Microsoft predicts Linux will fail mobile 'quality' test Linux is shaping up as Microsoft's target in a potential war of attrition to gain lost market share for Windows Mobile in handsets. Microsoft's executive in charge of leading Microsoft's Windows Mobile group has predicted the number of operating systems for mobile handsets will be whittled down in the next three to five years …
at what point has windows mobile passed quality tests?
the os is flaky, unstable and power hungry. the development tools are awful.
i've yet to see a winmobile device that is useable as a day to day mobile phone.
they've been peddling this crap for how many years and they have not yet produced a viable system.
so roll on android.
Linux is *perfect* for the mobile space and the FUD spread by microsoft is ... well, FUD.
They conveniently ignore the fact that all the flavours of 'Linux' share a common base - the kernel.
It's also open source and as such, has none of the licensing fees and strong-arm copyright tactics employed by Microsoft.
The reality is, Microsoft will probably muscle further into the mobile market through brute force - massive amounts of cash to invest in marketing, FUD, bringing onboard partners with the lure of ... cash.
Same old story, different platform...
Windows mobile is the biggest pile of shite phone code out there, doesn't matter what some douche at MS is saying about QC. I'd rather use a land line than try accomplishing a phone call through Windows horse shite software. As soon as I hear a phone device has anything to do with Windows that device is and will continue arriving at /dev/null in the brain.
From the article: "I don't think there's an operator in the world that wouldn't tell you that it's a pain to support all the different operating systems they have, in particular the 17 versions of Linux they have on feature phones, all of which are a little quirky and a little different, require separate network certifications, network product support, and the like that goes along with that."
I don't want my operator to support a particular OS or device, I want them to support the GSM/UMTS standards. I only need to know the frequency. Just as my internet provider is not concerned with my OS on my computer. We have the TCP/IP standards for that.
Thanks Microsoft for another piece of FUD. Afraid of Linux maybe?
It's not quite that simple, your ISP doesn't supply/support your pc.
But in most cases phone providers do provide and support phones.
From a cost point of view it's cheaper to train 100 help desk staff to support 1 os than to train them to use 20.. Makes some sense from that pov. However that os being winmo with it's current Market standing.. Unlikley.
This argument applies mainly to the USA and other countries where contract phones are the norm. There the operators heavily customize the phones to have their own logos and software, and often restrict their use in various ways.
To turn this argument on its head, maybe the demand for a larger variety of handsets by a diversifying client base will eventually push the operators to start selling competitive SIM-only plans when they realize they can't support the whole range themselves.
Is this the same company that said 640kB RAM will be enough for everybody, but now builds systems that need more than 1GB to work properly? Is this the same company that said the internet won't ever be a success? To Google? Now they're still trying to tell Google Android will fail? Somehow I feel that their credibility isn't at its highest point right now...
So Micro$oft, tell me what OS runs most of the major servers of the web? There are a HUGE number of stories where M$ went in and replaced 4 Linux servers with 1200 Windows servers and then the client went back to Linux because the Windows cluster didn't scale.
Although I agree we're going to see some consolidation in the Linux based mobile OSes. Right now everyone's riding the iPhone-led "smartphone wave", smartphones are selling like hotcakes and there's plenty of R&D money floating around to write kernels with. That won't last. And like everything, writing is one thing, maintaining is another - several Linuxes on the fringe are going to either be cut off and left to die or will be merged with another. For a guess I'd say we'll eventually see two or three Linux based mobile OSes at the most. I give it three years.
Not so long ago, there was little choice on what mobile OS you used. Symbian or WindowsCE.(plus some minority stuff)
Then along came Apple and suddenly the rules changed.
Then along came Android and the rules changed yet again.
Now you have a real choice (if you are a mobile maker) OS from Nokia, OS from Microsoft or and Open Source with no vendor lock in.
Ok, I'm being pretty general here but this statement clearly means that Microsoft fear the use of Linux in Mobiles as undermining their cosy & probably profitable mobils OS business.
All it needs not to really put the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons is for Apple to license their version os OSX they use in the iphone (less all the fancy stuff). However that is as likely as a squadron of Gloucester Old spots flying in formation over Battersea Power Station.
That's the funniest thing I've seen for months. Microsoft taking the high ground of windows phone quality?
I've had 3 windows [mobile][phone] phones in 5 years. Every one of them needed at least one warm start a day and generally two cold starts a week. The HP ipaqw one cold started to factory conditions, and I had to retrieve the apps and addres book from the ipaq backup on the SD card. Twice a week.
