Worker drones don't need PCs says Microsoft, give 'em phones instead Windows Phone has had a very rocky history, but Microsoft thinks it may have found a winning strategy to get its handsets into the business market – let them be PCs. Youtube Video At a press conference in New York, Microsoft unveiled the Lumia 950 (5.2-inch screen) and 950XL (5.7-inch screen). The phones are designed to work …
"So Microsoft can spy on the contents of our pockets too?"
Well, I suppose at least we have a little more choice on who spies on our pockets now. As I have always said: choice is a good thing. Now all we need is a shit hot phone that doesn't err phone home all the time. Sadly I doubt anyone will want (or even be able) to afford it.
To get into the market you need to achieve massive economies of scale and be able to monetize the end user to offset costs, oh and keep your labour costs low.
Apple make a wacking profit out of the whole thing, Google do pretty well out of the monetize the user bit and MS make phones.
Then you'd really have a full fledged PC in your pocket.
I've been thinking Apple should do this for years, though they would have to bring back the 'fat binary' capability of OS X to build applications in both x86 and ARM. Just add a OS X GUI layer to the phone, plug it into an Lightning to HDMI adapter, add a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse and people with light PC needs (browsing, email, word processing, probably not games or video editing given that the 6S has only 2GB) could dump their PC.
Looks like Microsoft beat them to the punch. Still think it is a good idea, and might resurrect Windows Phone from the near-dead (though it will cost Microsoft some future Windows PC license sales)
Sure it fills a need, the "I don't want to buy/own a PC I hardly ever use" need. Many people do all their browsing and email on their phones and their PCs are gathering dust. However those PCs are still needed for a few things where the larger screen and better input interface than a touchscreen comes into play. Who wants to write a 10 page paper on a phone? Most people already have a TV (even the ones who've cut the cord, Netflix sucks on a phone) and of course the phone, so all they'd need a bluetooth keyboard/mouse if the phone provided that capability.
Why buy a PC if 95% of what you used to own a PC for is fulfilled by a phone (which is true for a lot of millennials) if you can do that other 5% on the phone as well?
The other thing it enables is the Asus ZenPhone or Motorola Atrix done right.
Plug the phone into a dock on the back of a 10-12 inch tablet, which in turn connects to a keyboard that also has a big battery to charge the tablet and phone. A full (-ish) desktop OS that turns into a phone OS when you remove it.
You can work on documents/whatever with the keyboard and mouse, remove the phone and all the documents go with you. You've got LTE on the phone, so no worries about connecting your laptop to the wifi at a client's office. Take the dock (or even just a USB-C to DisplayPort cable) to hook your phone to a projector for a PowerPoint presentation using a Bluetooth clicker.
How does it do phone calls when connected to the dock though? Integration into desktop Skype would be neat.
@DougS - "though they would have to bring back the 'fat binary' capability of OS X to build applications in both x86 and ARM"
Why? You'll just download everything from the Apple app store anyway. They just have to give you the correct version for whatever architecture you're running and they can do that when they handshake with your hardware. It's not like they're distributing everything on CDs any more.
Most of the major Linux distros support multiple architectures without bothering with "fat binaries" (I've never even heard of such a thing for Linux). When you use whatever shiny GUI "app store" client they use (e.g. "Software Centre" for Ubuntu), you just click on whatever program you want without worrying what your chip architecture is. The same goes for the command line on servers. The computer knows what it is, and it knows which version of the repo to look in.
If Linux distros have been able to do this for a couple of decades, I imagine that it shouldn't be beyond the ability of Apple to copy it (excuse me, "innovate" it).
You still need a monitor, keyboard and mouse. And you're limited to running "universal" apps (read no enterprise in-house stuff) without the windowing support a proper Windows system takes for granted.
For £200 you can buy a cheap laptop which has none of those limitations and doesn't even need a monitor or a mouse. And then you can give your employees a cheap landfill phone.
I don't see the use case. I'd love to, but I just can't.
