
Microsoft to release Android-powered Nokia X2 handset - madradavid
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27992439
======
johansch
[http://gigaom.com/2014/06/24/microsofts-android-line-
evolves...](http://gigaom.com/2014/06/24/microsofts-android-line-evolves-new-
nokia-x2-handset-has-opera-as-default-browser/)

"Here’s a fun game. Mentally rewind 5 years and see how likely the following
sentence would have been: Microsoft has decided to make Opera the default
browser on its new, Linux-based Android handsets."

~~~
Sanddancer
Well, five years ago, Microsoft-owned subsidiary Danger released the Sidekick
LX 2009, which used NetBSD as its operating system, used a JVM derivative, and
a browser not based on IE. Everything old is new again.

~~~
hga
But 5 years ago it was axiomatic that Microsoft would throw such a system
away, and replace it with something underwhelming. In this case, the Kin, a
total disaster.

We're now seeing that Microsoft may be starting to rid itself of the platform
tax that's crippled so many of their efforts. In the case of the Kin, that
even included Exchange support, which wasn't a desiderata for its market (and
to make things worse, the code/libraries the Kin team was supplied were
extremely buggy).

~~~
random28345
> But 5 years ago it was axiomatic that Microsoft would throw such a system
> away, and replace it with something underwhelming.

Is not not axiomatic that the Nokia Android phone is a temporary thing? They
aren't trying to build a line of Android phones, they are trying to retain
market share as a phone manufacturer until Windows Phone is more successful.

Either Windows Phone becomes a solid 3rd place Smartphone OS, and they kill
their Android line, or Windows Phone becomes an obvious failure, and they sell
the remnants of Nokia. Either way, 6 years from now MS will no longer be
selling Android phones.

~~~
hga
We're seeing hints it's no longer axiomatic.

But I'll agree the long term outcomes you sketch out are likely. The article
itself indicated this phone is in part intended to get you to later buy a
higher grade and branded Windows Phone.

------
BigChiefSmokem
I'm a C# developer (and strong supporter of .NET and Xamarin) and this signals
to me that I have that _many more_ options now - its great and very exciting
for me to hear all this great news coming out of Microsoft almost every other
week.

DevDiv's tools and frameworks is where it's at when it comes to building big
multi-platform codebases - backend, front-end, desktop, mobile, cloud,
whatever. Add to that the immense infrastructure and operations support I get
from the MS business ecosystem and it's just icing on my Productivity Cake. I
don't mind paying them because I get great stuff for the price.

I never understood how tech-intelligent people would hold so much hate towards
a company that pretty much provides some of the broadest selection of tools
and solutions geekdom has ever known.

Side Anecdote: A little bird recently told me that while working at Box, the
attitude from management was so hateful against Microsoft that they were
willing to blow through huge amounts of money just to roll their own HR
system. What?! As an investor I want my investments to make me more money any
way possible - and NOT be wasted trying to recreate wheels just to satisfy
some sort of nonsensical personal grudge. This opinion people have with the
brand loyalties (and grudges) they hold are non-sense through and through and
bad for business.

~~~
mncolinlee
Here's a good start to explaining the animosity. Microsoft spent billions to
make sure companies didn't adopt open source software. It wasn't just the SCO
money. There was also an associated PR and marketing FUD (Fear-Uncertainty-
Doubt) campaign claiming that open source software would destroy your company
through lawsuits.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer referred to Linux in 2001 as "a cancer that
attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_controversies...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_controversies#Microsoft_funding_of_SCO_controversy)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Micr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Microsoft)

------
bunderbunder
What this says to me as a developer in the Microsoft ecosystem (admittedly,
enterprise side and not mobile):

"Four years ago we had you writing all your apps using Silverlight. Two years
ago we chucked that out the window (ahahahaha) and told you to switch over to
WinRT. Now we're going Android. We hope you've got the message by now. But in
case you haven't, let us restate it in plain English: Dear developers, GO THE
@$#!% AWAY."