/Linux/ will fail the quality test? Bwhhhaaa ha ha ha ha eh he ha ha ha. <dires eyes>. Oh deary me.
Paris. because she believes what she is told.
Well, I agree for sure that there'll probably be some trimming -- having almost a seperate Linux distro for each phone is a bit excessive. But I don't see Windows Mobile as a driver in this -- what can I say, it was reasonable 8-10 years ago but is simply outclassed by (the new) PalmOS, IPhone, Android, etc. now. And I don't see a phone being WinMo instead helping with the carrier testing etc. -- as far as I know, no carrier tests "Windows mobile 6.5" then just releases a bunch of different phones based on it -- they do full testing for each model they sell, just as they would for any phone.
I don't think Android or anyone is going to *destroy* the WinMo market, them and Blackberry both have a huge inertia in some lines of business where they could do nothing to improve the platforms and still sell phones for the next 10 years. But unless WinMo 7 or whatever is a DRASTIC change I don't think it's going to exactly take over the market either.
I'm addicted to changing distributions of linux on one of my desktops - Puppy, DSL, Ubuntu/kubuntu/xubuntu/lubuntu, debian, LFS, slackware, SuSE, Arch, Mint, PCLinuxOS, Mandarke/Mandriva, Zenwalk, Vector, gentoo - once you've used one it's trivial to use another, use tamp, apt-get, gslapt whatever to install/remove apps. Look in slightly different places to find a lib or conf file, and that's about it.
So what is this pillock on about when he talks says "it's a pain to support all the different operating systems they have, in particular the 17 versions of Linux they have on feature phones" - significantly less of a pain than moving between MS products (XP/Vista/7 or Word 2003/2007) which doesn't suggest that Wince 7 will be exactly the same as WINCe 6 in it's operation.
In Bizarro Land where everything is its own contrary of course.
I swear, they don't even try to sound plausible anymore.
But Linux will probably struggle to get any significant market share, on that he's right. Because him and his ilk will strong-arm the handset makers and telcos into selling only Windows-capable (and Windows-running) handsets. Given the pile of tripe that is MS' current offering -and the lack of proof of the upcoming one being any better-, the telcos and makers might well rebel this time. Especially as Google's arm is as strong as Redmond's, if not stronger. And Google pushes... Linux.
The US regime is poisoning itself by avoiding to think about the problems its worldwide imperial arrogance and gunboat diplomacy has created. It imagines a Fata Morgana of "Al Qaeda" types at the root of its problems and tries to bomb them to oblivion, playing whack-a-mole and failing on all fronts.
Microsoft is poisoning itself by avoiding to think about the problems its worldwide market arrogance and closed shit sandwich products have created. It imagines a Fata Morgana of "Linux" types as the root of its problems and tries to bomb them to oblivion, playing whack-a-mole and failing on all fronts.
...that Microsoft would be a little more careful at calling out Linux after all this time. Whether or not you are a supporter of the Beast or of the Penguin, Microsoft have made much of what they think Linux is and what it can do (or can't as the case may be) which usually backfires on them or, at the very least, gives Linux the publicity to give Microsoft a headache further down the road.
As it stands, Linux isn't the platform that Microsoft needs to worry about right now. Unless they can cut into the dominance of Apple and stand up to the likes of Google's outpourings, not to mention some of the legacy kit out there which refuses to go away, they may find this a fruitless venture. Given their last decade of various humiliation in their core markets, perhaps they need to concentrate on those first and give the old "world domination" thing a miss.
I keep thinking that Windows Mobile is a version of that thing which includes Vista, and I wouldn't want that on a mobile phone.
But it isn't.
Allegedly.
I'm still not sure that I'd want it on a mobile phone.
On the other hand, the mobile phone tech, and the companies which supply it to the world, isn't something that needs Microsoft. Not in the way the PC industry does. I wonder if Microsoft have the same confusion over Linux on mobile phones as I have about Windows.
I don't expect to get anywhere near anything I'd recognise from fifteen years of occasional Linux use, not on a mobile phone. Mostly, I wouldn't care about the hidden details.But Microsoft?
No thanks.
Actually, the argument I'd have there is whether the PC market needs Microsoft. The fact that Linux even exists would tend to suggest that it doesn't. It's the users that insist on keeping Windows alive, for whatever reason.
