whole XBox division still hasn’t recouped its losses. https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/251038-theres-no-profit-margin-microsoft-xbox-one-x https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/251038-theres-no-profit-m...
    - dzonga 7y ago
      not making money on the xbox 1X. but making profit on the One S. which is an excellent piece of hardware for the sub 300 you pay for it.
    - cwyers 7y ago
      The Xbox One has had problems from a business perspective, but I think they have more to do with the Kinect inflating the launch price than they do the NT kernel.
- snagglegaggle 7y ago
  This is partially right -- before "modern" Windows Phone spun off of 8.1 and 10 there was a Windows 7-esque mobile OS, and one that tracked XP. They still ran on different processors, but with an API very similar to the desktop OS. But, comparing them to Android they did not have any major benefits or detriments. What I think made them fail was their relative obscurity. For non-Intel platforms, Microsoft is very much in favor of boot locking and a lack of consumer control, perhaps at the behest of hardware creators who insist on NDAs. So these things were never really publicized.

by Pmop 7y ago

scarface74 7y ago

What “success” was that? Sure it had some modicum of success with Win CE/Win32/and .Net compact framework but success was fleeting. The development environment was nice but they ended up completely killing backwards compatibility with the newer versions and abandoned all of the enterprise/ruggedized devices. The last version of Visual Studio that supported then was VS 2007 while there were plenty of $1000+ ruggedized devices and kiosks that still ran Windows CE - I developed for them back in the day.

threeseed 7y ago

Windows on mobile was a mess. You couldn't just take any Windows app and run it. It had to be a specially designed UWP one of which there weren't many. And then there was different OSs depending on whether it was on ARM or not, running UWP exclusively or not. I am a developer and even I couldn't understand the rules. It's unquestionable that Microsoft's decision not to encourage developers to rewrite their apps (or at least offer a Carbon solution) really hurt them in the mobile space.

cwyers 7y ago
You can't run any Mac apps on iOS. I think Microsoft's big problem on mobile was if anything a first-mover disadvantage; they had Windows Mobile designed to compete with Blackberry and Java ME devices. The iPhone was able to basically produce a second-generation product that bested all of those things. Microsoft wasn't able to catch up the second generation by the time the market was entrenched, and I suspect that it was less an engineering challenge caused by backwards compatibility (backwards compatibility didn't hinder the NT kernel from powering the Xbox One) and more of a cultural challenge.
- scarface74 7y ago
  The Xbox One isn’t a great example of a successful product. The whole XBox division still hasn’t recouped its losses. https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/251038-theres-no-profit-margin-microsoft-xbox-one-x https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/251038-theres-no-profit-m...
  - dzonga 7y ago
    not making money on the xbox 1X. but making profit on the One S. which is an excellent piece of hardware for the sub 300 you pay for it.
  - cwyers 7y ago
    The Xbox One has had problems from a business perspective, but I think they have more to do with the Kinect inflating the launch price than they do the NT kernel.
snagglegaggle 7y ago
This is partially right -- before "modern" Windows Phone spun off of 8.1 and 10 there was a Windows 7-esque mobile OS, and one that tracked XP. They still ran on different processors, but with an API very similar to the desktop OS. But, comparing them to Android they did not have any major benefits or detriments. What I think made them fail was their relative obscurity. For non-Intel platforms, Microsoft is very much in favor of boot locking and a lack of consumer control, perhaps at the behest of hardware creators who insist on NDAs. So these things were never really publicized.