Microsoft is talking to HTC about adding its Windows operating system to HTC’s Android-based smartphones at little or no cost, people with knowledge of the matter said, evidence of the software maker’s struggle to gain ground in the mobile market.
Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s operating systems unit, asked HTC last month to load Windows Phone as a second option on handsets with Google’s rival software, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Myerson discussed cutting or eliminating the license fee to make the idea more attractive, the people said. The talks are preliminary and no decision has been made, two people said.
I hope HTC and every other Android OEM flips Microsoft the bird. The shoe’s on the other foot now, Redmond.
It’s difficult to be Microsoft these days. Their entire company and almost all it’s divisions (office, services, etc) depend on Windows.
Windows is a product, and OEMs and users have to pay for it, yet Android is free (or at least much cheaper). If Windows loses market share and mind share, all their divisions will take a hit in the long term.
So, Microsoft will have many more chances to stay relevant if they offered Windows free of cost to OEMs and users, but that means they’d have to sacrifice a quarter of their current revenue.
It’s a though choice, but they have diversified enough at this point. They should be able to afford it.
That would be a damn stupid move actually.
Windows and Office are still as strong as ever despite all the crap they’ve been piling in in the latest versions.
MS managed to impose a commercial model that no entrepreneur would even dream of, with their OS being forcefully bundled in virtually every computer sold in the world (IANAL, but AFAIK, this kind of “linked sale” is illegal in most European countries, but they still get to do it year after year).
And they get paid for it.
Doing away with this juicy business just makes no sense.
You’re right, but this is also completely irrelevant. We’re talking about Windows Phone here, not desktop Windows and they’re not getting much return from WP right now by comparison to their other products. Offering WP for free would make a great deal of sense at this point, since no one other than themselves seem to want it. Plus, when you consider that MS has essentially coerced OEMs like HTC to pay them for Android, offering WP for free right now might look attractive. Personally I think the OEMs should tell Microsoft to fuck off after that little bit of mafia-style protectionism, but the OEMs will do what they think is best for their business in the end. Fortunately, at the moment, telling Microsoft to go shove it somewhere wouldn’t hurt them all that much right now, as the customers want Android not WP anyway.
What happens when Google creates an Android for desktops? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of it? The availability of key apps is what’s holding them back. MS itself has said that it will create an office for android version soon. Other vendors will follow suite and Google will have a viable offering for desktops.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.o…
The rating says it. Many of the competition products seem to do the job better. Same for the iOS version.
Microsoft Office still has a long way to go to catch up outside of Microsoft Windows for desktops. And unlike with Windows they are late with little competative advantages. Users moved on and Microsoft needs to improve these offers to stay relevant. The times where it sold just cause it was Microsoft are done and gone.
Edited 2013-10-06 07:28 UTC
Actually that is not really true, XBox and SQL Server are also relevant products for MS.
Can you explain how SQLServer is not dependent upon Windows? What Non Windows platforms does it run on?
AFAIK, none.
MS are not making friends in the server space with all their recent 20%+ price rises.
I costed a Windows Server + SQLServer system against a DB2/Linux one.
The SQLServer one was 46% more expensive and that was before the price rises.
I didn’t say that it runs on other platforms, just that the income Microsoft makes on it is significant.
I don’t know about pricing for SQLServer, and there are other options out there, but SQLServer is still the fastest benchmarked database on the planet. IBM has not exactly been tearing up the server space lately either. If your worried about cost and you want to run on Linux why not just run MySQL?
Edited 2013-10-06 06:11 UTC
Could you point me to those benchmarks?
I’m trying to pull up the SAP benchmarks for SQLServer 2012, but keep getting server connection errors. All of the other benchmarks are from the manufacturers so I didn’t want to provide those. See this for now though, which might assist your decisions: http://db2hitman.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/product-comparison-doc…
Unfortunately the report is from 2008. There was a time Microsoft SQL Server was leading in some categorie and that was 2008. That changed long ago.