The same applies to the mobile market, the only difference being that Microsoft are a minority platform there. It remains to be seen whether they can change that.
and that's not being talked about
So MSFT are scared of Linux - and so they should be, esp the Win Mo guys
But did anyone else notice with all the coverage the (linux - yeah that's what android is)) Google phone got, there was of course lot's of iphone comparisons - but MSFT were not mentioned at all!
Sorry but just in terms of absolute quality of Linux and any Microsoft product at all, I don't think Microsoft has a chance.
The thing that repeatedly sells Microsoft products is a very powerful marketing machine that has successfully managed to keep hype over substance in the public eye for years. Product quality has become irrelevant at Microsoft.
Unfortunately John Q Public still thinks Microsoft products must be the best, just because Windows and XBoxes are so ubiquitous. Anybody with any real experience of equivalent tech made by anyone else (e.g. Apple, Linux, Sony, Nintendo ) knows that Microsoft's products always suck in comparison when it comes to actual use.
"Bach, talking to Wall Street analysts, also painted the forthcoming Windows Mobile 7.0 as something that will "move the bar forward" not in an evolutionary way "but it's something that feels, looks, acts and performs completely different.""
You mean the bastard son of Windows CE will actually -work- this time, and be an open platform based on open standards? oh, right. thought not.
Next!
With Windows Mobile 7 not being available until late 2010 this sounds like an attempt to have manufacturers wait instead of developing solutions based on Linux now.
Bach is ignoring that all of these mobile Linux operating systems are not Linux. They are Linux based customized operating systems the vendor has designed to work with the hardware they run on. My work in mobile devices goes back to 1986 and I almost always built the operating system and hardware drivers myself so I could be in complete control of the development. This is a bit of a pain (especially doing all of the coding in assembler) and Linux is a very nice open source base to jump off from. It saves you oodles of basic work.
I have worked with Windows CE back in 2001 and it was a pain to make it function as needed. What should have worked would not and there was no way to easily determine the problem. There is a big advantage to open source.
If I had to go with an off the shelf, general OS for a mobile device I would go with the one with the longest history and best track record - QNX.
I don't have a high opinion of Windows Mobile. But what he is saying about Linux is true. You only hear this from people supporting big e-commerce sites, not from the fan boys who don't really have a deep knowledge of systems. I've heard many horror stories about the cost of getting Linux stabilized and patched on new hardware, problems with lost interrupts corrupting file systems, problems with how it deals with new CPU configurations and hyperthreading and NUMA, etc. After all this time, it is really remarkable that Linux is not more stable and simple. THe problem is that some smart people work on Linux, but a lot of bad programmers have their fingers in it too.
I use both Windows, Linux and UNIX at work, from a storage point of view, I can give a couple of examples of linux problems:
We have had problems with the Volume Manager on Linux not being able to deal with EMC disk devices being removed and re-presented to a server (required at the DR site), it just couldn't see the filesystems when the devices were re-presented, this is on a fully supported RHEL cluster running on modern HP Proliant hardware, the only cure is a reboot, we're still awaiting a fix from Red Hat several months down the line.
RHEL can (possibly could, now) only support lun numbers under 256, not acceptable for large implementations.
Multipathd has a habit of making filesystems read-only if a path disappears and reappears, it sets a kernel flag and the machine has to be rebooted (so our UNIX guy says) to get the filesystem read-write again. Awaiting a fix...
If I need to upgrade the Kernel, the tape drivers from IBM need to be re-compiled.
All the above, and more, has resulted in major delays to a project, all the above works in UNIX and Windows.
There is a big difference between that sort of installation and a pared down linux kernel running on a phone.
Also the sort of problems you describe are not unique to Linux. I remember a Windows cluster connected to a large SAN and a multi-headed tape library. Whenever the server rebooted it decided that the tape library drives it could see were actually new local hardware and you had to click through loading the drivers for each tape head.
People on here are saying their winmob phones need rebooting once or twice a week. My G1 which runs that flaky linux based Android O/s is showing 28 days since last reboot.
I was under the impression that the parent post was a general linux comment, rather than phone specific.
The particular problems that I described are unique to linux, but this doesn't mean to say that UNIX and Windows don't have their own problems - the point I was making is that linux isn't perfect, which seems to be a general opinion of a lot of people, until you actually pin them down on specific problems.
As for the Windows cluster/tape library problem, that is a specific problem with a specific install (IMO it sounds like either a corrupt OS install preventing drivers being properly installed and registered and/or a persistent bindings issue) and not a problem with Windows in general. The problems that I outlined above are problems with Linux operating as per design. This doesn't mean that I don't value linux, but it does mean that I don't see it as some sort of panacea.
