
Microsoft Ending its Short-Lived Tenure as Android Phone Maker - jefflinwood
http://recode.net/2014/07/17/microsoft-pulls-back-on-nokias-short-lived-android-gambit/
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mattkevan
I know these phones started life at Nokia before the purchase, but post-
purchase why weren't they killed immediately?

Running an internal project to get Android working with Microsoft's services
as a hedge against Windows Mobile failing - a bit like Apple did with OSX on
Intel - I can understand.

But to actually release it as a product only to kill it a short time later I
don't.

Good though they may have been (I have no idea), they should never have seen
the light of day. It demonstrates a lack of focus, makes it clear Microsoft
isn't confident in its own platform and is a waste of resources and effort.
Like the Kin.

~~~
Spearchucker
As you said, the Android phones were developed by Nokia before the acquisition
was made. They were initially released by Nokia just before the acquisition
went through. Also, I suspect you mean Windows Phone - Windows Mobile stopped
being a thing in 2010, if I'm not mistaken.

I have a Nokia X1 and it's what you'd expect from a budget phone - low spec so
a fair amount of lag. No Google Play but then the phone is aimed squarely at
emerging markets (although there's a way to enable Play on the X1 anyway). The
part I like most is that it's dual-SIM.

------
DCKing
This is good. The Lumia 520 proves that Windows Phone runs fine on the lowest
end - in fact, it proves that it might be a better choice there.

All Microsoft needs to do is come up with a way to support more than a very
select set of Qualcomm SoCs. Bringing Windows Phone to the same markets as
Android and maybe Firefox OS will go for is very hard if you stick to a subset
of the SoCs made by one vendor.

~~~
edent
Lowest? Android is on $25 (retail) handsets. I've not seen WinPho running on
the same cost hardware as FFOS, either.

At that cost, the licensing fees eat up a significant chunk of profit. Not to
mention that the OEMs now have a several years' of Android experience.

~~~
quantized
Where can you get a $25 Android handset?

~~~
briandh
AliExpress, though the listings might be lying.

$50 is a more reasonable ceiling:
[http://www.aliexpress.com/category/5090301/mobile-
phones.htm...](http://www.aliexpress.com/category/5090301/mobile-
phones.html?shipCountry=us&shipCompanies=&SearchText=&minPrice=&maxPrice=50&minQuantity=&maxQuantity=&isFreeShip=n&isFavorite=n&isRtl=n&isOnSale=n&isAtmOnline=n&similar_style=n&similar_style_id=&CatId=5090301&pvId=190-361828&isrefine=y)

That said, from everything I've heard they're almost unusable.

------
ThinkBeat
Well Microsoft still makes more money off of Android than Windows Phone with
their patent licensing deal.

Why go through the trouble of making your own Android phone when you make
great money (some say $5 per phone, which is about $2bn) off of other people
doing it.

~~~
Someone1234
You know capitalism works when a company gets $5 per handset for doing
absolutely nothing. The patent system is totally farcical.

~~~
delecti
Except Microsoft actually does innovate, and they also use their patents. They
pour quite a bit of money into their research division, why shouldn't they get
a return from that investment?

There are absolutely huge issues with the patent system, but Microsoft's
patent licensing profits are not among them.

~~~
mythz
Sorry explain exactly why MS deserve to make more money than the actual
Company investing all the R&D into developing Android OS just because they can
use their cash warchest to acquire offensive patents they're anti-
competitively using to artificially inflate the cost of their competitor
products?

Is this the kind of ideal use of software patents that rewards innovators and
end-consumers?

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jbigelow76
This is probably for the best. Any Android phone without Google Play services
(targeting a user base primarily in North America and Western Europe) is bound
to be DOA. Minimal OS differentiation but a sizable gap in the app store when
it comes to "must have" apps.

~~~
Touche
The devices in question weren't targeting North America or Western Europe.

~~~
jbigelow76
True. I should rephrase that to say that if the Android phone isn't in a
market where local apps can possibly invalidate the need for the top tier apps
in Google Play, for example Weibo in China, then the AOSP phone isn't going to
fare well (I'm looking at you Amazon Fire Phone).

~~~
Touche
That's a lot of qualifiers and still doesn't have anything to do with these
Nokia phones.