See the links, all from 2013:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/db2/performance.html
Do you happen to have similar benchmark references past 2008?
Edited 2013-10-06 08:06 UTC
You are using benchmarks from the manufacturer themselves, and these benchmarks are hand-picked ones out of the best. Microsoft has tons of benchmarks that show that they are faster than DB2. You need an independent benchmark to prove anything. And when did this discussion go from Windows Phone 8 to databases? Bottom line on this is you buy the database that has the best tools for your needs and gives you the most transactions / $$ and fits in your budget. Just as a reference, SQLServer2012 Express, is faster than the full blown version of SQLServer2005, not that this means anything.
Edited 2013-10-06 13:02 UTC
Since this wasn’t clear enough let me rephase: do you have a link that points into the www with benchmarks, as requested now multiple times already, past 2008? Yes, you are allowed to hand pick them.
You want biased SQL database benchmarks? No problem: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/product-info/benchmarks.as…
You could have Googled that one yourself. I wanted to dig up an SAP study that I saw on SQLServer 2012 vs DB2
Note the new world record set by NEC with a 10 core Xeon.
Edited 2013-10-07 01:03 UTC
And so it depends on Windows desktop and while Windows desktop shrinks in relevance so does this offer.
That’s the problem the OP pointed out. All of Microsoft depends on Windows and when Windows falls, and it does, all of Microsoft revenue streams fall.
Watch next quarters. The story just started.
92% Market share is the result of “shrinking”?
Professional customers that are picking a database for their organization are not going to not pick SQLServer because it does not run on Linux. Your dreaming.
Edited 2013-10-06 13:15 UTC
But when you buy Windows Server, you get IIS for free.
SQL server actually costs a good deal of money, it’s another sale. Because Express with 10GB per DB and 1 core limitations is useless.
Root and debloat = bye Windows phone
Window Phone is not bloated. Just the opposite.
It is bloat (not just bloated) if you don’t want it on your phone.
TouchWiz is the definition of bloat.
Unless you’re running CM or pure Android on a Nexus, it’s likely your Android phone is far more bloated that any Windows Phone device (assuming you’re running Android). The core WP OS is pretty thin, and even carrier and OEM bloatware is less than I’ve seen on a lot of Android phones.
And of course, since you’re so set against WP on a new phone, why would you need to “root and debloat” anyway? Why even buy a phone with it in the first place? Oh that’s right, then you wouldn’t have anything to complain about.
HTC has been struggling to make any money even with their popular HTC One. They will dual boot WP8 or make more WP8 units if Microsoft sweetens the deal with cash. It’s just business, they would be crazy not to. Nokia took the payoff too. The shoe might be on the other foot right now but with all these deals, noticeable growth in the WP platform, and just a good offering in WP8…a new pair of shoes are being cobbled.
Edited 2013-10-05 14:37 UTC
Dual boot Android/WP8 on the One would make me scrape up the cash to buy it in a heartbeat. Android for work, WP8 for everything else. That would be my dream phone; I do enjoy Android (Sense warts and all) on my One S, but WP8 on this form factor would be digital heaven.
The htc one competes directly with the samsung galaxy s4. The htc one doesn’t have a iser replacable battery or the ability to take a microsd and it has a much lower res camera. So for the same price with a lesser name and missing features color me shocked if htc loses hands down when its on the shelf right next to the galaxy. HTC failed because of poor product development, they didn’t fail because of android.
Edited 2013-10-07 04:54 UTC
I happen to have a HTC One Sv which does have a microsd slot and a replaceable battery. It is also 25% cheaper than a Samsung Galaxy S4.
Just checking hard numbers online, it seems like in the first 2 months the galaxy s4 roughly outsold the HTC One by 4:1. Apparently this was one indication of HTCs performance.
And all of these would be tolerable in the name of “omg fashion” if the camera wasn’t flawed like producing weird colors.
HTC One has some badass speakers though, the screen looks nicer than the S4’s, the construction is mostly metal and no TouchWiz on board…that might be valid reasons why people consider it.