You may be having local problems although why wouldn't you need to recompile the drivers with a new kernel.
However if CERN (40,000 CPUs & 15 petabytes of data a year), Google's gizzilion servers, half the webservers on the planet and the majority of supercomputers seem to manage I guess most should be able to.
You make a typical OS zealot's response of "I don't have a problem neither do some other people, therefore the problem is with you." I didn't say that we had problems with the volume of data linux can handle, or with the amount of CPUs, we don't supercompute and the particular system isn't web serving, but it does have some rather complex filesystem/disk system requirements, which I daresay wouldn't be an issue at the likes of Google or CERN.
I never said I didn't have problems, as many others have said OS have problems - difference is I can do something about them with Linux. I assume Google, CERN and lots of others have lots of problems but at least they can try and fix them. If I'm a zealot it's for freedom not to have a monoculture
Disclaimer : I admit I've had problems with MS software for years, starting with garbage collection problems in 8K BASIC in about 1980 - all Linux now - not a totally easy option just better (for me) than the alternatives.
I assume you mean that, if there is a problem with Linux, you can re-write the code? Well, you can do the same with UNIX or Windows, except you can't, not if you need support for your systems. We've gone to our suppliers several times with fixes suggested from Internet forums which involved re-coding or re-compiling and they have been explicit in saying that they won't support us, if we change their product. I have yet to find a company who will support a product that you change in such a way.
Windows Mobile failed because it's shit. There's really no ambiguity there. It's slow, unstable, bloated yet lacking key features... it's crap. Microsoft, you have lost the mobile market, face it. Linux phones, iphones, Symbian phones, they all work much better than your offering.
"Linux needs to be integrated creating claimed total-cost-of ownership issues, while Windows comes as a complete package" - he's never heard of Android, then?
Hey guys, look we're a multi zillion mega dollar All American super dooper corporation right! and we can't make mobiles works. Believe me when I tell you, making mobiles work is like hard man. It's difficult. Them pesky users, they expect to make phone calls, like even when we're running apps... like at the same god damn time man.
If we can't do it, how the hell do you expect a jumped up load of pinkos and foreigners to make a working platform.
When everybody has a copy of OS-X on their iPhone, and a linux kernel in their Android phone, and not Windows, something odd is going to happen: they're not going to afraid of Linux and OS-X. When their computer doesn't work - when it's so bogged down with the Microsoft Crud it takes 10 minutes to boot they'll start each day browsing the 'Net on an OS that's secure, stable and reliable enough to use on a phone. The kind of OS you want in your pocket when your car breaks down and you need to navigate your way discreetly out of Compton or Detroit without walking door to door in the middle of the night begging for help. The kind of OS you want in your hand when you're reaching out to your kid.... "and if you need me, call."
And when their Windows PC crashes, or fails or won't connect, what are they going to use to access customer service and call for help? Their good OS. That's going to get some people thinking about their desktop OS priorities.
I was going to add a comment along the lines of: "This 'quality' analysis is coming from the company that built *Windows*?", but it appears you've all beaten me to it in various flavours of the same.
Must be truly embarrassing for the leaders/employees of Microsoft to be continually laughed at by their peers... If they weren't so damaging to the industry, you could almost feel sorry for them - the big bully trailing haplessly along at the back.
... is that you don't know what you're talking about. Actually, that's your fail not Linux.
For a start there's RTLinux - okay that's a cheat because it's RTOS running the Linux kernel. There's also been plenty of work on the RT extensions in the Linux core - apart from anything else I remember reading that the music community needed RT or NRT response or the 'product' gets ruined.
Oh, and ignoring the number of embedded Linuxen, are you implying that OS-X or Windows _is_ RT? If so, then I'll ROFLMAO especially at the latter. NRT maybe, but RT - no chance. And before I get royally flamed, I'm _not_ casting aspersions on either Windows or OS-X as a desktop OS.
Heck, I was doing responsive Linux systems (had to reply in less than 50ms to serial traffic from robotics systems, so NRT I guess) about 10 years ago using stock RedHat and Suse _desktop_ distros with few problems.
Oh, and "add another chip to run apps" - I think you mean a second cpu core, since an 'app engine' is usually a processor! (Yes, I know about the FFT etc you can run on graphics cards, but that's a specialised use).
I would suggest that Nokia and the folks in the LiMo Foundation (Google it) have already identified the shortcomings and dealt with them (probably a long time ago).
