
Ballmer Chides Microsoft Over Cloud Revenue Disclosures - boulos
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-02/microsoft-should-disclose-cloud-revenue-margins-ballmer-says
======
sandstrom
A recent report by Ericsson[1] showed that 20% of current Windows Phone users
want to stay within the platform for their next phone. Compared to ~80% on
Android and iOS.

That plus the small market share (~1-2%) makes it look pretty bleak (which is
sad, I would have preferred more competition between mobile operating systems,
e.g. with Firefox OS and Windows in the mix too).

[1] [http://www.ericsson.com/mobility-
report](http://www.ericsson.com/mobility-report)

~~~
pavlov
Staying on the platform is pretty difficult when there are no new phones to
buy.

Microsoft's new Lumia models are all basically "last year's $120 model, now
for $100". Which is fine if you're in the precise market for a $100 phone, but
then you also have lots of options from cheapo Android vendors... Windows
Phone has long enjoyed a performance advantage on the low end, but that gap is
closing. Meanwhile even the low-end market has come to demand a full range of
3rd party software, so Windows is losing there too.

For high-end consumers, Microsoft doesn't have anything. The Lumia 950 is
barely ok, but won't stop the bleeding.

My last Lumia was a 1520 which I bought two years ago. It's nearly equivalent
to the brand new 950XL -- and my old phone has a nicer design. (How did
Microsoft mess that up? Don't they understand that when their fans have waited
two years for a flagship phone, it needs to look attractive?)

So I'm probably not getting another Windows phone ever again. The effort of
returning to the platform would be too great at this point. (I had three
different WP7/8 phones over the years, so I was fairly committed to it.)

~~~
m1sta_
> How did Microsoft mess that up? Don't they understand [snip] it needs to
> look attractive?

They definitely need a new head designer/artist. Same problem with the Surface
series. Excellent engineering but not beautiful. I've never had an emotional
response to the aesthetic of a Microsoft phone or tablet.

~~~
bhauer
That's odd. Many people who have a Surface, myself included, consider the
design elegant, sharp, and very appealing. I certainly find my Surface Book to
be considerably nicer looking than products from another major vendor that is
extremely popular here at HN. Surface products with their magnesium finish and
crisp angles have a sleek high-end look that doesn't employ design refrains I
find unseemly such as tapering edges and glowing logos.

To put it in your words, I had a strong emotional response to the design of
the Surface Book and its unique hinge. It's not more of the same and it looks
great.

Many of us fans of Windows Phone have picked up Lumia 950s because they are
what is available today, but they were _not_ designed by Panos Panay's Surface
team. We are clamoring for an upcoming rumored "Surface Phone" that may have
the Surface design motif which so many of us prefer. So the 950 feels like a
stop-gap that was released to satiate fans as Panay's team cooks up something
more interesting.

As a Windows Mobile user, I'd run Android apps if they were available, of
course. But I don't really care if they're not. I have the apps I use (phone,
messaging, maps, e-mail, browser, Twitter, news, calendar, Netflix, Kindle,
photos, stocks, weather, music, podcasts) and one I'm starting to really
enjoy: Continuum. So sure, running Android apps might allow me to enjoy the
latest food delivery or clothing sharing service from Silicon Valley, but...
meh. I'll pass.

~~~
GFischer
"people who have a Surface, myself included".

That's a self-selecting group :) , so definitely not representative. I like
the Surface, but it would be better to get people who don't own either a
Surface or an Apple product to rate them.

~~~
bhauer
Beauty if a matter of opinion, and I was replying to an opinion: "Excellent
engineering but not beautiful."

------
brudgers
In fairness, when Ballmer was CEO, he and Gates controlled enough shares that
Microsoft could pretty much ignore Wall Street analysts' quarterly noise. Or
to put it another way, when someone said "I think Microsoft should do X",
Ballmer could say, "Microsoft doesn't care what you think." Nadella doesn't
have that luxury.

------
DigitalSea
I never thought I would see the day when I agree with something that Steve
Ballmer said. But he has a point. The problem is no developer has an incentive
to write a universal application that runs on all aforementioned platforms.
Developers will always write apps for platforms where it makes sense. Windows
has a large share of the desktop market so it is a no brainer. But why would a
developer care about their app working on a phone platform with limited market
share?

I think Windows Phone is brilliant. Well-made devices and a great operating
system, but the lack of apps makes it very unattractive to the general masses.
Support for Android apps without needing to be redeveloped is a no-brainer in
my opinion. No developer will see the value in converting an Android app over
to Windows. It has to support Android apps out-of-the-box without the
developer needing to do anything or no tool, no matter how great or smart it
is will make developers change their tune, even if it is easy to do so.

At present there is no motivation for developers to develop for Windows Phone
and no incentive for customers who adopt the platform. This is very much a
chicken and egg problem, one I don't think they will ever solve for as long as
they don't support Android apps.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
I think you misunderstood. The universal app runs on both windows desktop and
windows phone. So they would only need to be incentivized to want their app on
windows desktops, and then it's automatically on win phone for free.

If that works, it makes more sense to me than emulating or porting android
apps. Those ideas will never work, as MS probably found out with the canceled
Astoria project. It's a great sounding strategy, but that kind of technology
isn't practical for many reasons. Just look at all of the issues that wine has
trying to go the opposite direction on Linux.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I can see why you might want to share some libraries between a phone and
desktop app but running the same app on both platforms makes no sense at all
to me.

Then you have the problem that universal apps have to be sold through the app
store which has all the problems of the Mac app store except worse in every
respect.

~~~
bhauer
From my point of view, I find your statement bizarre.

