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So Microsoft has a Linux distro. Interesting. Anybody care to hazard a guess what the future holds? My take is that this was well in development before the MS/N

So Microsoft has a Linux distro. Interesting. Anybody care to hazard a guess what the future holds? My take is that this was well in development before the MS/Nokia deal went through (it has gone through, hasn't it?) and Microsoft were not (have not been) able to get it canned. Or, shock, horror, maybe Microsoft are testing the waters - they already make a bunch from Linux patents, maybe they want to see how much they'll make from App Store revenue if these gain a decent market share. When you think about it, Apple doesn't charge for iOS so if Microsoft start doing decent hardware sales maybe Microsoft will start considering its mobile operating system division this way. Given recent news that Microsoft has to discount Windows licences on lower cost hardware to compete with Chromebooks we're starting to see that Microsoft even though it is making money hand over fist is in an untenable position. A few questions. How will Microsoft not be able to develop Mobile Office for Android? How are Microsoft going to be able to maintain two mobile OSs? Are Nokia going to see this through? I think it is a smart play, if they go after it whole-heartedly like Amazon and provide a decent amount of differentiation. One could easily see Samsung going this route.

d0 13y ago
Microsoft (and their staff individually) actually contribute to the Linux kernel so this isn't that crazy. You can already get office 365 for iOS. Not sure about android but it's logical. This appears to be the budget/developing world side of things. I'd prefer to see WinPhone on low end devices to be honest - it's really good even on low spec handsets. I see this as that much marketed "devices and services offering" they are always going on about. They're making a killing from Azure etc and Windows Live/outlook.com is the most mature and featureful cloud thing. They're actually shit hot these days. I still prefer my old fashioned Unix way of life though as I don't want to become a paid up ecosystem slave.
- blueskin_ 13y ago
  Nobody I know uses Microsoft's lockin. Some prefer google's or apple's, but increasing numbers are trying to escape from being a data source for advertising and the NSA and ditching google, apple, and MS.
  - igravious 13y ago
    I agree that this is the next hurdle. To just from Microsoft's desktop embrace to Google's cloud embrace is to switch one master for another even though Google has shown itself to be an excellent open-source champion in terms of their Summer of Code effort and the amount of client (and server?) software they develop in the open. But lock-in is lock-in no matter how comfy the handcuffs.
    - igravious 13y ago
      To just _leap_ from I must at least cursorily proofread my comments. I must at least cursorily proofread my comments. ...
m0nastic 13y ago
How will Microsoft not be able to develop Mobile Office for Android? By most reporting[1], the office team has already had versions of office for iOS (and presumably Android) ready for quite some time. Their lack of release has been an internal political battle at Microsoft based on whether to postpone them until after the equivalent office apps are ready for RT. This is one of the biggest examples of decision making that people have been criticizing Microsoft for (handicapping their non-Windows business units to provide Windows a competitive advantage; which is a sensible strategy, but that seems ill-suited longterm, as those other business units like Office now eclipse Windows in revenue). It's entirely possible that part of Nokia releasing this phone is related to that recent shift in strategy. How are Microsoft going to be able to maintain two mobile OSs? Nokia already has experience in managing operating systems. I don't know how much work "porting" over all the Nokia apps was to Android, but it seems like they've done it. They already went through the experience of porting many of them over from Symbian (and alas, Maemo didn't really have much in the way of Nokia apps). I don't think this is a serious issue for their engineering organization (even aside from Microsoft's much larger engineering organization that presumably could be made available). Are Nokia going to see this through? I think it is a smart play, if they go after it whole-heartedly like Amazon and provide a decent amount of differentiation. One could easily see Samsung going this route. I think this is a logical play from a risk perspective. The low-end is currently where all their sales are (as the mid and high end have dried up faster than their increasing Windows Phone sales have grown); and even though the low-end isn't the desirable part of the market (see every phone manufacturer