I love the way the right hand column of both the article and the comments page for this story contains the feature link to the Nokia N900 review.
That would be the Nokia N900 running the Maemo operating system that's based on Debian O/S that Nokia have said will replace the Symbian/S60 combination on all it's N-series phones...
Microsoft are still stuck in their old ways I see. When will they learn that their paradigm just cannot work in todays technology fuelled society. They just dont innovate any more. The playing field has shifted and MS dont know what to do.
The sheer arrogance in the face of loosing market share just astounds me. They seem to think they can get out of it by insulting the competition rather than actually making something that works. What the fuck are Balmer and co. on??
I cant wait to see the day MS die and rot slowly. Their arrogance and bigotry just pisses me off.
Perhaps a company that forked its own proprietary code base for CE / WM functionality shouldn't offer advice and opinions on such matters. They do not have a believable story, and they don't have the benefit of market dominance in the mobile space. What they do have is a good development environment (the .NET Compact Framework), and a quite a lot of developers who can write stuff for it.
@James 47 - you obviously don't understand what real-time means. At all.
Oh good grief. Microsoft proclaiming that the problem with linux smartphones is that all the different variants are hard to support.
Has this daft suit ever actually tried to develop for Winmo? Good Grief. Windows mobile somehow actually manages to be *harder* than even symbian to develop for because the sheer difference even between simple model numbers in mobile handsets can be so perplexing. As a developer , Android and the wonderful touch cocoa toolkits (Technically not linux, but darwin/bsd) have been amazing to work with. Cocoa has precisely two targets to work towards, fast (3GS) handsets and slow (3G) handsets, both are exactly the same, bar performance. The Androids slightly more fragmented, but the SDK does at least a respectable job of making that difference not TOO onerous to work with.
Man I remember working in embeded robotics in the 90s when a microsoft sales rep tried to convince us to move from eTrax ucLinux to Window CE because it had signed drivers. We didn't bloody need signed drivers , we where *writing* them for our own hardware. A decade and a half later , Microsoft still does not understand the embedded market at all.
Look at the current Android devices. Buy an Android device at the moment and you have NO IDEA what you are getting. Some have exchange synch. Some don't. The Nexus One has exchange synch for contacts and email but no calendar. The Moto Droid has the calendar as well but no notes synching. And that is within a (supposedly) SINGLE version of Linux. The Moto Dext has the facebook integration stuff, the newer Droid doesn't. Developers are having to write apps for, not just incremental releases, but separate phones with the same OS version number. It's rapidly become a complete mess and Android hasn't been around long.
People can (and do) mock MS all they like. I have no idea whether Windows Phone will survive until WM7 is released. Six months ago I was confident it would. The lack of operator support today leaves me in two minds. But none of that alters the fact that Bach is actually correct on this one. If there is one thing the iPhone has shown the market it is that simple works. People like to buy a phone and it works with all the stuff it is supposed to work with. They don't want to have to wade through internet forums trying to figure out why Widget X on their mates Linux phone won't run on theirs.
Buy any Windows Mobile device at the moment and you have NO IDEA what you are getting. Some have exchange synch. Some don't. <etc>
It's still a complete mess even though it dates back to the days of Windows CE, Windows HPC, and whatever those dorky iPAQ things had in them; there was no guarantee that a binary for one OS variant would work on the same OS version number in a different box (eg with a different chipset).
If there is one thing the iPhone has shown the market it is that simple works. People like to buy a phone and it works with all the stuff it is supposed to work with. Same as all their other computerised home appliances are all simple, crashproof, and bugfree, especially the WinCE ones</sarcasm>
Except that my version was true, your "fixed" version is bollocks. All Windows Mobile devices have full exchange synch out of the box. All. ALL. No exceptions. It's called ActiveSync. It's in the OS.
I'm running software purchased 6+ years ago for Windows Mobile 2003 on WM6.5.3. I've never come across software that doesn't work forward. Obviously, some won't be backwards compatible. That's computers for you. iFart won't run on a Babbage Difference engine. Tough.
Do you have any points to make that you didn't just invent on the spot or were you just anonymously trolling?
Oh yes the iPaq! What a complete pile of poo! Lucky if it managed to stay up and running for more than a few minutes at a time, God forbid you tried to actually run any apps on it!
Sorry MS, but you are going to have to do better than mere bluster if you want the IT crowd on board. Somehow I think Mr Bullshit Mach was simply trying to persuade the suits that Linux is tosh and MS on the desktop, MS in the server room and MS in the hand are where they should be spending their company's dosh!