Oh *NOW* dualboot is a good thing for OEM’s…
It’s only good until Microsoft can figure out how to port SecureBoot to the phone’s boot loader 😃
They just bought the devices division of a behemoth called Nokia. Yet they still want OEM’s, which have practically become their competitors now, to offer Windows Phone devices. Do they not remember what happened to Nokia’s and PalmOne’s operating systems? Nobody wants to license an operating system made by a company that also makes and sells the devices. Anyone who got anything to do with this mess should leave their job at Microsoft ASAP.
It all depends on what kind of deals are available. What most of vendors will try to avoid is “locking” i.e., to strongly attach its fate to one single platform. I fail to see how “dual boot” would not be a good compromise if the right incentives are provided.
Also, it is clear by now that what Nokia can do is limited. They have a known brand on Europe but probably will not have the same kind of favor among potential customers on other places of Earth, so, it does make sense to Microsoft to pursue regional alliances where it can leverage their presence and, perhaps this is exactly what they are doing.
On an old post, I said that MS should try to make OEM more than just that, they should try to enlist them as investors also by offering a participation on sales on MS stores by phones sold (like 1 to 2% of each item sold, for example), same with carriers. I still think it would be a good incentive for most of them.
I considered your idea quite a bit but still can’t even imagine what incentives would be reasonable in this particular case. Dual-booting definitely is not a good idea due to the increased complexity it will add into the design, engineering, and after-sales stages.
Self-respecting vendors can’t just provide two operating systems and leave them plagued with bugs. That, on the other hand, means they will have to come up with a way to partition both operating systems effectively such that whatever happens to one (e.g. full update, user-initiated factory reset) will not affect the other but, at the same time, both operating systems should be able to expose and access the same set of user data (contacts, messages, media, and other files). Otherwise, dual-booting will be pointless, users will be confused, and disappointment will follow right after the out-of-the-box excitement subsides.
Nokia still has prominence outside of North America, Antarctica, and the Arctic; but probably not for much longer, now that Microsoft is in charge.
Unfortunately, I’m an engineer, so my business analyses have to be taken with a grain of salt. However, I don’t think investing or even participating in a competitor’s endeavors would resonate well in the ears of business people, unless acquisition is part of their plan. My wife’s former employer, one of the biggest processed food producers in the world, refused to take part in a joint Katrina aid campaigns initiated by a group of indirect competitors. It chose to kick off its own campaign instead and take all the media exposure to itself.
Vendors are out to make money. It has nothing to do with self-respecting. They will make alliances when they see fit, i.e., when it boost their chance to make money now or in future and lowers the risk associated to their business by searching for better position themselves on an ever evolving “battle field”.
Multimedia data: yes; the other things: I am not so sure. First, it is not that hard to have more than one operating system on new devices, they have plenty of storage and we have years of experience. Microsoft regularly did make things harder than should be but it is the underdog on phones. Most of people use webmail on phones, so no problem there, social media is stored on web by default. Contacts are also not that hard to share.
Aside from Amazon, Google and Samsung which other Android vendor can provide a good app store to their customers? Probably none. They don’t have the leverage to offer music, movies, books and other things nor the needed infra-structure. So it leaves the manufacturer to make money only from devices sales (or bundled apps that give almost nothing and are “one-time” income) on a very disputed market. They don’t make a lot of money from sales, for sure, and every new model brings a new round of uncertainty. Would you try to improve your situation by attaching to a new source of income that is not an “one-time” type? Yes, that is roughly speaking what most of us are doing on software. Vendors are migrating from the “on-time” income model to something that is spread on time. The difference is that on software, they use training, support, customization, maintenance and updates. On devices, it would be what consumers may use their devices for: consume data (i.e., music, video, books and all) and services (apps, support and updates). I actually think that in the end it could foster the quality of the devices and this is also why I call it an investment, vendors would commit their time and resources and even sacrifice part of their “on-time” income to get a better reward through time.