other than Apple and Samsung as examples), the effort required isn't much greater than they're already doing for the Asha lines. I think they'll have a better chance at building an ecosystem that's piggy-backed off of Android than in building their own. I still don't know that this is a great long-term play, but it could be. Samsung has been alleged to be heading in this direction for ages (first reported as the reasons for them releasing Bada, and later, Tizen). The new Gear 2 watch-thing runs Tizen instead of Android (which considering it's not really a stand-alone device, is probably a good place to test the waters). It seems like the issue with Samsung taking the plunge is how much they attribute their recent success to their own products, vs. the Google ecosystem. Once they cross that threshold, they'll ship their own OS with TouchWiz on top of it. Maybe they'll similarly have an environment that can run Android apps (it's all Linux underneath). [1] http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-office-on-ipad-its-alive-and-coming-sooner-than-most-think-7000026372/ http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-office-on-ipad-its-alive-and-...
blueskin_ 13y ago
>they already make a bunch from Linux patents I'm interested in how they apparently do this - especially as the Linux development process is open and MS' is secret. As it was, if they decided to try patent trolling, chances are they'd get crushed by google, Red Hat, even Oracle...
- ygra 13y ago
  As far as I know they get licensing payments for use of the FAT file system. Since they do own patents for that and Android handset manufacturers can't exactly tell users to use ext\d on SD cards there are licensing contracts in place.
dspillett 13y ago
> How will Microsoft not be able to develop Mobile Office for Android? Easily. My first thought on seeing the specs on those devices is that they are trying to position the Android offering as the cheap option: something for peopel who can't afford a proper phone. Want Office and the other big boy's toys? Then buy one of our Windows based devices instead. > How are Microsoft going to be able to maintain two mobile OSs? They already do: while it looks like the Symbian based OS is officially dead, as are other alternatives like meego, "feature phones" from Nokia (such as the Asha range) are still being released based around the old S40 OS. Perhaps they are looking to retire this and see Android as an inexpensive way forward, that way someone else is developing the core OS and they just need to provide drivers and device specific tweaks (and an app store & such if not licensing Google's parts). There is certainly a project out there working on smoothly running apps targeting the S40 on Linux based devices (IIRC not funcded by Nokia, but the existence of the project indicatesit is possible) which would smooth the replacement. They have to have a cheaper alternative to the WP devices unless they can release a WP device that can compete price-wise in those markets without diminishing the appearance of the more expensive kit or they lose the "chep-nokia-to-expensive-nokia upgrade path: people with another cheap Andoird device won't have any Nokia brand loyalty so they would be competing entirely directly with high-end Android and iOS devices in that instance and they need something to try make the move to WP more attractive than a move to iOS at that point because the public perception of WP8 is far behind that of Apple (and depending on who you talk to, high-end Android). > Are Nokia going to see this through? That is the big question, though the answer probably doesn't really matter to smartphone users. If my guesses about the positioning thing and S40 replacement are right then they'll need to keep it going a while at least, but with the other competition around in the Android market it'll only ever fool the stupid anyway. And from the point of view of "feature phones", that is business as usual.
xamlhacker 13y ago
MS/Nokia deal hasn't gone through yet. Nokia handset divison is still part of Nokia and not part of MS yet. I believe they are waiting for approval from some governments such as China before they can complete the acquisition.
beachwood23 13y ago
The Microsoft/Nokia deal has actually not gone through yet, although it most likely will. http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/the-nokia-microsoft-deal-is-still-a-go-for-q1/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/the-nokia-microsoft-deal-is...
Ologn 13y ago
Microsoft had a Unix distro for a long time - Xenix. It was built as Microsoft's next generation OS, originally Microsoft thought they were going to migrate to it as their dominant platform as computers got faster. It was the most widespread version of Unix around in the late 1980s in terms of machine installs. Microsoft sold it to SCO in 1987.

