8 ms·

Microsoft Ending its Short-Lived Tenure as Android Phone Maker

49 points by jefflinwood 12y ago

Zigurd 12y ago
This was almost certain to happen. It would have been extremely uncharacteristic of Microsoft to continue this product line. Unfortunately, this also closes off an avenue to Nadella to prod Windows Phone to become truly competitive as a mobile platform, and for Microsoft's ecosystem to have an in-house target for platforms other than Windows Phone.
- outside1234 12y ago
  Microsoft is definitely targeting Android - its just that they don't think they need to 1) fork or 2) provide hardware that runs Android to be successful.
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    Of course that's what they are thinking. But that line of thinking is brittle in a couple of ways: With no constituency for applications on an Android runtime inside of Microsoft, there will be a tendency to find "synergy" and make products for Windows Phone first. Windows Phone has a small enough share that it could fall off the bottom of the mobile market share ladder. Even without a complete market failure, the natural tendency to serve an internal constituency first and best will limit the reach of Microsoft's ecosystem. There is a good case to be made that Amazon is a better competitor against Google's media products because Amazon's native platform is based on AOSP and development uses the Android toolchain.
DCKing 12y ago
This is good. The Lumia 520 proves that Windows Phone runs fine on the lowest end - in fact, it proves that it might be a better choice there. All Microsoft needs to do is come up with a way to support more than a very select set of Qualcomm SoCs. Bringing Windows Phone to the same markets as Android and maybe Firefox OS will go for is very hard if you stick to a subset of the SoCs made by one vendor.
- rayiner 12y ago
  My old Lumia 620 was a very solid phone, and the new 635 is coming in with LTE at $129 unlocked at the Microsoft Store. WP8 flies on very modest hardware. That's a phenomenal bargain on the low end. I don't see any point of having Android in their lineup.
  - bellerocky 12y ago
    > I don't see any point of having Android in their lineup. Well, as someone who likes Major League Soccer, the inability to get MLS Live on a Windows Phone is a reason I as a user wouldn't see any point in buying a Windows Phone. The point being that Windows Phone is kind of a failure, at least in terms of getting the ecosystem on par with iOS or Android, and it's been that way for many years with no signs of improvement. So I do see a point in a manufacturer of phones, even if you build your own phone OS like both Microsoft and Samsung do, making phones for operating systems developers actually care about. This whole moving away from "devices and services" promise falls flat on its face in light of Microsoft investing more into Windows Phones. I don't think Microsoft has figured out that being only on 14% of devices means you should make software for other devices the focus of your company, not try to grow that 14% when the reality that this is very unlikely to happen seems kind of obvious. I would have loved to buy a premium Nokia phone that runs Android.
    - cwyers 12y ago
      But that's not what was being talked about here. Nokia X was low-end handsets running a forked version of Android without Google's services, including the Play Store. So you're looking at an app selection similar to what Amazon has for the Fire at best, not the full Android ecosystem. And you're not looking at premium devices. Microsoft has no interest in being another second-class Android OEM, competing with all the other companies that are losing to Samsung in that space.
  - bitL 12y ago
    Come on, 512MB RAM in 2014? Bargain? Underspecced device, unable to run any slightly advanced recent WP game, incomparable even to Moto E. 935 with Win 8.1 might be interesting to talk about, 635 is underwhelming, the only possible advantage are offline HERE Maps.
higherpurpose 12y ago
They were never too serious about it. If they were, they would've put real Android on one of their flagship phones, not WP8's ugly step brother, with even fewer apps, and on a phone that was about as exciting as a rock.
jbigelow76 12y ago
This is probably for the best. Any Android phone without Google Play services (targeting a user base primarily in North America and Western Europe) is bound to be DOA. Minimal OS differentiation but a sizable gap in the app store when it comes to "must have" apps.
- Touche 12y ago
  The devices in question weren't targeting North America or Western Europe.
  - jbigelow76 12y ago
    True. I should rephrase that to say that if the Android phone isn't in a market where local apps can possibly invalidate the need for the top tier apps in Google Play, for example Weibo in China, then the AOSP phone isn't going to fare well (I'm looking at you Amazon Fire Phone).
    - Touche 12y ago
      That's a lot of qualifiers and still doesn't have anything to do with these Nokia phones.
Fuxy 12y ago
Bummer. The only reason i stopped buying Nokia phones is because they didn't have an Android version otherwise the hardware is solid. Nothing against windows phone but it doesn't have the apps I'm used to and I don't really want to switch to it. The brief experience i had with it connecting other peoples phones to the WiFi the menus didn't seem very intuitive.
Touche 12y ago
Another win for the Windows division to the detriment of the company as a whole. Nokia X might have been a bad idea, but we'll never know for sure now.
ThinkBeat 12y ago
Well Microsoft still makes more money off of Android than Windows Phone with their patent licensing deal. Why go through the trouble of making your own Android phone when you make great money (some say $5 per phone, which is about $2bn) off of other people doing it.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  You know capitalism works when a company gets $5 per handset for doing absolutely nothing. The patent system is totally farcical.