The problem with this reasoning? What incentive a top vendor has to use this kind of strategy? None, it would try to get most for itself. But this is not the position MS is on now, is it?
Edited 2013-10-06 14:10 UTC
I hope HTC and every other Android OEM flips Microsoft the bird.
You don’t hide your anti-ms, pro-Android bias anymore, don’t you?
Edited 2013-10-05 16:07 UTC
IIRC Thom actually likes Windows Phone, so i don’t get where this “bias” comes from. As it is, i agree with him, for the sole reason of Microsofts protection racket on Android
Those words look pretty biaesed to me.
Edited 2013-10-05 16:40 UTC
You know better, Hiev. He’s stated before that he dislikes Microsoft and Apple as companies but likes their software. A lot of people feel the same way, myself included.
Edited 2013-10-05 21:45 UTC
And I don’t really care about his preferences, all I did was to point out that he doesn’t hide his bias anymore and everybody suddenly goes ape shit.
Well for one, he’s never hidden his biases so there was no point to make on that front.
And this certainly isn’t the first time people have gone “ape shit” over your comments; you seem to love to start flame wars and troll anyone who isn’t a GNU/Linux and Android apologist. There’s your bias.
I’m writing this from my Asus TF300 Android Jelly Bean tablet and my laptop has Fedora 19, I use the GNU tools all the time, GNU has all my gratitude, so, I don’t consider my self completly biased, if the rest of the people can’t handle a simple opinion is not my problem.
Edited 2013-10-05 22:06 UTC
And there you have it.
Have what?
No, that is not right. I distinctly remember that Tom is pro-Windows/anti-Apple.
or was it pro-Android and anti-Apple?
…wait…
maybe it was anti-Windows and pro-Linux….or the other way ’round.
I think his statement clearly explains where his bias is.
Edited 2013-10-05 17:29 UTC
Oh, please. You people keep claiming Thom is fanboy of this or fanboy of that whenever he writes ANYTHING that you don’t find to your tastes. By now he’s fanboy of EVERYTHING and an anti-EVERYTHING according to all the commenters here.
It’s just ridiculous and it just makes it look like you’re just trying to discredit him just so you wouldn’t have to come up with any arguments in support of your own views.
I don’t have to discredit him, he would need to be a trusted source first, and to me he is not.
His statement is clear, don’t look at me, he wrote it.
Why are you even here then? Do you make it a habit to source your news from sources you don’t trust?
Only to you.
PROTIP: Thom is trolling you and people like you.
Hint, he just puts the link to the source, he is only the source when he puts his personal biased opinión below the news, that is the part I don’t trust.
And his bias is pretty clear for anyone with a decent IQ, obviously you are not the case.
Edited 2013-10-05 20:58 UTC
Funny then how your posts never exhibit any hints of intelligence.
Says the guy who can barely read.
Edited 2013-10-06 14:46 UTC
Yes, it was quite clear – he basically indicated that he was very irritated when Microsoft refused to allow BeOS to dual-boot on PCs, and he hopes Microsoft gets a taste of their own medicine.
I.E. Karma’s a bitch.
Edit: Anything more you read out of it was simply your skewed, biased perception of Thom. IOW, I see a pot calling a kettle black here.
Edited 2013-10-06 16:03 UTC
That’s has lot of logic, “Let’s be better than MS by being MS”.
And my opinion is not biased, my opinions are based on what I read.
Edited 2013-10-06 16:16 UTC
Wow, an opinion that isn’t biased? Too bad for you that opinions are inherently biased. That’s why they’re called opinions and not facts.
Aww man, your comment was like a red hot skewer piercing through my stupid dumb heart.
Or, not.
I do like that he picked on one of the more IQ enriched among us with claims of diminished IQ. Oh, the irony!
And how did you got to that conclusion exactly?, please, tell us.