d0 13y ago

Microsoft (and their staff individually) actually contribute to the Linux kernel so this isn't that crazy. You can already get office 365 for iOS. Not sure about android but it's logical. This appears to be the budget/developing world side of things. I'd prefer to see WinPhone on low end devices to be honest - it's really good even on low spec handsets. I see this as that much marketed "devices and services offering" they are always going on about. They're making a killing from Azure etc and Windows Live/outlook.com is the most mature and featureful cloud thing. They're actually shit hot these days. I still prefer my old fashioned Unix way of life though as I don't want to become a paid up ecosystem slave.

blueskin_ 13y ago
Nobody I know uses Microsoft's lockin. Some prefer google's or apple's, but increasing numbers are trying to escape from being a data source for advertising and the NSA and ditching google, apple, and MS.
- igravious 13y ago
  I agree that this is the next hurdle. To just from Microsoft's desktop embrace to Google's cloud embrace is to switch one master for another even though Google has shown itself to be an excellent open-source champion in terms of their Summer of Code effort and the amount of client (and server?) software they develop in the open. But lock-in is lock-in no matter how comfy the handcuffs.
  - igravious 13y ago
    To just _leap_ from I must at least cursorily proofread my comments. I must at least cursorily proofread my comments. ...

m0nastic 13y ago

How will Microsoft not be able to develop Mobile Office for Android? By most reporting[1], the office team has already had versions of office for iOS (and presumably Android) ready for quite some time. Their lack of release has been an internal political battle at Microsoft based on whether to postpone them until after the equivalent office apps are ready for RT. This is one of the biggest examples of decision making that people have been criticizing Microsoft for (handicapping their non-Windows business units to provide Windows a competitive advantage; which is a sensible strategy, but that seems ill-suited longterm, as those other business units like Office now eclipse Windows in revenue). It's entirely possible that part of Nokia releasing this phone is related to that recent shift in strategy. How are Microsoft going to be able to maintain two mobile OSs? Nokia already has experience in managing operating systems. I don't know how much work "porting" over all the Nokia apps was to Android, but it seems like they've done it. They already went through the experience of porting many of them over from Symbian (and alas, Maemo didn't really have much in the way of Nokia apps). I don't think this is a serious issue for their engineering organization (even aside from Microsoft's much larger engineering organization that presumably could be made available). Are Nokia going to see this through? I think it is a smart play, if they go after it whole-heartedly like Amazon and provide a decent amount of differentiation. One could easily see Samsung going this route. I think this is a logical play from a risk perspective. The low-end is currently where all their sales are (as the mid and high end have dried up faster than their increasing Windows Phone sales have grown); and even though the low-end isn't the desirable part of the market (see every phone manufacturer other than Apple and Samsung as examples), the effort required isn't much greater than they're already doing for the Asha lines. I think they'll have a better chance at building an ecosystem that's piggy-backed off of Android than in building their own. I still don't know that this is a great long-term play, but it could be. Samsung has been alleged to be heading in this direction for ages (first reported as the reasons for them releasing Bada, and later, Tizen). The new Gear 2 watch-thing runs Tizen instead of Android (which considering it's not really a stand-alone device, is probably a good place to test the waters). It seems like the issue with Samsung taking the plunge is how much they attribute their recent success to their own products, vs. the Google ecosystem. Once they cross that threshold, they'll ship their own OS with TouchWiz on top of it. Maybe they'll similarly have an environment that can run Android apps (it's all Linux underneath). [1] http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-office-on-ipad-its-alive-and-coming-sooner-than-most-think-7000026372/ http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-office-on-ipad-its-alive-and-...

blueskin_ 13y ago

>they already make a bunch from Linux patents I'm interested in how they apparently do this - especially as the Linux development process is open and MS' is secret. As it was, if they decided to try patent trolling, chances are they'd get crushed by google, Red Hat, even Oracle...

ygra 13y ago
As far as I know they get licensing payments for use of the FAT file system. Since they do own patents for that and Android handset manufacturers can't exactly tell users to use ext\d on SD cards there are licensing contracts in place.

dspillett 13y ago

> How will Microsoft not be able to develop Mobile Office for Android? Easily. My first thought on seeing the specs on those devices is that they are trying to position the Android offering as the cheap option: something for peopel who can't afford a proper phone. Want Office and the other big boy's toys? Then buy one of our Windows based devices instead. > How are Microsoft going to be able to maintain two mobile OSs? They already do: while it looks like the Symbian based OS is officially dead, as are other alternatives like meego, "feature phones" from Nokia (such as the Asha range) are still being released based around the old S40 OS. Perhaps they are looking to retire this and see Android as an inexpensive way forward, that way someone else is developing the core OS and they just need to provide drivers and device specific tweaks (and an app store & such if not licensing Google's parts). There is certainly a project out there working on smoothly running apps targeting the S40 on Linux based devices (IIRC not funcded by Nokia, but the existence of the project indicatesit is possible) which would smooth the replacement. They have to have a cheaper alternative to the WP devices unless they can release a WP device that can compete price-wise in those markets without diminishing the appearance of the more expensive kit or they lose the "chep-nokia-to-expensive-nokia upgrade path: people with another cheap Andoird device won't have any Nokia brand loyalty so they would be competing entirely directly with high-end Android and iOS devices in that instance and they need something to try make the move to WP more attractive than a move to iOS at that point because the public perception of WP8 is far behind that of Apple (and depending on who you talk to, high-end Android). > Are Nokia going to see this through? That is the big question, though the answer probably doesn't really matter to smartphone users. If my guesses about the positioning thing and S40 replacement are right then they'll need to keep it going a while at least, but with the other competition around in the Android market it'll only ever fool the stupid anyway. And from the point of view of "feature phones", that is business as usual.

xamlhacker 13y ago

MS/Nokia deal hasn't gone through yet. Nokia handset divison is still part of Nokia and not part of MS yet. I believe they are waiting for approval from some governments such as China before they can complete the acquisition.

beachwood23 13y ago

The Microsoft/Nokia deal has actually not gone through yet, although it most likely will. http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/the-nokia-microsoft-deal-is-still-a-go-for-q1/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/the-nokia-microsoft-deal-is...

Ologn 13y ago

Microsoft had a Unix distro for a long time - Xenix. It was built as Microsoft's next generation OS, originally Microsoft thought they were going to migrate to it as their dominant platform as computers got faster. It was the most widespread version of Unix around in the late 1980s in terms of machine installs. Microsoft sold it to SCO in 1987.