Windows is a poor name for a Mobile Phone-related product. If they could rebrand MSN search to Bing, they should rename Windows Mobile. I suggest something like Tina (as in, Tina Is Not Apple, just like Bing Is Not Google).
As for Linux, well it has already started to coalesce around Android and OHA.
I don't know what they're getting at.
Microsoft is a singular entity. It is a big corporation out to make money.
Linux just /isn't/ that.
It's just some kernel that keeps getting tweaked in various directions at once by many different people with many different (sometimes cross) purposes and aims.
Any one company could step up tomorrow and build something around a linux, if they polish it enough, like Apple polished what they got from NeXT, BSD etc... It is not within the realms of possibility for some reasonable success.
In fact, it's probably one of the saner choices for a newish company. Take a publicly available design (because M$'s isn't... and frankly, let's face it, isn't too good either) with a reasonable track record and try and build a product around it.
Why risk building up something from scratch unless you know deep down you really can do a better job? ( and the people to be 'better than' here are those countless open software nerds, by all means, if you can, go for it! )
...about failing in the mobile market.
They could be right about Linux. However Linux runs on some pretty minimal hardware and is very scaleable. Wereas Microsoft had to come out with a new operating system to get themselves onto a mobile device.
As for embedded systems, Microsoft XP runs on tills and cash registers whereas Linux runs on routers, telephones, networked harddrives, IP Cameras, TV decoders and many more things. I remember when the press was claiming Windows was going to be driving all thses things.
Their own homegrown OS (and usually more than one variety), Android, Winmo, Linux., third party OS (e.g. Brew) They tend to cover all the bases.
For example, Samsung have handsets that have all of the above.
When one becomes more popular than another, they simply dump development of the unpopular ones. These companies are so huge, they can afford to throw people at all these systems, then discard as necessary.
Unless Winmo gets a grip, and people want to use it, it will just get dumped for the next big thing (which at CES was Android).
It's just one thing after another. Not only are they not content with delaying Windows mobile 7 until 2011, they are trying to bring about bad PR upon Linux Mobils OS's in the process.
These guys need to concntrate on thier own mobile systems and start innnovating there, instead of bad mouthing all the other option in the marketplace.
As far as most past fans of WM (me included) ar concerned, it's almost game over for WM. They are now so far behind that the chances of catching back up with Android and the Iphone are slim to none, even in the business market. Reason being that Android and iPhone have another year in which to uprgade and support business users with all the features needed for a business phone.
I've been using Windows mobile 6.5 for a while now, and the only thing that makes it better than 6.1 is the fact i'm runing HTC's Sense ui on it!
Android is already ahead of WM 6.5.3 which has just been released as an interim upgrade and trust me thats all it is, they are trying to sell it as a new WM OS, what a joke.
Wake up and smell the coffee MS, ditch Bach and bring in someone with some forsieght and innovational vision into the mobile industry.
"...better than 6.1 is the fact I'm running HTC's Sense ui on it!"
This is finally what will make WM7 even slightly attractive to mobile manufacturers, a good example being Samsungs phone that has WM but has a samsung interface, just like HTC have developed Sense UI (which makes the phone so much more usable). Earlier editions of WM just didn't support this type customisation to the extent it's been done now.]
Which if that is the case is slightly ironic as that is what the suit has just berated Linux for.
...please reread what he actually says....
Linux will be pruned.
That is NOT the same as Linux will not be used. And to be honest, it makes total sense.
At the moment you may find HTC et al are each using a couple of flavours of Linux on their handsets. What he is saying is that each may just settle for one.
The MS arguement is that they provide a single platform and they want to push out the Linux market (hey it's called business, don't like it, fuck of to North Korea).
Personally I don't think MS is that a good product on the Mobile market and Linux is ideal for it, but I can see his point about single platforms.
And and to the guy who says he changes his distros all the time and it's no problem, feel free to get your system recertified for telecom network use everytime + all the QA testing associated with it. People like you are the sort of prat that spouts of shit without knowing a single thing about the business your commeting on; feel free to sort out the huge deficits and third world poverty while your at it, sure your an expert at that as well.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
He he he he ho ho ho ho!
Haw haw har haw he ha ha ho he haw!
*deep intake of breath*
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
He he he he ho ho ho ho!
Haw haw har haw he ha ha ho he haw!
Oh god, my sides!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Seriously, MS produced the abomination that is Windows mobile and they claim to know anything about quality?
