Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones
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I could be classified (in the past) as a Microsoft "fanboy"...despite the awkwardness of what was Windows 8, I decided to go ALL IN with Microsoft then...Surface RT, Windows Phone, Zune...all of it. Flash forward to today...I'm thinking as a consumer, Microsoft may not have much to offer me. I think tomorrow's announcement and the resulting aftermath of it will tell the tale: are consumers still into Microsoft.
I still maintain a Dell XPS Tower PC as my home PC/File/Media Server with Plex and a hefty 4 Drive NAS running on Windows Storage Server. My daily driver PC is a Surface Book Core i7/512GB and I have an XBOX One as my living room entertainment center.
Outside that, I'm a little diverse...Google Pixel Phone, Google Services for calendar/contacts/reminders, Amazon Echo, Amazon Unlimited Cloud Drive, Office 365 with 1TB OneDrive...
Back to Windows Phone...I LOVED the OS but couldn't stick with it...I'm on Verizon at work and only a low grade Windows Phone is available. I do have a 950XL review copy that I do like (testing Insider Builds and wi-fi only) but it is just a sad reminder of what was and what it could have been.
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@garak0410 Yeah, MS could have done something special in the smartphone market, and we were waiting for it to happen, but everything they put out just didn't cut it. It was certainly sad to watch, as we were hoping for much more.
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@art_of_shred said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@garak0410 Yeah, MS could have done something special in the smartphone market, and we were waiting for it to happen, but everything they put out just didn't cut it. It was certainly sad to watch, as we were hoping for much more.
I for one really got tired of the "wait and see" or "coming soon"...or "here it is...now let's take it scrub it." Look at the first Hololens promo...
I had Apple fans going "whoa" and couldn't wait to pre-order...and we've waited...and waited...and waited...and now it looks like it is going the way of Google Glass, at least on the consumer end of it...
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@garak0410 there was one at the AetherStore booth at MangoCon.
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@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@garak0410 there was one at the AetherStore booth at MangoCon.
Wow...sweet...progress!
I do remember budgeting for one (at rumored prices) for Christmas 2015 and it never came. Perhaps tomorrow's announcement may shed some more light on it. -
@garak0410 said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@garak0410 there was one at the AetherStore booth at MangoCon.
Wow...sweet...progress!
I do remember budgeting for one (at rumored prices) for Christmas 2015 and it never came. Perhaps tomorrow's announcement may shed some more light on it.It is still developer model only. not consumer.
@Dashrender and I used it
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@art_of_shred said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@Dashrender said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
This wasn't Nadella's fault though.. this started long before him!
Has anything been his fault? He got handed quite the disaster of years and years of Ballmer trying his darnedest to drive that company into the ground.
You've gotta wonder what Bill was thinking when that all went down.
Same thing Bill thinks every day... "Man, having shit-tons of money is great!!!"
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The Hololens is available for anyone in the US and Germany to purchase today.... for the low low price of $3000.
Paul Thurrott has for months now been saying that he doesn't see hololens as a consumer device. Instead, at least for now, it will be a business device. I suppose in some small sectors it will be really great, but in general business, yeah no.
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We have one HoloLens so far but plan on getting more when our development teams finishes with them.
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I like Nadella alot. He was definitely handed a mess. I think Microsoft would be much better off to drop the mobile platform. It is becoming obvious that Windows will never be a contender for mobile devices.
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@IRJ said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
I like Nadella alot. He was definitely handed a mess. I think Microsoft would be much better off to drop the mobile platform. It is becoming obvious that Windows will never be a contender for mobile devices.
Nadella knows what he is doing. Improving products, making people actually like the company.
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Just remember that they admitted "defeat" in the hardware segment, but they are still clearly focused on Windows 10 Mobile as part of the Windows 10 ecosystem, as it is a very important part of their future vision, including 3-in-1 devices. We can see this commitment and focus as we continue to see new builds rolling out to Windows Insiders almost every week. And Microsoft is still committed to supporting all existing devices, while also giving their OEM partners a chance to enter and capture a larger portion of the market.
Even so, they have said they will not do away with their mobile hardware but manage to "keep a toe in" as they will need some of that technology in the near future. It would be difficult if they had to restart all over again, making new stacks and such. They also want to target more, at least initially, on the enterprise. As they do this, we are still enjoying some of what I call the "development overflow" here on the consumer side too.
So, with that in mind, quite a few of us are eagerly awaiting the slowly approaching launch of the Surface Phone, most likely occurring 1st quarter in 2017.
One other thing to chew on ... the newer chips being used in the latest Windows 10 Mobile devices beyond the Lumia 950's (e.g., HP Elite x3 and Alcatel Idol Pro S) is the Snapdragon 820. Now, if you did not know, these chips are capable of running 64-bit and there are some rumors floating around Microsoft-land, from reliable sources, that sometime in the near future, Windows 10 Mobile will shift to a 64-bit system, especially with the memory and hardware needs of successfully running Continuum. Are you starting to put together the puzzle pieces yet?
Just saying...
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Windows Mobile isn't available in 64bit yet? I had no idea that they were lagging that far behind. Android and iOS have been 64bit for a while (Apple since 2013). As have Linux, BSD and others on those platforms.
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@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@IRJ said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
I like Nadella alot. He was definitely handed a mess. I think Microsoft would be much better off to drop the mobile platform. It is becoming obvious that Windows will never be a contender for mobile devices.
Nadella knows what he is doing. Improving products, making people actually like the company.
He makes me what an Surface Studio for no other reason than it looks cool!
Which by the way, I have a Surface Book and am thrilled with it...even for occasional gaming...