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janjongboom
The thing that REALLY surprises me is that according to the article they
pulled the plug on Asha and S40 phones. That's insane. In the market where the
volumes are (Asia, Africa) they are everywhere.

In Q3 2013 Nokia sold 47 million feature phones (6 times more than their
Lumias). In comparison, Apple sold 31 million iPhones in that time frame.

Pulling the plug on that seems crazy to me. Big opportunity for Firefox OS
though, as it was created to compete at the Asha price level. If there is no
competition from Nokia/MS anymore the only offering between 30-50 USD will be
FFOS devices.

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gisenberg
I think it's safe to assume this also means the end of the Windows
Phone/Android dual boot concept that has been floating around for a while:
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2107863/microsoft-shakes-
up-w...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2107863/microsoft-shakes-up-windows-
phone-with-dual-boot-android-hybrids-and-free-licenses.html)

~~~
walterbell
Nokia/Meego and Nokia/Android both nixed at launch. Could the redundant
Microsoft Nokia people be hired by Nokia Research in Finland? Launch a new
device when the Nokia smartphone trademark reverts in 2016?

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Zigurd
This was almost certain to happen. It would have been extremely
uncharacteristic of Microsoft to continue this product line.

Unfortunately, this also closes off an avenue to Nadella to prod Windows Phone
to become truly competitive as a mobile platform, and for Microsoft's
ecosystem to have an in-house target for platforms other than Windows Phone.

~~~
outside1234
Microsoft is definitely targeting Android - its just that they don't think
they need to 1) fork or 2) provide hardware that runs Android to be
successful.

~~~
Zigurd
Of course that's what they are thinking. But that line of thinking is brittle
in a couple of ways: With no constituency for applications on an Android
runtime inside of Microsoft, there will be a tendency to find "synergy" and
make products for Windows Phone first. Windows Phone has a small enough share
that it could fall off the bottom of the mobile market share ladder. Even
without a complete market failure, the natural tendency to serve an internal
constituency first and best will limit the reach of Microsoft's ecosystem.

There is a good case to be made that Amazon is a better competitor against
Google's media products because Amazon's native platform is based on AOSP and
development uses the Android toolchain.

------
Touche
Another win for the Windows division to the detriment of the company as a
whole. Nokia X might have been a bad idea, but we'll never know for sure now.

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Fuxy
Bummer. The only reason i stopped buying Nokia phones is because they didn't
have an Android version otherwise the hardware is solid.

Nothing against windows phone but it doesn't have the apps I'm used to and I
don't really want to switch to it.

The brief experience i had with it connecting other peoples phones to the WiFi
the menus didn't seem very intuitive.

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ulfw
That was an unnecessary distraction from the get-go. How did Nokia/Microsoft
ever expect to compete with the Huaweis or Xiamois of the world on price with
an OS that is clearly seen as 'not theirs'. Odd to begin with.

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_random_
It's logical, there is no longer a need to copy Metro GUI to Android now -
Google is already doing it for them.

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higherpurpose
They were never too serious about it. If they were, they would've put real
Android on one of their flagship phones, not WP8's ugly step brother, with
even fewer apps, and on a phone that was about as exciting as a rock.

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Naushad
That was the Last sign of Nokia's existence.

~~~
pessimizer
[http://jolla.com/](http://jolla.com/)

~~~
bitL
Second system effect unfortunately :-( IMHO They should have started with a
simpler Harmattan-level functionality rather than redesigning most of the
things and getting inspiration even from WP with the color palette and UI
layouts. They lost authenticity and originality in the process, N9 seemed
super elegant comparing to the 1st Jolla phone, the icons especially are
unpleasant to look at. And I say this as a fan of Jolla and previously of
MeeGo/Maemo. I hope they will improve with their 2nd device.

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sklivvz1971
So does that mean we are not getting rid of the Windows phone "scourge"? No
offence, but it's just another OS to support which we don't really need...
another copy of IE to tolerate... ;-)

(for the comically-challenged, this was a joke)

~~~
Zigurd
Even without Windows Phone you will probably have more than two mobile OSs to
support. Some of the contenders will gain a foothold in the market and you
will be writing apps in Qt or Javascript on some mobile platform's framework.