~~~
zanny
I think the real message is:

"Hey, we're a company. We have things. That doesn't mean users use our things,
or that developing for said things is going make you money or a userbase. That
requires looking at the market and seeing where _users_ are."

They create the supply side. If there is no demand, blindly working in their
tools is just a silly mistake. I think it has been plainly demonstrated
nothing Windows Phone offers entices the mobile market away from Android en
masse at this point.

~~~
bunderbunder
In part, that's because of the poor app ecosystem. I've been very interested
in Windows Phone as a mobile platform, but there's just too much stuff I've
come to rely on my phone for that a Windows Phone doesn't do because there
aren't any apps.

And part of the reason for the poor app ecosystem is that they've actively
discouraged developers from developing for their platform. Heck, there's a
huge number Android and iOS apps that are written in C# using Xamarin, and are
therefore theoretically very easy to port to Windows Phone, but haven't for
reasons as basic as the developers not wanting to upgrade to Windows 8.

~~~
declan
Not sure why the above comment was downvoted -- it seems to make a sensible
point. (Though I don't know if I'd agree with "actively discouraged.")

If I were Microsoft, I'd give significant $$$ to folks who have created cross-
platform app development platforms. Then I can improve the number of Windows
Phone apps pretty quickly. I may not get apps optimized for my platform, but
at least I'd have _something_ , and then I could offer additional incentives
for optimization. That's what Amazon is doing with the Fire phone and
developer credits.

Xamarin would be one example, and PhoneGap (or whatever it's called now) can
probably be made far nicer and faster. Last year Microsoft did announce a
partnership with Corona, but as far as I know nothing has come of it yet in
terms of a public release of the SDK:
[http://coronalabs.com/blog/2013/10/29/windows-phone-8-and-
wi...](http://coronalabs.com/blog/2013/10/29/windows-phone-8-and-windows-
store-support-coming-to-corona-sdk-in-2014/)

~~~
lostmsu
We did some progress on PhoneGap [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/vstudio/dn722381.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/vstudio/dn722381.aspx)

------
brudgers
To me, this looks like Microsoft opening a new front against Google and one
which has the potential to change the landscape - note that I said
'potential', I'm not claiming unequivocally the strategy will be successful
and Google will be sent to the dustbin of history.

What I am claiming is that Microsoft:

\+ May have the killer smartphone app - carrier independent voice calls (aka
"Skype").

\+ Clearly has a more thoughtfully designed user interface in the form of
Metro versus Android's WIMP on a phone mashups.

\+ Could offer a more thoughtfully integrated suite of development tools
should they get Android tooling into Visual Studio.

\+ Already has a set of platform agnostic cloud services that are at least as
good as Google's and since they include Office more attractive to general
users.

\+ Because of their B2B orientation, access to revenue streams other than
advertising and therefore more latitude in providing a more appealing user
experience in the consumer market.

Finally it is possible that Microsoft will play the 'bundling' card against
Google's policy in regard to its platform, and by producing an Android phone,
they get legal standing.

~~~
rbanffy
> \+ May have the killer smartphone app - carrier independent voice calls (aka
> "Skype").

So does every Android and iOS device, unless Microsoft wants to remove it from
the android matket and the app store.

> \+ Clearly has a more thoughtfully designed user interface in the form of
> Metro versus Android's WIMP on a phone mashups.

That's debatable. I prefer Android to Windows Phone. Sometimes, even over the
iPhone.

And there are days I miss WebOS...

> \+ Could offer a more thoughtfully integrated suite of development tools
> should they get Android tooling into Visual Studio.

I kind of like the Android toolset.

> \+ Already has a set of platform agnostic cloud services that are at least
> as good as Google's and since they include Office more attractive to general
> users.

At least as good as Google means Google is still the standard. Attractive to
Office users.