  - delecti 12y ago
    Except Microsoft actually does innovate, and they also use their patents. They pour quite a bit of money into their research division, why shouldn't they get a return from that investment? There are absolutely huge issues with the patent system, but Microsoft's patent licensing profits are not among them.
    - mythz 12y ago
      Sorry explain exactly why MS deserve to make more money than the actual Company investing all the R&D into developing Android OS just because they can use their cash warchest to acquire offensive patents they're anti-competitively using to artificially inflate the cost of their competitor products? Is this the kind of ideal use of software patents that rewards innovators and end-consumers?
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        mythz 12y ago
        What sad Strawman are you trying to manufacture here? It's absolutely MS's strategy to acquire offensive and broad patents to anti-competitively use to hurt their competition and devalue their products instead of trying to compete on merit. Google has every right to be able to develop their OS and license it at whatever terms or cost they see fit especially when they ultimately benefit consumers. MS tried to use their cash warchest (acquired from their Monopoly markets) to acquire offensive obvious, broad landmine patents that they hide behind NDA's so to not disclose exactly what patents Android is supposed to have infringed on so that they can extort licensing fees from Android Manufacturers into artificially raising the prices of Android devices.
Naushad 12y ago
That was the Last sign of Nokia's existence.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  http://jolla.com/ http://jolla.com/
  - bitL 12y ago
    Second system effect unfortunately :-( IMHO They should have started with a simpler Harmattan-level functionality rather than redesigning most of the things and getting inspiration even from WP with the color palette and UI layouts. They lost authenticity and originality in the process, N9 seemed super elegant comparing to the 1st Jolla phone, the icons especially are unpleasant to look at. And I say this as a fan of Jolla and previously of MeeGo/Maemo. I hope they will improve with their 2nd device.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Until 2016 .. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/12/windows_phone_microsoft_internal_memo_leak/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/12/windows_phone_micros...
- sirkneeland 12y ago
  Well as the Product Manager for Nokia Z Launcher, I beg to differ ;)
gisenberg 12y ago
I think it's safe to assume this also means the end of the Windows Phone/Android dual boot concept that has been floating around for a while: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2107863/microsoft-shakes-up-windows-phone-with-dual-boot-android-hybrids-and-free-licenses.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2107863/microsoft-shakes-up-w...
- walterbell 12y ago
  Nokia/Meego and Nokia/Android both nixed at launch. Could the redundant Microsoft Nokia people be hired by Nokia Research in Finland? Launch a new device when the Nokia smartphone trademark reverts in 2016?
sklivvz1971 12y ago
So does that mean we are not getting rid of the Windows phone "scourge"? No offence, but it's just another OS to support which we don't really need... another copy of IE to tolerate... ;-) (for the comically-challenged, this was a joke)
- Zigurd 12y ago
  Even without Windows Phone you will probably have more than two mobile OSs to support. Some of the contenders will gain a foothold in the market and you will be writing apps in Qt or Javascript on some mobile platform's framework.
mattkevan 12y ago
I know these phones started life at Nokia before the purchase, but post-purchase why weren't they killed immediately? Running an internal project to get Android working with Microsoft's services as a hedge against Windows Mobile failing - a bit like Apple did with OSX on Intel - I can understand. But to actually release it as a product only to kill it a short time later I don't. Good though they may have been (I have no idea), they should never have seen the light of day. It demonstrates a lack of focus, makes it clear Microsoft isn't confident in its own platform and is a waste of resources and effort. Like the Kin.
- Spearchucker 12y ago
  As you said, the Android phones were developed by Nokia before the acquisition was made. They were initially released by Nokia just before the acquisition went through. Also, I suspect you mean Windows Phone - Windows Mobile stopped being a thing in 2010, if I'm not mistaken. I have a Nokia X1 and it's what you'd expect from a budget phone - low spec so a fair amount of lag. No Google Play but then the phone is aimed squarely at emerging markets (although there's a way to enable Play on the X1 anyway). The part I like most is that it's dual-SIM.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
ulfw 12y ago
That was an unnecessary distraction from the get-go. How did Nokia/Microsoft ever expect to compete with the Huaweis or Xiamois of the world on price with an OS that is clearly seen as 'not theirs'. Odd to begin with.
janjongboom 12y ago
The thing that REALLY surprises me is that according to the article they pulled the plug on Asha and S40 phones. That's insane. In the market where the volumes are (Asia, Africa) they are everywhere. In Q3 2013 Nokia sold 47 million feature phones (6 times more than their Lumias). In comparison, Apple sold 31 million iPhones in that time frame. Pulling the plug on that seems crazy to me. Big opportunity for Firefox OS though, as it was created to compete at the Asha price level. If there is no competition from Nokia/MS anymore the only offering between 30-50 USD will be FFOS devices.
_random_ 12y ago
It's logical, there is no longer a need to copy Metro GUI to Android now - Google is already doing it for them.