Vanders took the rather rough AtheOS and made it in to Syllable. Along the way, made lots of hardware actually work, and was responsible for getting improved compiler (AtheOS was stuck on a quirky version of GCC 2.95), got the CD ROM support up to the point that it would actually install Syllable from a CD (AtheOS required floppies), re -worked great chunks of the kernel and generally motivated other individuals to contribute and build a community, rather than the “one man band with begrudgingly accepted patches” model that Kurt Skaun used. Sure he took on a running project, but it was barely alive. That it is pretty much dead again speaks volumes for how much Vanders did whilst he was a regular active contributor. All of this was done, as I understand it, in his spare time. So, yes, pretty smart guy. I’m guessing you have achieved more, for you to be “smarter” than he? Please enlighten us, I’m all ears.
Only to you.
PROTIP: Thom is trolling you and people like you.
It would be funny if it was not tragic that the human beings with the uttermost sureness about the correctness of their statements were not also the ones that are more likely to be proven wrong.
He may or may not be a fanboy…but he definitely makes a lot of questionable declarations that get people talking.
.. and people talking generates page reads, makes people come back and builds readership. If all he ever said was bland and safe, this site would just would be his personal blog with tens of readers a week. As is stands, he’s managed to piss off enough people to make OS News mean something again. I can’t get behind his flip-flopping attitude (which does seem to revolve around his own current personal hardware/software fad), but, hey – I very doubt very much many of us could do any better or even come close. Eugenia was WAY, WAY worse, and far more opinionated than Thom has ever been, and this site could easily have become meaningless without her input. Instead, it’s changed, but stayed more or less relevant. I, for one, applaud Thom for that feat. Best “worst” job as an editor ever.
There is nothing wrong with bias as long as you recognize it for what it is. But let me ask you this:
If you get smacked up side the head with a 2×4 repeatedly, is it bias to not want to have anything to do with 2×4’s? Bias usually means an unjustified reaction. I would say his reaction to anything Microsoft is totally justified.
Edited 2013-10-05 23:58 UTC
Oh, please, explain to me, what has MS done to you specifically?
Edited 2013-10-06 01:22 UTC
Every rotten thing they have done has had an affect on me and just about everyone else. I work in IT. But since you asked:
1. They systematically have destroyed competition while at the same time letting their technologies stagnate.
2. They have conducted a campaign based on Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt against Linux and Open Source Software.
3. They have repeatedly stolen intellectual property while at the same time making it impossible to integrate other software into their “standards”.
4. They use extortion to draw fees from anyone using Android.
Do I need to keep going on?
The problem with all those points, is that:
1) You don’t have a way to measure if that affected you or not.
2) What you call FUD is subjective in your own pov.
3) It is the same bs all the sheep keep repeating w/o actually proving nothing.
Wow you really take this personally. Microsoft has not won in every area and that is especially evident at the moment. No one gives Microsoft credit in the technologies that they have brought to market that are pretty excellent (.NET, improving SQL Server, developed the NT kernel, advanced programming language developments like C#). Some of the most talented computer scientists in the world still work for Microsoft.
This is not really true and is very general. Remember, it was Microsoft’s initial investment in Apple that allowed Jobs to bring Apple and the Mac back from the brink. All of the great things that Apple did after that came from a company that was almost bankrupt.
People make the argument that Microsoft destroyed OS/2 for example, but really IBM screwed up the marketing of the OS and with it’s Windows compatibility layer, it was doomed for the consumer market. Yeah Microsoft messed with Internet standards with IE and they kind of squashed OpenGL, this can happen with competition.
As far as stagnate, I would not use this word with Microsoft. There have been so many changes in the programming models in .NET, many Microsoft programmers (like myself) head is always spinning trying to learn what is the latest technology that is being introduced in next year’s Visual Studio. Last year it was XMAL and .NET programming integration for Win8, a few years back it was LINQ, a year before that is was something else. There are like 5 ways to programming anything on Windows, each model being more sophisticated than last year. From Windows Forms to Windows Presentation Foundation, from .NET Remoting to Windows Communication Foundation. Don’t also forget all of the programming and computer science books that Microsoft publishes yearly. Yeah Metro apps mostly suck and so does Metro, but at least it’s trying something in a new direction. I would hardly call this “stagnant”. What has gone on in technology with other OS’s that can match these changes? There are applications that can be easily written and deployed on Windows that would be quite complicated on other operating systems just because of the development tools that are available. I think that you are talking out of your ass.