> \+ Because of their B2B orientation, access to revenue streams other than
> advertising and therefore more latitude in providing a more appealing user
> experience in the consumer market.

Only as long as they can indirectly monetize a lock-in from the handset.

~~~
brudgers
You've already told me many many times that you don't like Microsoft. And if I
didn't know, I could just look at your user profile where it is stated
explicitly.

There's about zero content in your response.

Just scattershot contradiction using the pick apart technique in hopes of
trolling an inflamed response.

~~~
rbanffy
If you disagree with my argument, you should discuss it. If you disagree with
my taste, you can do so politely.

> Just scattershot contradiction

It's appropriate when many of the statements are simply false.

\- All competitors have Skype. This is _not_ an advantage.

\- The interface being "more thoughtfully designed" is debatable. I am hardly
alone in preferring vanilla Android over Metro and it remains to be seen how
well this interface mimics its big brother. This would create a halo effect if
Windows Phone proved very popular. So far, it hasn't.

\- A lot of people love Visual Studio. A lot of other people don't. I like it
for C# work. I prefer Emacs for Python, JS and PHP. It's also not an option on
two out of three major desktop OSs. I find the Android toolset very good for
Android development and Xcode is unbeatable for iOS development. For Visual
Studio fans, merging Visual Studio with the Android tooling may be a big
thing, but for the rest of us, it's inconsequential. Most developers I know
base their decisions on things other than what is the IDE that'll be used with
a project. I fear for companies that do otherwise.

\- Azure may be as good as Google's cloud offerings (haven't paid much
attention), but how a platform agnostic cloud service infrastructure can be
called a competitive advantage still seems an interesting question. I'd like
to see some elaboration on that, because platform agnostic is, well, agnostic.

\- Finally, Microsoft has a lot of B2B clout that allows them to throw money
into other divisions until they achieve meaningful market share. However,
unless Microsoft finds a way to monetize their Android offerings, they'll
eventually give up and the phones will have to hold their own. This is an
advantage in that Microsoft will offer all kinds of financial incentive to
companies who develop for it or sign exclusives. It's money in the bank
regardless of application or product success. Unfortunately, in my experience
(yes - I have dealt with Microsoft) they are not the most generous partners.
They'll offer mostly stuff that costs nothing to them (licenses) in exchange
of stuff that has cost to you (effort, exclusivity). I've had much more
attractive partnerships.

~~~
Maarten88
Visual Studio certainly is an option for Android, iOS and OSX development,
when combined with Xamarin. I even think this is the best crossplatform mobile
toolset that currently exitst and others think so too [1].

If you think the Android SDK is very good, have you ever started the emulator
and tried to debug an app? It's horrendously slow and buggy, if it works at
all. iOS and especially WP are so much faster and easier to develop for.

[1] [http://www.drdobbs.com/tools/xamarin-3-enterprise-edition-
re...](http://www.drdobbs.com/tools/xamarin-3-enterprise-edition-
reviewed/240168321?pgno=2)

~~~
rbanffy
> If you think the Android SDK is very good, have you ever started the
> emulator and tried to debug an app? It's horrendously slow and buggy, if it
> works at all.

It really depends. The iOS emulator runs x86 code. The Android emulators are
full hardware emulators, but, if you choose to run your software on x86-based
virtual hardware, it'll use your CPUs virtualization facilities to run faster
than most handsets (which may not be the best idea considering actual hardware
is much slower)

------
DCKing
Microsoft releases a phone running Android, Microsoft releases hardware
running Linux, pigs are flying and hell is freezing over etc etc.

The real news is that this is not just an Android phone, it's a really good
Android phone. It has a front facing camera, a decent SoC, enough RAM, what
appears to be an IPS display (according to some sources), likely very decent
build quality, and a price that is likely to dip below €100 or even $100 soon
enough. Android phones in that price range are generally extremely bad
quality, but this seems to be a very decent package.

~~~
morganvachon
Except it doesn't have the Google Play store or Play Services, so it's not
going to appeal to the usual Android user.

As someone who uses Windows Phone, I keep scratching my head wondering why
Microsoft even bothers.