Linux has problems (and they are legion*) but it is a DAMNED sight better than anything spawned by MS, certainly in the past few years.
*This is true of any complex computer system, I'm not having a dig at Linux; so chill out fanbois.
"it's something that feels, looks, acts and performs completely different."
People don't want "different", the want "intuitive".
Since when was anyone's requirement for a phone (or anything else) "I want it to be completely different to the last one I had"? Well ironically that was my requirement for an operating system, I used to run Windows.
Brand awareness isn't Microsoft's problem ...
Microsoft's problem is that we are all too painfully aware of their brand and the values it represents especialy in the mobile market .. lets face it, Windows Mobile is crap ... their OSs struggle to run even on state-of-the-art desktop platforms, on a cut down resource limited OS, where locking up inthe middle of a call is a seen as a problem, its a major fail.
.. thats why people are jumping ship as fast as they can.
Im on my second windws phone (1st XDA orbit, second, HTC Touch HD). They have both been absolutely superb. I cant stand windows on the desktop, even less so since vista. Windows mobile is fine though for what most people want. I dont have any of the problems described above, and only every reboot my phone when I get off a plane (and no, I dont fly 7 times a week, more like 2-3 a year).
Yet windows will still fail, because most people dont care what OS is on their phone, but those that do wouldn't buy a winmob if it was the only phone on earth.
Microsofts only chance of ever getting any market share is to release exactly the same software, with all windows branding removed and replaced by a penguin, and not charge anything for it.
And theyre not going to do that, are they ?
I particularly like the posted list of current linux handsets - literally every decent phone on the marked bar the iphone...and even that's sitting on a unix derivitave.
Surely it's Microsoft that is the odd one out here? The one that has fallen out of the market? The one who will REALLY have to impress with WinMo 7. Really Really Really.
WinMo works fine. Sure inthe early days it was a bit crap but since 6.1 it's done the job. People love to blame the OS for the experience when it's the like of the telecom operators who put crap software and UIs on top of WinMo to spoil the experience. HTC has proven how good a WinMo phone can really be with the HTC HD2 where for the first time the hardware does some justice to the OS.
I'd rather have my choice of hardware and OS than be locked to the hardware and OS of one company. I use Windows on the desktop and in the data center daily for work and home and enjoy having a phone that easily syncs with my computers (for media, contacts, etc) without having to install some half finished and poorly designed third party utility.
Since I hacked my omnia to run 6.5 on it ive not looked back. It is user friendly and quick. Plenty of apps work and it sync's nicely with exchange. When I first got it from TMobile it was a car crash, too much crap on there that you cant change and an out of date firmware that sucked battery life.
Usually there's a slight lag between hardware and software support in Linux . With M$, on desktops, hardware support came first, then the o/s improved. With Linux , you get the hardware and software and eventually full support comes along.... by then, the hardware is a lot cheaper.
M$ are hoping to cash in on a lucrative market (iphone fashion victims with spare cash) and shake them down by their usual methods. (Pressure the manufacturers, not the consumers)
However , most people won't believe they're serious, until you can run windows 7 on arm chips.
Anyone who wants to keep up with the latest sh*t , will go for winmobile , cos they don't know any better.... bless 'em
I'm sorry, you are suggesting that a significant proportion of iPhone users are going to switch to a Windows Mobile 7 based phone?
Ahem. First, Microsoft have to produce an OS which provides as good an experience as OS X on the iPhone. This, frankly, is Apple's area of expertise and seems to be something that Mr Softy just doesn't get. Apple designs appear to be form over function, but oftern produce all the function you need as well. Microsoft designs still have a clumsy aura about them. With Apple you get the impression they've strived really hard to produce the ultimate user experience, whereas with Microsoft I often feel they've said "oh that'll do - ship it".
If I was Microsft, frankly, I'd be crapping myself because WM7 is going to make or break their mobile business model. Get it right and they've joined Apple and Google on a high-speed running machine. Run, run as fast as you can, because if you're anywhere close to the competition you need to keep innovating to stay there. Get it wrong and the bottom will drop so far out of your business model that you'll never see it again.
FWIW I think WM7 will just about get there (after a couple of patch releases) but I don't think Microsoft are sufficiently agile to keep innovating at the speed they need to, to keep up with the competition. I don't really expect to see a WM8, and certainly not one with a double-digit market share.
Looking forward to my iPhone 4G upgrade later this year!