Not really. They used to see Linux as a competitor to Windows Server for sure. But on the desktop, it’s not even a threat at this point. The Linux desktop is still really fragmented with a bunch of different libraries and is really made for computer savvy geeks. Even Miguel de Icaza of the Mono project is complaining that desktop Linux still is not there and the driver support sucks. Linux is awesome for running Samba, MySQL, supporting Android, embedded applications and perhaps some other small areas but desktop Linux in it’s current form is not enough to support the general computing world like Windows or Mac OS. Like it or not, commercial OS’s are needed to bring the level of application quality to the general public. The general public needs to visit the Genius Bar at the Apple store, not post for help in some Wiki and then get berated by developers.
What exactly was stolen? When you have a dominant position in the marketplace and your technology is good, then you can make it difficult for other people to integrate with your technologies since it’s closed source/commercial. It’s called business. They don’t program for free and altruistic reasons, and they can’t keep programmers working under that type of model. From what I have seen with free software, this model can create some good products (like GCC for example), but it can be difficult to get people working for free, just to agree on anything. I have watched a bunch of software organizations writing desktop environments and distributions for Linux flame out just because they run out of money and can’t keep people employed.
You mean software patent fees? Elaborate please…
Bottom line it seems is that people are willing to dump on Windows Phone 8 because Microsoft is still evil, no matter what the merits of the platform are…and there are many in this current iteration. I expect Windows Phone 8.1 to bring more interesting technologies and more business deals to make it stay around for a while.
Edited 2013-10-06 04:04 UTC
I just read an interesting rumor the Microsoft has WP8 running on yet to be released Intel mobile processors…team this up with the unified programming model that they are working towards with tablets and Windows 8 and you are going to have an infrastructure that will be tough to beat. I’m also wondering what the next big update is going to bring to WP8 besides a new notifications center and Cortana.
Edited 2013-10-05 16:56 UTC
Yes, the competition better buckle up due to the vast success that Intel has enjoyed in mobile so far. Oh, wait…
If you look at Anand’s iPhone 5S benchmarks, the dual core A7 (ARMv8) beats Intel’s quad core Bay Trail in a number of tests, despite the latter running in a tablet setup. And that is with a large amount of software still compiled for the old 32 bit ISA.
About the unified programming model, currently you can’t even write an app which will run across all 3 Windows platforms (Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Phone 8) currently, and it is not the ARM/x86 split which is responsible for that.
Right now, but that could change. Intel is not a slouch either and if you think they are not going to come after ARM with something you are crazy. Intel can also bring a level of compatibility with Windows that would be more difficult on ARM.
But the app can be easily be recompiled right now for all of the platforms in Visual Studio. And, Microsoft has already stated that this is going to change in short order. I suspect that Windows 8.1 updates across the platforms will be the start of this. With Android, you can run on tablets and phones, but obviously with no desktop option nothing can be done.
I believe the deal is intended to get HTC to produce Windows variants of their Android flagships, not necessarily dual boot existing configurations.
I’d go a step further and push for a Nokiaesque partnership. Capital, subsidies, and exclusivity.
Nokia outsells even HTC at this point, so surely they’re in need of some help.
I guess Microsoft better hope that Google doesn’t follow their lead & add terms to their OEM license that forbids Android OEMs from releasing phones/tablets running any other OS… and then try to avoid disclosure of those terms, even in court, by claiming trade secret protection. The words “reap what you sow” suddenly occur to anyone else?
What HTC really needs to do is stop listening to folks who insist that if you aren’t making $5 billion in profits every quarter you might as well shut down. They need to churn out some low cost phones and accept smaller profit margins – stop trying to be Apple. Superphones might get good press, but that’s not where the market is growing.