~~~
wfjackson
It's a Nokia phone, not a Microsoft phone. It takes an average of 18 months to
bring a phone to market. The Nokia acquisition was completed just two months
ago, and the teams must be fairly independent right now. While the Nokia
acquisition was being completed, Nokia was legally required to act as if the
acquisition would fail.

China approved the Nokia acquisition only on April 8, what would have happened
if they didn't? Without an Android strategy, Nokia would be left without any
momentum for atleast a year in a fast moving market. Remember how FTC denied
AT&T and Tmobile's merger?

The only interesting thing here is that Microsoft didn't immediately kill the
X2 and lay off Nokia's Android team. They could do that anytime or sell that
division to some other company. There would be a lot of people at MS calling
for its head. The headline, story and most of the comments seem to be implying
that it's Microsoft that conceived and implemented this idea which is wrong.

~~~
unsignedint
I've received an invitation from Opera for publishing/porting app on Nokia,
which stated that Microsoft team will be contacting me should I choose to
proceed... So it does sound like they seems to be taking some part handling
Nokia store.

------
dingdingdang
Look at the pseudo-win-phone interface on that X2. It looks what it is: an
imitation of another phone.. also it's blatantly confusing for users who will
now see what appears to be a windows phone interface but be unable to use
windows phone apps. Odd strategy.

~~~
LoneWolf
That pseudo-win-phone interface was my first thought too, a really bad idea
IMHO, as you pointed out it will only confuse users.

Something I also thought was that the idea is to create a better opinion of
the windows phone, and to confuse users to buy windows phones in the future. I
also wonder how nice this pseudo-win-phone will play with all the other
android apps.

(Disclaimer: I have used a WP7.8 phone and hated it, since then I developed a
hate for the windows phone, I feel so limited when compared to android)

~~~
HenryMc
WP8.1 is so far ahead of 7.8. Don't write WP off just yet.

------
spinchange
It seems like Microsoft and Amazon are not getting the real benefit of this
platform by excluding the Google Play store from their versions of the Android
experience. I guess it's understandable _why_ they're doing that, it's just
bad for users.

Are there some kind of licensing terms that prevent them from shipping forks
like this with the Google Play store as one of two app stores available? Would
they have to make the all the Google apps 'first class' citizens just to allow
users the ability to install any of them ala carte?

~~~
ewzimm
Yes, Google requires making their search and services default and allows only
superficial Android modifications for anyone who wants to distribute Google
Play Services.

Reference: [http://www.androidbeat.com/2014/02/android-open-google-
certi...](http://www.androidbeat.com/2014/02/android-open-google-certified-
android-not/)

~~~
spinchange
Thanks for the link. I thought I vaguely remembered hearing something about
this before.

Just as with Microsoft and Amazon, I get why Google does this, but I think it
hurts users and pretty much guarantees there's going to be limited Android
experiences for lots of users out there. "Take all our apps, on our terms, or
take none," pretty much guarantees the Microsofts and Amazons of the world are
going to take none.

Andorid may be an open platform but it's primary app distribution channel
clearly is not. It's an interesting contortion...they don't qualitatively
screen apps, but they effectively screen what flavor of the platform can have
the chief app repository itself.

~~~
ewzimm
They often also cause a bad experience. 512MB Android devices are cheap and
popular, but they run poorly when Google+, Google Play Books, Google Play
Newsstand, etc. are always running in the background. Most people won't go to
the trouble of disabling all of them and won't realize that their devices can
actually run well. It would be easy to feature them prominently inside Google
Play instead of pre-installing them.

------
vezycash
I don't have an issue with Microsoft releasing an android phone.