"Anyone who wants to keep up with the latest sh*t , will go for winmobile , cos they don't know any better.... bless 'em"
Nope, they're buying the latest iPhones. Even my Microsoft fanboi acquaintances who put Vista Ultimate on every PC they owned have bought iPhones, not WinMo. For that group, the iPhone "cool" factor has completely trumped any Microsoft allegiance.
"Bach, talking to Wall Street analysts, also painted the forthcoming Windows Mobile 7.0 as somthing thet will "move the bar forward" "
Bars move up and down.
Tapes and boundaries are moved backwards and forwards.
Envelopes are pushed.
If the man can't be trusted with a simple metaphor I'm certainly not trusting him with my mobile phone...
I think what Bach was trying to say, is that should Linux smartphones begin to enjoy widespread adoption in the enterprise; MS' strategy will be to obfuscate, impede, and otherwise prevent any and all attempts at integration with its own products (outlook + whatever else). Otherwise they'll just throw rocks (independent market research what says Linux phones will make your cat pregnant, give your babies a hare lip, etc.). That shouldn't be news to anyone.
It's not that bad. Anyone who is throwing stones at it hasn't used it since 1999 probably. I have a Touch Pro, and it never crashes, seldom needs rebooting, etc. The UI is from HTC..because the standard winmo interface IS crap. I can sync to the rest of the corporate world with no problems and I can play MP3s, watch movies, youtube, and the rest of the multimedia stuff. In fact, windows PDAs and phones were able to do all that for years before iPhones, maybe Symbian, etc. They have always suffered from crappy UI on the phone and from software bloat..and originally, yes stability problems.
However, today I would say they still have software bloat, ugly UI (but that's changing), but the have very little stability issues anymore. I like that fact that I can hack it and do whatever like tethering, override exchange security policy hassles, unlock it, add video codecs (via 3rd party programs) that you just can't do on an iPhone unless you Jailbreak it and risk excommunication from the cult of Jobs.
I'm not a win fanboi (I run Ubuntu on my server at home, ubuntu on netbook and Vista on some desktops) and certainly do not subscribe to MS' FUD about linux, but Jeez WinMo is an industry veteran that still has plenty of life and business use in it and hate to see it bashed by all the Johnny-come-latelys who have most certainly benefited from WinMo's successes and failures. They definitely need to improve things drastically, but I think everyone does if they wanna keep up with Apple.
Microsoft is behind. Blackberry and the iPhone destroyed it's hopes of mounting a Mobile challenge. Even the Palm PRE is a more compelling smart phone. There are more smart phones running Android than there are running Windows Mobile. No one is waiting around for Windows Mobile 7 to see any of it's features or care what it can do because the world has moved on.
Is that they are Microsoft, with all the baggage and bad karma that implies.
They already dominated the PC industry by the time enough people realized they were untrustworthy sharks and dangerous to do business with. If you want to operate in the PC market, you have little choice but to do business with them, even though you know very well what that means.
OTOH, the big players in mobile tech have the advantage of getting to see Microsoft for what they are before they got trapped into involvement with them. Microsoft aren't the big fish in that class of OS and thus don't have the leverage to make handset manufacturers do their bidding like they can in the PC market.
Which means they have to compete on (gasp!) quality and innovation, two things which their dominant position on the desktop has made them sloppy about.
Microsoft seems to be the only company advertising Linux.
Funny really. And out of fear always.
The fact is that Linux is bigger in embedded devices (and super computers) than Microsoft.
That hurts, and now there is not only Apple but Google too, and that is really disgusting. Poor Microsoft.
No body wants them to run the show the way they have been able to run the PC business.
To stir the pot, and also try and promote sales. Microsoft is notorious for making public statements that often do not materialize. They are in rough times right now fighting open source which is slowly eating away at its market share in several areas. They are getting desperate, and therefore will say anything to get attention and try and put a false image through.
"ActiveSync blows away everything else out there. What's your beef with it? You like manually syncing contacts?"
Active Sync is a steaming turd. I gave my works Pocket PC back rather than endure it's inability to keep contacts and appointments synchronised. In fact, Active Sync is so bad Microsoft dropped backwards compatibility with Vista.
Today my Windows Mobile 6.2 phone refused to let me answer a phone call because ActiveSync had decided that it was more important for me to update the password for my push email.
This same phone rings three times before it makes any sound, and four times before it is possible to press the 'answer' key.
Thus I miss quite a lot of calls.
Maybe the problem is that the hardware can't cope with the demands of the OS. However, if that's true then the hardware I had before couldn't cope either, as it had identical issues.
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