Indeed, I’d love to see them roll out some ultra low spec phones for emerging markets. They could be the ones to knock ZTE and Huawei off their socks in the low end…if they wanted to. Something tells me their pride won’t let them.
ZTE and Huawei are primarily networking companies. They can both afford to sell low end handsets with negligible profit margins. HTC doesn’t have this option.
Accept lower margins? I am not sure that HTC is even making money this quarter…does anyone know?
Edited 2013-10-06 04:11 UTC
I have to agree with Thom, the moment I saw that final comment I knew what he was referring to and I feel the same way. It’s all very familiar.
First they racket Android vendors with patents, and now they ask for favors? What kind of stuff do they smoke?
It is telling that this offer only comes after HTC finally aborted WP. Also its only HTC who is, well, known for picking up not exactly what is demanded by customers (Hello facebook phone, Tiles-UI on Android, prestige-projects like beet). That is not helping there reputation and wasting time and resources on such expriments may not be the most clever strategy to get back on track.
Edited 2013-10-06 07:12 UTC
Umm… No. Nothing, I mean NOTHING prevents you from buying a PC with linux or pc-bsd preinstalled ( http://blog.canonical.com/2013/10/01/ubuntu-pre-installed-and-in-re… ). The reason most PCs you see at your local computer store have Windows in them is because this is what most people want, sorry. Be it for the software (hello Pinnacle Studio, MS Office and Photoshop), the fact you don’t have to upgrade to the latest version immediately because most Windows software gets backported to old versions, (while on Linux distros, devs assume you should have the latest version) and because Linux upgrades might break, or just because it’s easier to get support from friends (cousin Jimmy) for Windows.
There is no conspiracy. OEMs have no problem selling the majority of smartphones and tablets with Android and selling servers with Linux pre-installed. If there was demand for Desktop Linux, OEMs would pre-install it
Or, it would be that people expect a computer to just work (aka have an OS) when they plug it in, instead of seeing a message like “No operating system found”. The nerd fantasy of PCs being sold blank and the user installing the OS of their choice has no application in the real world.
Edited 2013-10-06 10:14 UTC
Exactly. It’s not considered a “linked sale” to use the OP’s terminology because one is useless without the other. A computer is useless without an operating system installed, and the OEMs are delivering what 99% of the population want because, you know, that’s where the money is. Most people who don’t care for Windows go for Macs anyway but, whether Windows or Mac, they come with an os that people can set up and just use right away and usually not break for a few years. A computer is a tool to get work done, not a religion.
Exactly. Not even sure how a kernel (Linux) became a religion. What about it is technically (and I mean feature-wise) offering more than WinNT or Mach?
That’s not entirely true. Most people don’t even know that there are alternative operating systems due to this Windows monopoly. In my country I have never seen a single Ubuntu laptop in any computer store. There cannot be demand if there’s no-one to show people those products.
Nobody wanted iPhone before it was available at the stores. Manufacturers make the demand.
I am not aware of what goes on in your country, but in the US, there was a time when Linux was offered on PC’s in Walmart and other chain stores. They are still offered online from retailers. From what I heard, people purchased them because the price was low (the machines were low end and even lower priced because there was no OS cost), brought them home, booted them up and then found out that their existing software library would not run because Windows was not on there. Because of this, even with the low price, they promptly returned the machine to the store. Many consumers are just not that savvy. They expect the machine to run software that they are used to. My non-tech savvy brother bought an Apple iMac because it was trendy and he does not do much with his computer except for run Safari and check email. He loves the machine and it’s stable for his use, but his wife hates it because neither one of them knew that they could not run the wife’s applications that they run at work. Of course, we solved this problem by Bootcamping the machine and adding a Windows 7 installation on the side for her stuff; this goes to show you how not savvy consumers are.