My issue is that this phone has 1gb ram and front facing camera for the price
of Lumia 520. I'll need to fork out at least twice that amount to get the
equivalent hardware spec in windows phone.

~~~
skrebbel
20 times this. Sounds like they're already burying Windows Phone (which would
really suck, since it's _way_ better than Android IMO, especially since 8.1).

~~~
retejo
Hmm, just wondering. Why do you think windows phone is better than android?
Android is easy to hack about with, custom roms, the source is open and out
there (most of it anyway)and generally has great usibility.

~~~
skrebbel
Usability. I strongly disagree that Android has much of that, and I suspect
that a great many Android users simply don't know any better. Windows Phone
really is _that_ much better.

Rant: My first smartphone was a Lumia, and then when it broke i went to a Sony
Xperia (with a rather clean Android 4.3 on it).

I never even realized how well-designed WP was until I went to Android.
Examples:

\- Operation. Nearly all of WP is easy to operate with just a thumb, single-
handed. All important controls are either near the bottom or reachable by
swiping. On Android, I have to reach to the top for all kinds of stuff. It's
simply, apparently, an Android design pattern to put a bar with buttons on the
_top_ , as far away from my hand as possible. This is plainly ridiculous. On
WP, there's a clear relationship between "how important is this action" and
"how close is it to the bottom". As it should be.

\- Consistency. All well-designed WP apps work the same. Swipe left/right for
different screens/tabs, touch the left-side of an item for select-boxes,
operations on the bottom and more operations by selecting "...". This is the
same nearly everywhere, both for built-in apps and for most well-designed apps
from the store.

\- Cleanliness and clarity. The Xperia _forced_ me to choose a home screen
background picture, making it very difficult to read text and icons. I google-
image-searched a "black.png" to work around this, but still, it's cluttered by
default, and you need to do work to clean it up. Similarly, most good apps are
really clean and uncluttered. I get the info I want to see or manipulate, no
bullshit bells and whistles.

\- Quick. WP's live tiles are a perfect middle ground for me between bloated
Android widgets and app-icons-only like in iPhone. My homescreen only contains
the stuff i do often, with bigger buttons for stuff i do more. All this,
without cluttering the UI like doing something similar on Android would do (by
hand-dragging around a combination of widgets and icons).

Needless to say, I went back to Windows Phone (anyone want to buy a Sony
Xperia SP, btw?). Upgraded to WP 8.1, which added:

\- The best mobile calendar app I've ever seen. The week view is simply
amazing [1].

\- Fix for _every single thing_ I want that Android had and WP hadn't: better
volume controls, action center for notifications and quick access to settings,
stuff like that.

I'm well aware that none of the above includes the things you mention:
customizability, open source, etc. WP indeed doesn't have that - it's much
more like iOS in that respect. I thought I'd miss this, but with 8.1 fixing
all the issues I had with WP, I realize that actually I don't want
customizability, I want the thing to work great out of the box.

You only need customization if what you start with sucks.

On the hackability aspect though, WP app development is a _very_ smooth
experience compared to Android app dev (assuming you have a Windows computer
ready somewhere). The API is very well designed and documented, and the tools
are great (assuming you can stand Visual Studio).

[1] [http://conversations.nokia.com/2014/04/17/windows-
phone-8-1-...](http://conversations.nokia.com/2014/04/17/windows-
phone-8-1-calendar/)

~~~
smileysteve
Re: Operation, screen and thumb;

This is one of the things I hate about the >4" screens, the interfaces were
all designed with things being reachable, but now, I with large hands even,
can't do it.

~~~
skrebbel
Well, get Windows Phone and you wont have that problem. Even the ridiculously
huge Lumia 1520 is quite usable with one hand.

------
higherpurpose
This has even fewer apps than WP8, let alone the "real" Android. I don't see
why anyone would want this.

