Windows Surface Mobile: Microsoft might actually be getting it right

Windows Central has a very interesting speculation piece here about the future of Windows and Microsoft in the mobile space. Whether it's correct or not, only time will tell but it makes a couple of telling points. Firstly, that for Microsoft to succeed at the next iteration it's necessary that Microsoft stay silent for now. Secondly, that the device will likely be marketed as an ultra-portable telephony-enabled PC rather than a telephone per se. The latter is a good move as telephony is only a small part of what smartphones do these days.

IMHO Microsoft really needs to conquer the mobile space otherwise its desktop side will wither and disappear. And this time around is probably its last chance.

MS has got to quit screwing over it's mobile user base. Windows Mobile 6 was great and 6.5 was even better. The problem came with that crap known as Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone was not good again until WP 8.1 came out and unfortunately it was too late for them to recover. Buying out Nokia was a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE mistake as well. Nokia was doing MS a favor by dominating the low end market ( Android and Apple could not compete) had Nokia been left alone WP 8 would have been in a MUCH better position.

Microsoft is dead in the mobile space, as you refer to it, and they will never ever gain any more traction than they already have. They are their own worst enemy because they consistently just keep fucking up - if they'd take a cue from Apple (hate to admit it but they do get it right in this instance) and say "Ok, we're going to do this, and only this, and to hell with everything else..." and stop fucking trying to make Windows mobile because it's not going to happen they way they think it should.

I agree with the Nokia decision, it was a bad idea and a fairly large waste of resources but that's Microsoft for you, stupid after stupid after stupid.

Everything that was good about Windows Phone came from Nokia. They made good hardware, and plugged gaps in the software.

Tiberian said:

Microsoft is dead in the mobile space, as you refer to it, and they will never ever gain any more traction than they already have. They are their own worst enemy because they consistently just keep fucking up - if they'd take a cue from Apple (hate to admit it but they do get it right in this instance) and say "Ok, we're going to do this, and only this, and to hell with everything else..." and stop fucking trying to make Windows mobile because it's not going to happen they way they think it should.

I agree with the Nokia decision, it was a bad idea and a fairly large waste of resources but that's Microsoft for you, stupid after stupid after stupid.

Click to expand...

To elaborate, I see it as a problem of focus. Apple succeeded because it was willing to shift its focus to the iPhone and devote whatever resources it took to make that product a success. Microsoft has never, ever, ever given Windows phones a chance to become a larger business than Windows on the PC. Ballmer's philosophy was that products at Microsoft were always subservient to the one true god (Windows on the desktop), so Windows Phone/Mobile never got enough resources to be treated as a first-class project. Windows phones were supposed to dominate simply because they ran a form of Windows, and Ballmer was surprised that they didn't. You can pin some blame on Nadella for not changing things, but by the time he took over I think he realized that it was too late to recommit to the project as-is.

I'm not wholly convinced that Microsoft is readying a true reboot of its initiative, but a one-product strategy would be better than pretending Microsoft's "natural" monopoly would assert itself in mobile, like Ballmer did.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if Microsoft took what was originally the Ubuntu Edge phone crowd sourced project (which failed of course because they wanted entirely too much fucking money to get it going), bought the I.P. for it lock, stock, and barrel, and loaded that form factor (pictured below) with the latest and greatest hardware it could turn things around, it seriously could. I mean really, the first time I saw this concept device in renders and I saw the original Surface Pro tablet it was like "Holy shit, it's a Surface Phone, ready to go, but Canonical of all companies has it..." and that was that.

Look at this thing:



Now compare that with this, the original Surface Pro (can't find any really great press images, sadly, but this will do):



Could it get more perfect as a match made in a heaven Microsoft will never ever get around to realizing is right there for the taking? Probably.

Their mobile OS just isn't going to go anywhere, it's too far behind, they can't get it right, and it's a dead end but they'll just literally shoveling money right into the proverbial furnace and burning it as fast as can be, sadly.

Later that same day edit...

I just had a thought: if Windows 10 can now run Ubuntu completely as a subsystem and not just a virtualized container then... well, it's simple: Android is based on Linux so... you can see where I'm going with this, right? Right?

A Microsoft Surface phone as I hinted at above but powered by... Android, and capable of providing the entire OS and interface in Windows 10 directly as a native subsystem of the OS itself.

Now that would be some interesting innovation at work.

Microsoft, are you paying attention?

I think what you are forgetting is why any normal consumer or business would want that device?

actually that device looks great and it is a package deal

dan1 said:

I think what you are forgetting is why any normal consumer or business would want that device?

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Because... people?