Square peg, round hole. Microsoft still doesn't get it. A phone is not a tablet is not a laptop/desktop. Each tool has a different purpose. Just because you can put a nail in with a screwdriver doesn't mean it is a good idea. Microsoft needs to bury this "cloud first, mobile first" strategy 6000 feet under. OSX and iOS know this rule. So it is not an alien concept. It is just one that requires common sense.
Not sure it's meant to replace any either the slab or the laptop...yet. It just seems like a convenience. Your phone goes everywhere with you, my slab or work laptop doesn't. At that price it's hardly costing you any more than any other flagship phone on the market and it offers you productivity options that no other phone can offer.
I can totally see the appeal in this, but whether it works in the real world or not is another thing. I've got a few months left on my contract before I need to decide whether to give WP a try having had a few years of Apple and a few years of Android.
So do I want to work with a phone, with a 8-core Snapdragon processor, 5.7 inch screen (internal) and 32GB storage, and the ability to remote desktop to use 32-bit applications, and maybe I can use it to make calls as well (provided I first unplug all cables or risk being bound or strangled!)...
...or, do I want to use my 64-bit, 8-core i7, with a 17 inch screen (internal), 32GB RAM and 2TB storage, be able to work even where there is no proper signal, and I don't have to unplug it to make a call?
Might not fit in a coat pocket, but my backpack is also just a big pocket, and it even has extra space for cables, power supply, some books, and even my lunch!
A lot of the office hardware roll-outs I've been doing have been "kitchen matchbox"-sized boxes that screw on the back of a flat-screen monitor. They're a full Windows PC with no I/O except a handful of USB ports (keyboard, mouse, etc), network and monitor. For the vast majority of office tasks that the vast majority of computers are used for, they're perfect, you don't need anything else. (Looks a bit like this)
Funny. Microsoft Remote Desktop here (admittedly on Android 5.1.1) drops me into my dual Xeon server or the Tesla workstation, both 64-bit. The bittedness (is that a word? No? Is now.) of the phone is irrelevant.
This is the only reason I'd consider a phone and I'd prefer one eco-system. The price does give me pause but it's loads cheaper that a Surface Book and more effective if I can remote desktop in.
What you say is certainly true however would you want it to be the ONLY way to access your remote system?
Think about the usability of using a 5.whatever screen all day every day?
What effect will looking at that fine detail (viz text) in 5pt font on your eyes?
The MS droid os clearly promoting their total 'EcoSystem' but is it practical? I really doubt it.
I sort of feel sorry for the workers whoose Bosses buy into this particular brand of 'cool-aid'.
> do I want to use my 64-bit, 8-core i7, with a 17 inch screen (internal), 32GB RAM and 2TB storage
The other way to look at it is "Do I want to fire up my 95w i7 (in my case, it's an i7-860) to do email and web browsing that a Snapdragon 810 is more than capable of?" I'm not sure what the power consumption of a SD 810 is, but it can't be more than a watt or so.
Why don't they start with some very basic functionality first? You know: I have a Windows (7) computer, which has some shares open. I have a Windows phone which uses wifi to connect to the same network. So allow me to access my PC in order to copy some stuff over to my phone (either using the PC or my phone), all without having to resort to stuff such as OneDrive.
Next: contents. When I use Office on my PC (specifically Outlook) then I want to be able to access all my info from my phone as well. Note: all of it, this includes such trivial things like todo lists.
Once you got all of these items covered then it could be a nice idea to think about "putting the Windows experience into a phone". But seriously.. Start by making the phone actually useful for a change.
I honestly enjoy my Windows (7.5) phone. It roughly does what I want it to do, I can keep track of the info I need, etc. But the first thing which really somewhat disappointed me was when I tried to find a way to access my Windows PC. How could a Windows phone not communicate with a Windows PC?
So yeah; it could be good if Microsoft would finally come to their senses and make this happen. I'd applaud it. But you know what the real problem is with all that? It could very well be too little, too late. How many people have already moved onto Android or iOS in the mean time when they discovered the shortcomings of Windows Phone?
Vista came with Mobile Device Center and Win 7 carried it over, changed the name to Sync Center and improved it.
That said, I personally have not tested its limits so this not fulfill your requirements.
I just usually plug my phone into my PC and move files that way.