49 points by jefflinwood 12y ago

This was almost certain to happen. It would have been extremely uncharacteristic of Microsoft to continue this product line. Unfortunately, this also closes off an avenue to Nadella to prod Windows Phone to become truly competitive as a mobile platform, and for Microsoft's ecosystem to have an in-house target for platforms other than Windows Phone.

outside1234 12y ago
Microsoft is definitely targeting Android - its just that they don't think they need to 1) fork or 2) provide hardware that runs Android to be successful.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  Of course that's what they are thinking. But that line of thinking is brittle in a couple of ways: With no constituency for applications on an Android runtime inside of Microsoft, there will be a tendency to find "synergy" and make products for Windows Phone first. Windows Phone has a small enough share that it could fall off the bottom of the mobile market share ladder. Even without a complete market failure, the natural tendency to serve an internal constituency first and best will limit the reach of Microsoft's ecosystem. There is a good case to be made that Amazon is a better competitor against Google's media products because Amazon's native platform is based on AOSP and development uses the Android toolchain.

DCKing 12y ago

This is good. The Lumia 520 proves that Windows Phone runs fine on the lowest end - in fact, it proves that it might be a better choice there. All Microsoft needs to do is come up with a way to support more than a very select set of Qualcomm SoCs. Bringing Windows Phone to the same markets as Android and maybe Firefox OS will go for is very hard if you stick to a subset of the SoCs made by one vendor.

