Siljmonster posted:

im curious, what apps? ive never seen an app with Microsofts brand for Android

Siljmonster posted:

hahaha skype is on android

which just reminded me that skype was pretty awesome before Microsoft took them over

Siljmonster posted:

hahaha skype is on android

which just reminded me that skype was pretty awesome before Microsoft took them over

quote:

In Steve Ballmer's 15-year tenure as Microsoft CEO, he got a lot of things right: several highly successful product launches, significant increase in shareholder value, and a few acquisitions that proved quite valuable to the company.

However, he will likely be remembered as the man who drove the most catastrophic merger in the company's history.

Microsoft has always struggled in the mobile space. The company was early to the game with Windows CE and Windows Mobile (far earlier than Apple and Google); but it was late to adopt the mobile developer ecosystem and "app store" strategies of its competitors.

In November 2010, following the surprising success of the iPhone, the company introduced Windows Phone, which abandoned much of the legacy 32-bit Windows code in previous mobile releases. Windows Phone featured a brand-new user experience that has evolved into the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) that powers Windows 10 and runs on all Windows devices.

However, Microsoft needed OEM hardware partners, who were reluctant to take on the risk of an unproven software platform when they were already enjoying success with Android.

One partner that had taken that risk was Nokia, which -- under the leadership of former Microsoft exec Steven Elop -- was itself being forced to transform. Competitors such as Samsung and Apple were eating Nokia's lunch in the company's stronghold EMEA smartphone markets.

Nokia made some impressive Windows Phones during its partnership with Microsoft, but it was not able to bring itself back to profitability. By 2013, in fact, the company was considering a move to Android and had even built prototype devices running Google's software. If that move had succeeded, Windows Phone would have been left with no OEM support. It would have effectively been a death sentence.

Ballmer, looking to solidify his legacy, saw a potential synergy. Nokia, with its native manufacturing capability and R&D, could be Microsoft's solution to ramping up their mobile presence, in addition to providing an essential distribution channel via previously existing carrier relationships.

In September of 2013 Microsoft bought Nokia's mobile business for over $7 billion. This included the acquisition of most of the company's assets in Finland as well as manufacturing capacity in Asia, along with 24,000 employees. Crucially, it didn't include the potentially valuable Here maps business, which the Microsoft board reportedly refused to go along with.

Many analysts questioned why Microsoft had not simply contract manufactured the phones, negotiated the carrier relationships on its own, and hired engineering talent for much less money. The analysts turned out to be correct. Microsoft struggled to consolidate its development platform over two consecutive OS releases on the desktop and its mobile OS, and was unable to attract the developer and carrier partnerships needed to make the new Lumia phones successful.

Since Ballmer's departure from Microsoft in 2014, under the leadership of its new CEO Satya Nadella, the company has laid off over 15,000 employees, the majority of whom came in from the Nokia acquisition.

In all, more than 20,000 jobs at Microsoft will have been cut once the restructuring is complete.

In 2015, the company was forced to write down the acquisition of Nokia's mobile and services businesses for $7.6 billion.

While Microsoft has recently announced several new Windows 10 Mobile phones, and has committed to the continued development of the platform, it has yet to solidify its carrier relationships or attract the developer attention it needs to compete favorably with devices running Apple's iOS or Google's Android.

Although the pieces are now finally in place for the "One Windows" that could finally make Microsoft smartphones and the modern Windows development platform successful, the company could have saved itself a huge amount of money and heartache if it did the work in-house, rather than by a failed and costly acquisition.

Millstone posted:

Skype has to be on annroid otherwise there's no Facetime equivalent except Facebook Messenger (lol)

Blue Train posted:

nah they haven't killed off hangouts yet

Phoenixan posted:

i had to look it up because i actually had no idea what quantum break was, and it looked like it had interesting platforming bits with timed jumps, but then they used their powers to freeze the objects that were moving back and forth so nevermind

Fame Douglas posted:

Don't think Quantum Break is popular or "well-liked". Looks like 3rd person shooter designed for simple console gamer minds plus gimmick x

pseudorandom name posted:

32.77% of Steam users (i.e. people who play computer games) are running Windows 10

pseudorandom name posted:

32.77% of Steam users (i.e. people who play computer games) are running Windows 10

Fame Douglas posted:

Don't think Quantum Break is popular or "well-liked". Looks like 3rd person shooter designed for simple console gamer minds plus gimmick x

BangersInMyKnickers posted:

tried to sysprep a win10 vm and it failed because the loving automatically added apps that come with a MS account don't support it so you have to go through a bunch of powershell poo poo to deprovision the apps that aren't even installed and then it works

Smythe posted:

windows 10 FTW

Wild EEPROM posted:

top taskbar is for loving idiots

Wild EEPROM posted:

top taskbar is for true windows and linux users

Wild EEPROM posted:

top taskbar is for loving idiots

Wild EEPROM posted:

taskbar is for loving idiots

theultimo posted:

Phoenixan posted:

i'm .. faded

Wild EEPROM posted:

top taskbar is for loving idiots

Korean Boomhauer posted:

same

theultimo posted:

Last Chance posted:

is windows 10 out of beta yet?