    
    
        Universal Apps : Native :: Responsive Design : Web
    

Creating separate applications for mobile and desktop is analogous to the old-
fashioned approach of creating a web site for desktop consumers and an
entirely separate site for mobile users. Thankfully, with the advent of what
we now call "responsive design" (which is admittedly poorly named; should have
been "adaptive"), we no longer need to create two separate apps, but instead
can tune the singular application's user interface to adapt to screen size.

Universal Apps work the same way, they adapt to screen size. And with the
nearly continuous spectrum of screen sizes from phones to phablets to small
tablets to large tablets to small desktop displays to large desktop displays,
there's a great upside to using such an approach.

Have you seen how the new Outlook app adapts to the a full-size display using
Continuum? It's pretty awesome.

Frankly, I'm not really sure why you wouldn't use that approach.

That said, I agree the _app store_ model needs to be reconsidered by everyone.

------
johncolanduoni
I think the only hope for Windows universal apps is to backport them to
Windows 7 and 8. It seems Microsoft's plan was to use the free switch to
Windows 10 from these to get enough market share that developers wouldn't mind
moving to universal, but that hasn't happened; unless you want to target only
~10% of Windows desktops you're going to need to choose a different platform.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Businesses always drag their feet over upgrades, I had a customer ask for
Windows 2000 support a couple of weeks ago.

~~~
nikanj
One of our large customers is in the final stages of upgrading. From XP to 7.

Microsoft has traditionally been invincible in the enterprise, but none of
their cool new toys work with the Windows versions actually used there.

------
melted
The idea about Android apps is stillborn. I don't know why they pursued it in
the first place. There's no way Google will allow Play Store on such a
contraption, nor will they allow Google services to be run (which means, for
instance, no Maps or Youtube access). As a result you get an OS that can't
fully participate in the Android ecosystem. Epic fail.

~~~
fulafel
There are lots of Android devices outside the Play camp (eg Amazon devices,
many Chinese ones). Secondly Play won't even start unles you link your Google
account to a phone so many people aren't using Play store even on phones that
have it.

There's a native Youtube WP app I believe, and decent maps apps as well.
Youtube works well in browser too.

~~~
melted
No, there's no native Youtube WP app, and "decent" maps don't come anywhere
close to detail available through Google maps. Amazon devices don't support
the official Youtube app either, nor do they support Google Maps.

------
kayman
Satya wants to woo windows developers by letting them write one code base that
runs on multiple platforms.

Ballmers prefers Windows phones that run Android Apps.

I wonder which is a better strategy.

~~~
Joof
I'm assuming that Satya's strategy is targeting Microsoft platforms only.

Satya's strategy encourages platform lock-in (which is good for Microsoft),
but at this point Microsoft needs to encourage consumers to buy the thing to
make it worth developing for; even if it's just a different front-end.

Ballmers strategy trades the lock-in for something that solves the chicken and
egg problem and removes a huge advantage that android has over windows phone.

~~~
dewiz
It is kind of the opposite. If MS lost the mobile it's due to Ballers's
thinking. Satan's strategy to port the desktop apps to mobile makes more sense
to keep developers on VS and other MS products.

~~~
nacs
> Satan's strategy to port the desktop apps

I'm assuming that's some kind of auto-correct fail and you meant "Satya"..

~~~
dewiz
Absolutely, eh . Sorry about that. Satya's work has been great so far, the
continuous flow of news about open source and cross platform support is what
many were hoping for.

------
imron
> “That won’t work,” Ballmer commented

I seem to recall he said something similar about the iPhone

~~~
blinkingled
He had a point about the iPhone though - iPhone sales rose quite a bit after
it got subsidized pricing which was way lesser than the original price of $500
subsidized that Ballmer was objecting to.

~~~
imron
Sales were still huge when it was first released though, and it totally
changed the mobile phone industry.

~~~
throwawaykf05
That's not how it happened. It did sell respectably well the first year it was
released, but that was only as far as smartphone sales went back then, which
was a very small market. It was still had only a small share of the smartphone
industry, primarily because the pricing meant very few people could afford it.
I had the original iPhone and I was the only person in my entire direct and
extended social circle that had one, and that too only because my employer
bought it for me. I remember looks of envy from strangers wherever I took it
out. The sales numbers from that time bear this out.

But then a year later AT&T started subsidizing the iPhone 3G in exchange for a
two year contract, and _that 's_ when sales really took off. You can clearly
see the uptick in July 2008 when that happened:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system#/media...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system#/media/File:World_Wide_Smartphone_Sales_Share.png)

 _That_ is what changed the mobile phone industry. It created a whole new
market: the consumer smartphone market. Previously it was only really
affordable for two markets: enterprise buyers and rich people. With this new
model, _everyone_ could afford a smartphone. Now I don't have any proof of
this, but my hunch is Jobs convinced AT&T to go with this business model. If
true, his true genius when it came to the iPhone was not really in making a
really nice device, but in creating a whole new market for it.

~~~
bdcravens
[http://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-
iphon...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-iphone-sales-
since-3rd-quarter-2007/)

The iPhone sold more in 2008 Q4 than in the previous 5 quarters combined,
which I suspect is when the AT&T subsidization started.

Also it's worth noting the iPhone didn't initially have an app store or
support 3rd party apps, which is what Ballmer was referring to. Had that held,
history likely would have proven him right.

------
loktarogar
Backseat driver Ballmer

~~~
serge2k
Isn't he still a signifigant shareholder?

~~~
frankacter
from the article:

"Ballmer, who is the company’s biggest individual shareholder"

~~~
nikanj
Backseat driver, limo style?