rayiner 12y ago
My old Lumia 620 was a very solid phone, and the new 635 is coming in with LTE at $129 unlocked at the Microsoft Store. WP8 flies on very modest hardware. That's a phenomenal bargain on the low end. I don't see any point of having Android in their lineup.
- bellerocky 12y ago
  > I don't see any point of having Android in their lineup. Well, as someone who likes Major League Soccer, the inability to get MLS Live on a Windows Phone is a reason I as a user wouldn't see any point in buying a Windows Phone. The point being that Windows Phone is kind of a failure, at least in terms of getting the ecosystem on par with iOS or Android, and it's been that way for many years with no signs of improvement. So I do see a point in a manufacturer of phones, even if you build your own phone OS like both Microsoft and Samsung do, making phones for operating systems developers actually care about. This whole moving away from "devices and services" promise falls flat on its face in light of Microsoft investing more into Windows Phones. I don't think Microsoft has figured out that being only on 14% of devices means you should make software for other devices the focus of your company, not try to grow that 14% when the reality that this is very unlikely to happen seems kind of obvious. I would have loved to buy a premium Nokia phone that runs Android.
  - cwyers 12y ago
    But that's not what was being talked about here. Nokia X was low-end handsets running a forked version of Android without Google's services, including the Play Store. So you're looking at an app selection similar to what Amazon has for the Fire at best, not the full Android ecosystem. And you're not looking at premium devices. Microsoft has no interest in being another second-class Android OEM, competing with all the other companies that are losing to Samsung in that space.
- bitL 12y ago
  Come on, 512MB RAM in 2014? Bargain? Underspecced device, unable to run any slightly advanced recent WP game, incomparable even to Moto E. 935 with Win 8.1 might be interesting to talk about, 635 is underwhelming, the only possible advantage are offline HERE Maps.

higherpurpose 12y ago

They were never too serious about it. If they were, they would've put real Android on one of their flagship phones, not WP8's ugly step brother, with even fewer apps, and on a phone that was about as exciting as a rock.

jbigelow76 12y ago

This is probably for the best. Any Android phone without Google Play services (targeting a user base primarily in North America and Western Europe) is bound to be DOA. Minimal OS differentiation but a sizable gap in the app store when it comes to "must have" apps.

Touche 12y ago
The devices in question weren't targeting North America or Western Europe.
- jbigelow76 12y ago
  True. I should rephrase that to say that if the Android phone isn't in a market where local apps can possibly invalidate the need for the top tier apps in Google Play, for example Weibo in China, then the AOSP phone isn't going to fare well (I'm looking at you Amazon Fire Phone).
  - Touche 12y ago
    That's a lot of qualifiers and still doesn't have anything to do with these Nokia phones.

Fuxy 12y ago

Bummer. The only reason i stopped buying Nokia phones is because they didn't have an Android version otherwise the hardware is solid. Nothing against windows phone but it doesn't have the apps I'm used to and I don't really want to switch to it. The brief experience i had with it connecting other peoples phones to the WiFi the menus didn't seem very intuitive.

Touche 12y ago

Another win for the Windows division to the detriment of the company as a whole. Nokia X might have been a bad idea, but we'll never know for sure now.

ThinkBeat 12y ago

Well Microsoft still makes more money off of Android than Windows Phone with their patent licensing deal. Why go through the trouble of making your own Android phone when you make great money (some say $5 per phone, which is about $2bn) off of other people doing it.

Someone1234 12y ago
You know capitalism works when a company gets $5 per handset for doing absolutely nothing. The patent system is totally farcical.
- delecti 12y ago
  Except Microsoft actually does innovate, and they also use their patents. They pour quite a bit of money into their research division, why shouldn't they get a return from that investment? There are absolutely huge issues with the patent system, but Microsoft's patent licensing profits are not among them.
  - mythz 12y ago
    Sorry explain exactly why MS deserve to make more money than the actual Company investing all the R&D into developing Android OS just because they can use their cash warchest to acquire offensive patents they're anti-competitively using to artificially inflate the cost of their competitor products? Is this the kind of ideal use of software patents that rewards innovators and end-consumers?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - mythz 12y ago
        What sad Strawman are you trying to manufacture here? It's absolutely MS's strategy to acquire offensive and broad patents to anti-competitively use to hurt their competition and devalue their products instead of trying to compete on merit. Google has every right to be able to develop their OS and license it at whatever terms or cost they see fit especially when they ultimately benefit consumers. MS tried to use their cash warchest (acquired from their Monopoly markets) to acquire offensive obvious, broad landmine patents that they hide behind NDA's so to not disclose exactly what patents Android is supposed to have infringed on so that they can extort licensing fees from Android Manufacturers into artificially raising the prices of Android devices.