Being totally blind & requiring a ScreenReaderEnvironment (SRE) to be running constantly, that means my computational device needs to have the CPU/GPU computational "grunt" to run the SRE along with everything else I might want/need to do. It needs to have the System/Video RAM to multitask like a champ & not bog down the moment I Alt+Tab from Outlook 2010 to the Browser to run a quick search for data I need to reply to the email I'm composing, all while the File Explorer is open & using (something like) 7Zip to compress a couple of gigs of files. If it doesn't have the Grunt to get it done quickly, doesn't have sufficient RAM not to page swap & disk thrash like a drowning man flailing for the air, then I won't be able to Get Shit Done.
So the Device needs to have a powerful CPU/GPU & plenty of RAM _at_a_minimum_, and 64bit over 32bit will be needed to support the higher amounts of RAM.
It needs to have lots of onboard/local storeage so I can keep my files with me & not have to carry additional external storeage. "Cloud" is not an option. An external HDD might be, but only if it's powered by a port & not a wall wart (since there may not be anywhere to plug it in). A USB FlashDisk might be ok, but only if the device itself doesn't have any artificial limitations on the amount of space it can recognize. (Like an SD Card slot that can only handle cards of up to 32Gig or 64Gig in size, rather than whatever you have at hand.)
It needs to have a battery life that won't leave me dead in the water half way through a flight from London to LAX, because I can't afford a 1st Class Ticket to give me access to such "luxuries" as a power outlet. It needs to last the entire day of medium to heavy use, because that's what the workload demands; I can't ask the boss to let me get away with doing less work just because the batteries on my device crapped out in the middle. (Yes there will be power plugs at the office, but I'm talking about all the time *not* spent chained to my desk & still expected to Get Shit Done.)
For the cost of the mid-line model of these phones, I can buy a good laptop that has a proper CPU/GPU amount of Grunt, a HELL of a lot more than a mere 2Gig of RAM, and a battery life that should get me through around 8Hours. Granted the onboard storeage will be about the same, but I'll have more ports, more/larger screens (not that it matters to the blind guy, Natch), and larger storeage options. It'll be able to run that SRE, mail client, web browser, file explorer, file compression, CAD/CAM, Video Editing, spreadsheets, databases, and everything ELSE a worker needs to work on, all without needing an expensive docking station just to add the functionality/ports missing on a common SmartPhone device.
Suppose that today some fictional employer is faced with the decision of buying a computer and a phone for his employees. The traditional choice is to buy an Intel NUC like machine and perhaps an Iphone, with a total price tag exceeding $1000,-
If his employees just do light office work with their computers, a high end spec smartphone might do the job, specially if the integration into the classic Microsoft mushroom farm of AD, file and exchange servers is seamless. This scenario would result in $ 500,- savings on purchase price per employee.
In case employees are using laptops, this price difference even gets more evident, since the win phone could replace dedicated phone, desktop or laptop.
Google is seemingly sleeping here, a chrome capable phone could have been made years ago, but in any case, do not gamble on Intel shares.
Except no employer is going to buy 500quid phones for the sort of minion who does light office work. They are going to be bought for executives who are going to get a desktop and a laptop anyway - whether they use it or not.
The PC on the desk is also going to last 3-5 years. We still use a lot of core-duo machines for people who aren't doing development work. The phone is going to last 1 year before it is lost, broken, the usb socket wears out etc etc
I keep an older Core 2 laptop up and running in my living room so I can stab out a quick email ( with a real keyboard ) or look something up on a larger screen than my phone or tablet. I can see replacing that with a small monitor, dock, K&M. Just drop my phone in when I get home so it is both charging and at the ready for a quick email or calendar entry.
Of course, if the new Blackberry Priv turns out to be as nice as they say it is, I would then have my physical keyboard in my pocket again and could just tap out that odd email on that while still sitting on the couch.
should be enough for somebody who uses pc to check mail/facebook, write a cv etc. saves some money on licenses. - come home, add phone to box where it charges, transfer some files to external storage and use it for some light tasks.
if they could make next gen run some popular multi player titles like League of Legends/Dota/CS:GO it could replace pc for many people(or at least make really nice LAN box)
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