~~~
morganvachon
I don't know why you're being modded down, you're exactly right. Just like the
Ovi Store on Symbian, the Nokia Store offers a fraction of the apps that Play,
Microsoft App Store, and even the Amazon App Store offer.

As for why people would want this, it's actually good hardware for the price,
and if it's ever rooted and flashed with a full Android ROM with Play support,
it would end up being a nice phone overall.

~~~
dublinben
Skip all that work, and just get a Moto E. At least it's an Android device
that actually comes with access to Google's app store and services out of the
box.

------
DigitalSea
Hell has officially frozen over.

Seriously though. This is great news, good to see that Microsoft is opening
themselves up. Whether or not this is because of the new leadership, it's
definitely the step in the right direction for Microsoft.

~~~
BuckRogers
Just business tactic, not 'opening up'.

------
yourad_io
> "The whole idea of bringing more people into Microsoft Cloud through these
> services is the very core of the strategy," Jussi Nevanlinna, vice-president
> of mobile phones product marketing at Microsoft, told the BBC.

That blade cuts both ways: By providing full/native MS cloud support on
Android, you are allowing people who would otherwise be "locked in" to WP, to
escape into Android.

Couldn't this potentially end up hurting their cloud services more than it
helps?

~~~
sirkneeland
If you assumed they were at all likely to buy WP. But most of them were not.
The choice MS faces is not "sell them WP or sell them Android" but "sell them
Android or someone else will"

------
SchizoDuckie
For $115 you can have a Dogee Valencia DG800, which runs circles around this
crippled MSNokiAndroid phone:

[http://www.doogeemobile.com/doogee-dg800-smartphone-
android-...](http://www.doogeemobile.com/doogee-dg800-smartphone-
android-4-4-mtk6582-4-5-inch-1gb-8gb-13mp-camera.html)

I'm still wondering where Microsoft is going with this. I really don't see
this working very well without the benefit of the Play Store

------
Piskvorrr
Embrace, extend, ...

But seriously: I'm very curious to see where this goes. Perhaps a way of
running Android apps on Win phones? That would be a tremendous boost.

------
cbr
What browser does this use? Is there now an IE for Android?

EDIT: It's Opera Mini: [http://gigaom.com/2014/06/24/microsofts-android-line-
evolves...](http://gigaom.com/2014/06/24/microsofts-android-line-evolves-new-
nokia-x2-handset-has-opera-as-default-browser/)

~~~
johansch
It's actually "Opera" based on Blink.

------
tyrionaura
Earlier Nokia X handsets did actually run Android too, so this move isn't that
much unexpected.

~~~
lucaspiller
I'm not sure how this differs from them as it has exactly the same interface.
Unless it comes with Google Play?

I've got a dual SIM version of the Nokia X and it's about as bad as you
imagine it to be. Side loading Google Play helped, but it's still not great.
The Moto G is a much better investment.

------
_pmf_
Nokia. The fact that Nokia belongs to Microsoft is immaterial here. It's a
Nokia phone.

~~~
higherpurpose
Nokia doesn't belong to Microsoft. Nokia's _phone division_ belongs to
Microsoft. I imagine the actual Nokia company will begin selling Android
phones in a couple of years again, too, so you can't call these "Nokia
phones". They are Microsoft phones now.

~~~
mseebach
Nokia can't market mobile phones under the Nokia brand until 2016.

Also, the company Nokia doesn't own a phone division anymore, they'll have to
build one, if not from scratch, then pretty close to. That mean they don't
have any competitive advantage over pretty much any other company in a similar
situation.

Never mind that they really, really struggled to compete in the smartphone
market - that's why they offloaded the mobile phone division in the first
place.

In other words, I doubt very much that we will see consumer mobile phones from
the not-Microsoft-owned bits of Nokia.

~~~
Nux
I'd like to see Nokia back in business (used their phones all my life), but it
indeed looks quite unlikely.

