Microsoft should abandon Windows Phone
Or wait... the exact opposite. Broken record time. A bad quarter for the platform has had people all over rushing to proclaim that Windows Phone is dead or dying for this reason or that. I've pointed out many times that most of the people making these arguments are doing so by making invalid parallels to other companies or ignoring other data or just completely missing the point. And I still stand by all of that.
But the worst of the crop make the exact same claim that I already shot down over a year ago. That Nokia (now Microsoft) should make Android handsets. PEOPLE, PLEASE STOP THE MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a reason Nokia didn't choose to make Android handsets, and that choice is probably the only reason that the company is still in existence. The Android hardware market is over saturated. Virtually every OEM is losing money... ON A FREE OS. The only people who aren't are Google who recoup any money Moto dumps in via ad revenue the platform helps generate and Samsung who dominates the Android market. There are ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER ANDROID SUCCESS STORIES! HTC is probably the best of the rest, and they are certainly not cashing in big time.
So what makes you think Nokia would be successful? Even worse, what makes you think Microsoft would be successful here? Nokia, before the merger, was at least a neutral OEM, and people want their phones and wanted them running Android. Many Android fans explicitly hate Microsoft (for no valid reason). I would expect a Microsoft owned Nokia to have even less luck in the Android market than I would have a separate Nokia (even if they put out the exact same solution as the same time) and I never held out any luck there.
The problem for Nokia was differentiation. If you can't make your product substantially unique from your competitors they'll simply take whatever is most popular. You can see this vexed Nokia even when they dabbled in Android. They made a custom Android OS that looked a heck of a lot like Windows Phone. And the problem with differentiation is that it needs to be different enough in a good way that people prefer it over the competition but it also has to be similar enough that it is still recognized as an Android device. Hello rock and hard place, I'm a new entrant into the Android market.
And differentiation is the supreme problem for a Microsoft owned Nokia as well. I've long argued that best chance a new competitor has for tackling the Android market would be to ape the Nexus phones and drop a stock Android OS on hardware. But that approach would only really work for an OEM. They care more about hardware sales than anything else. Microsoft supports Android as a means of promoting their cross platform services. Also, if Microsoft delivered stock Android half the population would call them lazy and another half would accuse them of copying the Nexus brand.
All of this means doing exactly what makes Android terrible and costly to OEM's in the first place. Custom Android OS's. Which means Microsoft would be actively developing an OS which isn't Windows based. And that simply isn't going to happen. Microsoft killing off the Android variant running on the Nokia X line of phones proves that point.
Beyond that, MS needs Windows Phone for all of the reasons I mentioned in the past. Firstly, with universal apps and a bigger app store on Windows Phone than on Windows 8 it actually serves as a platform to funnel developers and apps into the rest of their ecosystem. The phone market is growing while the PC market is shrinking, they need an entrant here, even if it is in a distant 3rd (remember Apple occupied a similar market share of PC's for well over a decade) and recent developments have not even factored into the platforms standings.
The recent events are the new device makers that signed up after Microsoft dropped the license cost for Windows Phone to free and the acquisition of Nokia's hardware (there is not yet a single phone out or even revealed yet that began life wholly under Microsoft's ownership).
Basically, there are a few gambles on the table yet. Walking away would be equivalent to dropping a ton of cash on the roulette table and abandoning that money before the wheel even stops spinning. And the wheel is still moving fast on this one. The ball could land anywhere.
I'm not saying that there will never come a time when they should get out of this market. But I am saying that the time is not now. Microsoft probably will screw all of these things up. Xbox is their only hardware success story and it has never been the hardware quality that was the problem. People loved their Zune Music Players, Kin seemed successful among the dozen people who owned one, the Surface tablets are great, high quality devices and Windows Phone is quite a great OS. But something is missing from Microsoft's marketing strategy when it comes to devices.
But the worst of the crop make the exact same claim that I already shot down over a year ago. That Nokia (now Microsoft) should make Android handsets. PEOPLE, PLEASE STOP THE MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a reason Nokia didn't choose to make Android handsets, and that choice is probably the only reason that the company is still in existence. The Android hardware market is over saturated. Virtually every OEM is losing money... ON A FREE OS. The only people who aren't are Google who recoup any money Moto dumps in via ad revenue the platform helps generate and Samsung who dominates the Android market. There are ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER ANDROID SUCCESS STORIES! HTC is probably the best of the rest, and they are certainly not cashing in big time.
So what makes you think Nokia would be successful? Even worse, what makes you think Microsoft would be successful here? Nokia, before the merger, was at least a neutral OEM, and people want their phones and wanted them running Android. Many Android fans explicitly hate Microsoft (for no valid reason). I would expect a Microsoft owned Nokia to have even less luck in the Android market than I would have a separate Nokia (even if they put out the exact same solution as the same time) and I never held out any luck there.
The problem for Nokia was differentiation. If you can't make your product substantially unique from your competitors they'll simply take whatever is most popular. You can see this vexed Nokia even when they dabbled in Android. They made a custom Android OS that looked a heck of a lot like Windows Phone. And the problem with differentiation is that it needs to be different enough in a good way that people prefer it over the competition but it also has to be similar enough that it is still recognized as an Android device. Hello rock and hard place, I'm a new entrant into the Android market.
And differentiation is the supreme problem for a Microsoft owned Nokia as well. I've long argued that best chance a new competitor has for tackling the Android market would be to ape the Nexus phones and drop a stock Android OS on hardware. But that approach would only really work for an OEM. They care more about hardware sales than anything else. Microsoft supports Android as a means of promoting their cross platform services. Also, if Microsoft delivered stock Android half the population would call them lazy and another half would accuse them of copying the Nexus brand.
All of this means doing exactly what makes Android terrible and costly to OEM's in the first place. Custom Android OS's. Which means Microsoft would be actively developing an OS which isn't Windows based. And that simply isn't going to happen. Microsoft killing off the Android variant running on the Nokia X line of phones proves that point.
Beyond that, MS needs Windows Phone for all of the reasons I mentioned in the past. Firstly, with universal apps and a bigger app store on Windows Phone than on Windows 8 it actually serves as a platform to funnel developers and apps into the rest of their ecosystem. The phone market is growing while the PC market is shrinking, they need an entrant here, even if it is in a distant 3rd (remember Apple occupied a similar market share of PC's for well over a decade) and recent developments have not even factored into the platforms standings.
The recent events are the new device makers that signed up after Microsoft dropped the license cost for Windows Phone to free and the acquisition of Nokia's hardware (there is not yet a single phone out or even revealed yet that began life wholly under Microsoft's ownership).
Basically, there are a few gambles on the table yet. Walking away would be equivalent to dropping a ton of cash on the roulette table and abandoning that money before the wheel even stops spinning. And the wheel is still moving fast on this one. The ball could land anywhere.
I'm not saying that there will never come a time when they should get out of this market. But I am saying that the time is not now. Microsoft probably will screw all of these things up. Xbox is their only hardware success story and it has never been the hardware quality that was the problem. People loved their Zune Music Players, Kin seemed successful among the dozen people who owned one, the Surface tablets are great, high quality devices and Windows Phone is quite a great OS. But something is missing from Microsoft's marketing strategy when it comes to devices.
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