Naushad 12y ago

That was the Last sign of Nokia's existence.

pessimizer 12y ago
http://jolla.com/ http://jolla.com/
- bitL 12y ago
  Second system effect unfortunately :-( IMHO They should have started with a simpler Harmattan-level functionality rather than redesigning most of the things and getting inspiration even from WP with the color palette and UI layouts. They lost authenticity and originality in the process, N9 seemed super elegant comparing to the 1st Jolla phone, the icons especially are unpleasant to look at. And I say this as a fan of Jolla and previously of MeeGo/Maemo. I hope they will improve with their 2nd device.
walterbell 12y ago
Until 2016 .. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/12/windows_phone_microsoft_internal_memo_leak/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/12/windows_phone_micros...
sirkneeland 12y ago
Well as the Product Manager for Nokia Z Launcher, I beg to differ ;)

gisenberg 12y ago

I think it's safe to assume this also means the end of the Windows Phone/Android dual boot concept that has been floating around for a while: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2107863/microsoft-shakes-up-windows-phone-with-dual-boot-android-hybrids-and-free-licenses.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2107863/microsoft-shakes-up-w...

walterbell 12y ago
Nokia/Meego and Nokia/Android both nixed at launch. Could the redundant Microsoft Nokia people be hired by Nokia Research in Finland? Launch a new device when the Nokia smartphone trademark reverts in 2016?

sklivvz1971 12y ago

So does that mean we are not getting rid of the Windows phone "scourge"? No offence, but it's just another OS to support which we don't really need... another copy of IE to tolerate... ;-) (for the comically-challenged, this was a joke)

Zigurd 12y ago
Even without Windows Phone you will probably have more than two mobile OSs to support. Some of the contenders will gain a foothold in the market and you will be writing apps in Qt or Javascript on some mobile platform's framework.

mattkevan 12y ago

I know these phones started life at Nokia before the purchase, but post-purchase why weren't they killed immediately? Running an internal project to get Android working with Microsoft's services as a hedge against Windows Mobile failing - a bit like Apple did with OSX on Intel - I can understand. But to actually release it as a product only to kill it a short time later I don't. Good though they may have been (I have no idea), they should never have seen the light of day. It demonstrates a lack of focus, makes it clear Microsoft isn't confident in its own platform and is a waste of resources and effort. Like the Kin.

Spearchucker 12y ago
As you said, the Android phones were developed by Nokia before the acquisition was made. They were initially released by Nokia just before the acquisition went through. Also, I suspect you mean Windows Phone - Windows Mobile stopped being a thing in 2010, if I'm not mistaken. I have a Nokia X1 and it's what you'd expect from a budget phone - low spec so a fair amount of lag. No Google Play but then the phone is aimed squarely at emerging markets (although there's a way to enable Play on the X1 anyway). The part I like most is that it's dual-SIM.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

ulfw 12y ago

That was an unnecessary distraction from the get-go. How did Nokia/Microsoft ever expect to compete with the Huaweis or Xiamois of the world on price with an OS that is clearly seen as 'not theirs'. Odd to begin with.

janjongboom 12y ago

The thing that REALLY surprises me is that according to the article they pulled the plug on Asha and S40 phones. That's insane. In the market where the volumes are (Asia, Africa) they are everywhere. In Q3 2013 Nokia sold 47 million feature phones (6 times more than their Lumias). In comparison, Apple sold 31 million iPhones in that time frame. Pulling the plug on that seems crazy to me. Big opportunity for Firefox OS though, as it was created to compete at the Asha price level. If there is no competition from Nokia/MS anymore the only offering between 30-50 USD will be FFOS devices.

_random_ 12y ago

It's logical, there is no longer a need to copy Metro GUI to Android now - Google is already doing it for them.