It all really boils down to quality applications. Customers don’t really care about the OS underneath because they don’t even know what an OS is. Besides, there is nothing wrong with Windows for the consumer, so you are trying to provide a solution to something that is not a problem.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-Black-11.6-Aspire-V5-131-2887-Laptop…
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,589545,00.asp
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2007/10/200-everex-gree/
Edited 2013-10-07 21:05 UTC
Those were useless netbooks running crappy custom Linux distributions. I’m talking about real Ubuntu PC’s here, like:
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd
http://www.system76.com/
Not being able to run MS Office, Photoshop etc cannot be the reason, because you cannot run Windows software on a Chromebook either and they are selling pretty well at the moment.
Edited 2013-10-08 05:23 UTC
Nah, it’s not the apps…or the quality of the system. Can’t be that!
Chromebooks really suck and are minuscule part of the market. Chrome can’t do much but browse the web but at least they are harder for the consumer to break than Linux. The are just low end toys that people are buying to go online with. The sales success for Chrome is WAY overhyped.
Edited 2013-10-08 13:40 UTC
If you look at what OS’es come pre-installed with computers since they were invented, I suspect you’d not a find a single successful one that came shipped with a dual boot setup. It’s very obvious why – two OS’es to maintain (possibly without much or even any code sharing) and support would simply be too costly for OEMs.
Now a post-purchase way of running two OS’es easily (though you suspect the second one would be unsupported) is a much-desired thing. Whether it’s via a grub-style boot menu, a VM or some sort of chrooted jail (e.g. see Ubuntu on a Chromebook), it’s always useful to have this ability. This is why Secure Boot that prevents this is a big negative point in my book and why I won’t touch devices like the Surface RT.
If I was going to mod the OS of an HTC phone, Windows Phone would be the *last* thing I’d want on it when there’s CyanogenMod as a superior alternative.
I applaud this effort, whether it is going to be realized as dual-boot, OS choice screen on first power-on, or aftermarket offering. Increasing consumer choice will ensure that OS vendors do not become complacent and continue to innovate at a high rate.
But I do not think that it will be successful with Windows Phone 8. A problem is that WP8 is limited to dual-core Qualcomm SoCs (quad-core expected later this year or early next year). Any other SoC from Huawei, MediaTek, NVidia, Samsung etc. is unsupported. First high-end Android phones are already running on octo-cores, and Samsung already said that the next Galaxy will be 64 bit. Microsoft is totally mum on 64 bit ARM. So this offer will exclude both low-end and high-end phones, with only mid-range Qualcomm parts being able to participate.
Just for your knowledge, Microsoft has already stated that the new update to Windows Phone 8 will run on more multicore processors. I am with you though, I don’t think that the rumor reporting is correct, I don’t think that they mean dual boot…they are probably talking to HTC about just more Windows Phone models.
Edited 2013-10-07 13:52 UTC
I’d wager that MS makes more off its android “patent” deals than it does off of Windows Phone.
I hear that claim very often, but there seem to be no official statements on the amount of Android license payments from any vendor.
On the other hand, there is Huawei CEO Richard Yu who said that “Android is free” in a Financial Times interview in June.
http://www.wpcentral.com/huawei-gets-brazen-says-it-would-buy-nokia
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ced47926-d80f-11e2-b4a4-00144feab7de.html
MS loves to make darn certain that terms of any agreements it makes are non public, that includes dollar amounts and even the patents they are threatening people with. Under the table deals are MS’s specialty.
Edited 2013-10-07 21:21 UTC
Economic aspects of contracts are understandably subject to mutual interest and agreements and as so it is business as usual to be private (not for public institutions, of course) but the list of patents involved should be obligatorily disclosed by law as it is more likely than not that they work contrary to the interests of society.
Do you have any evidence that they make money from their own phone OS?
I wonder what the Android devs are thinking, especially the ones that came from Be Inc.
Microsoft punished Hitachi for wanting to dual boot BeOS along with Windows and now we see Microsoft at the feet of Android looking for scraps.
Microsoft marketoids on a street handing out free copies of their mobile phone OS to passerbyes, begging them to switch from Android, promise to send the autographed photo of Steve Ballmer.