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@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
Windows Mobile isn't available in 64bit yet? I had no idea that they were lagging that far behind. Android and iOS have been 64bit for a while (Apple since 2013). As have Linux, BSD and others on those platforms.
Unfortunately no, but Microsoft seems to be kicking things up a notch and making up for lots of lost time (thanks Balmer). They have not officially announced 64-bit Mobile, but with the near future processors of choice and the vision for 3-in-1's and such, it has to be on their list, especially if they want Continuum to work properly and if they want to pack more memory into their devices beyond 4 GBs. Quite a few of us think this has to be on their radar for sometime in 2017. We're just not sure if they will split into two flavors or force an upgrade to 64-bit. Time will tell!
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@garak0410 said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@IRJ said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
I like Nadella alot. He was definitely handed a mess. I think Microsoft would be much better off to drop the mobile platform. It is becoming obvious that Windows will never be a contender for mobile devices.
Nadella knows what he is doing. Improving products, making people actually like the company.
He makes me what an Surface Studio for no other reason than it looks cool!
Which by the way, I have a Surface Book and am thrilled with it...even for occasional gaming...
Microsoft has made me feel dirty even thinking of owning a product with Surface in the name. It might look cool on videos, but I really mean it, I'd be embarrassed saying that I had one. I'm assuming based on their use of the term Surface to mean "bad hardware that never works that we push via crazy levels of marketing" that the Studio is total crap, too. That they are connecting it to the worthless Surface lines, I'm assuming that they are using that as a code for us to know that it's not to be taken seriously. I don't know what MS is thinking with their hardware lines, but it's hurting their software reputation heavily and I can't see a good reason for it.
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@David.Scammell said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
Windows Mobile isn't available in 64bit yet? I had no idea that they were lagging that far behind. Android and iOS have been 64bit for a while (Apple since 2013). As have Linux, BSD and others on those platforms.
Unfortunately no, but Microsoft seems to be kicking things up a notch and making up for lots of lost time (thanks Balmer). They have not officially announced 64-bit Mobile, but with the near future processors of choice and the vision for 3-in-1's and such, it has to be on their list, especially if they want Continuum to work properly and if they want to pack more memory into their devices beyond 4 GBs. Quite a few of us think this has to be on their radar for sometime in 2017. We're just not sure if they will split into two flavors or force an upgrade to 64-bit. Time will tell!
64bit is not required for more memory. If you remember the Windows Server world on Pentium III (32bit), we had a lot more than 4GB on 32bit long ago. The bit depth was never a memory barrier, that was purely a Windows desktop licensing limitation. No other major OS ever had that limitation and even Windows Server did not.
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@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@David.Scammell said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
Windows Mobile isn't available in 64bit yet? I had no idea that they were lagging that far behind. Android and iOS have been 64bit for a while (Apple since 2013). As have Linux, BSD and others on those platforms.
Unfortunately no, but Microsoft seems to be kicking things up a notch and making up for lots of lost time (thanks Balmer). They have not officially announced 64-bit Mobile, but with the near future processors of choice and the vision for 3-in-1's and such, it has to be on their list, especially if they want Continuum to work properly and if they want to pack more memory into their devices beyond 4 GBs. Quite a few of us think this has to be on their radar for sometime in 2017. We're just not sure if they will split into two flavors or force an upgrade to 64-bit. Time will tell!
64bit is not required for more memory. If you remember the Windows Server world on Pentium III (32bit), we had a lot more than 4GB on 32bit long ago. The bit depth was never a memory barrier, that was purely a Windows desktop licensing limitation. No other major OS ever had that limitation and even Windows Server did not.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a 32-bit processor use 32 bits to refer to the location of each byte of memory. 2^32 = 4.2 billion, which means a memory address that's 32 bits long can only refer to 4.2 billion unique locations or in our case, 4 GB. Therefore, adding more than 4GB of physical memory to a Windows box still doesn't change the fact that it's a 32-bit processor accessing a 32-bit memory space. Even when more than 4GB of memory is present, each process still has the normal 2GB virtual address space, and the kernel address space is still 2GB.
Here's some more info on Windows memory limits:
Memory Limits for Windows and Windows Server Releases (Windows) -
Personally, I don't see how Win10 Mobile doesn't take off.
I was a crazy Android fanboy. And before that, iPhone.
So last year I bought a Microsoft 950XL (lumia), which was my first experience with Win10 mobile... or any Win Mobile for that matter.
And there is no possible way I could EVER go back to Android or iOS now... I'm spoiled. I love every single thing about this phone and Win10 Mobile. It just flows so well. And believe me, I was a total die-hard Google and Android everything for personal use just under a year ago. Now I'm completely changed around to all thanks to Win10 Mobile and the 950 XL.
I feel like one of those fake success stories right now... but I'm serious.
It makes me think that all the haters of Win10 Mobile have never given it a real shot, and just jump on the anti-Win10 Mobile band wagon right away to fit in and feel good with their iPhone and Android buddies.
/endrant
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@David.Scammell said in Microsoft Admit Failure On Mobile Phones:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a 32-bit processor use 32 bits to refer to the location of each byte of memory.
No, it does not. The processor addresses what it is told to address. Virtual memory mapping allowed for memory much larger then 4GB long, long before the advent of 64bit processors. My last Pentium III system had 6GB for example.
In the IA32 world, which Windows used, PAE was introduced with the Pentium Pro in 1995 allowing 32bit processors to go to 64GB on Windows and potentially higher elsewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
Windows 2000 32bit did 32GB of RAM
Windows 2003 32bit did 64GB of RAM