------
mkr-hn
It's the cheap Android phone everyone expected Amazon to make. I didn't know
Nokia had an Android store. Is it better or worse than Amazon's?

------
talles
I sincerely don't get what is the point of releasing an android phone with
Nokia Store rather than Google Play...

------
dm2
"It will cost 99 euro ($135; £80) when released in July."

Is that the price with a 2-year contract or is this going to be a great value
phone?

Will I be able to wipe this phone and install stock Android? Skype, Outlook,
Bing, and all that other MS crap is unwanted. I'm actually a MS supporter and
understand the need for them to create all of those services but I personally
don't/won't use them.

Also, why are UK citizens against adopting the euro?

~~~
richardwhiuk
Why are the US against adopting the Euro?

I'm only partially joking there. The Euro has had large amounts of turmoil in
the past three years which has involved large bailouts of some countries. The
inevitable path appears to be closer alignment of fiscal policy (including
taxation and public spending) which is sovereignty that the UK public is
opposed to giving up. There's a strong anti-EU sentiment in the UK with a
significant proportion in favour of the UK leaving the EU.

~~~
dm2
That makes sense. It was a real question I had, I have no opinion of the
matter.

I guess the UK sees itself as having a more stable economy that other European
Union countries, so it would benefit from having a separate currency (but the
other countries would be hurt by not having a very strong country adopt the
euro).

~~~
fidotron
Not more stable, but historically out of phase. i.e. when Germany has done
well the UK has had a down phase and vice versa.

The killer flaw in the Eurozone is not appreciating how useful different
currencies are for dampening the effect of such differences. Greece is the
classic example, where for them the Euro was too strong making them globally
uncompetitive, leading to a nasty downward spiral, whereas Germany benefit
from their exports being far more competitive than they would be if they were
still using the DM.

~~~
dm2
Basically, "don't put all of your eggs in one basket".

I was thinking purely about efficiency at first but forgot how complex real-
world economics really is.

------
lcnmrn
They could get Android apps working on Windows Phone OS, rather than this.
Microsoft is useless these days.

~~~
morganvachon
I doubt that will ever happen, and I hope it doesn't. I'd much prefer to see
proper ports of Android and iOS apps, rather than some Frankenstein style
compatibility layer.

------
retejo
Did anyone notice the specs section in this article? "A front facing camera
for taking selfies"

------
kkhire
Microsoft really needs to get back on that path of completely changing the
game in the mobile realm. I don't know if this is the start, but its sure as
hell better than releasing the same thing slightly updated over and over again
(Don't mimic Apple with this strategy, it won't work for you MSFT)

------
shmerl
MS shouldn't forget to... threaten themselves with their own bogus patents ;)

------
n0body
it had already been developed, it would have made no sense for them to scrap
it.

~~~
lyndonh
It was developed before or after Elop's burning platform speech ?

~~~
sirkneeland
Elop's burning platform speech (memo, really) was from February 2011.

So the Nokia X came way, way after...

~~~
lyndonh
It was a rhetorical question.

But it's not necessarily true that Nokia X came "way after". Nokia could have
put the project on hold when they started serious negotiations with Microsoft.

------
mantraxC
Oh, Jesus, this looks like the unfortunate result of a Windows Phone and an
Android phone in a teleporter accident.

Many here are cheering as if this is good somehow, because Microsoft is open
and what not. But look at it. It looks like Windows Phone, but is an Android
phone. It exists to confuse customers.

What is the supposed end game here? "Hey, buy this and if you like it, we'll
make you abandon all your Android apps, and switch to _real_ Windows phone -
because the home screen tiles look similar"?

I don't think so.

This project is more the result of a slow-moving corporate behemoth that
started this project way before Microsoft announced it's buying Nokia. It was
too late to turn that giant ship in time, I guess, so enjoy your mutant
monster.

By the way, the startup sound is Ripley whispering "Kill me" in your ear.

------
hippich
"Embrace, extend and extinguish"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish)

