Silicon Investor - Microsoft: The Devices and Consumer Segment

[zax] Microsoft has signed an agreement to acquire Xamarin, a leading platform provid...

zax — 2/24/2016 9:15:17 PM

Microsoft has signed an agreement to acquire Xamarin, a leading platform provider for mobile app development. In conjunction with Visual Studio, Xamarin provides a rich mobile development offering that enables developers to build mobile apps using C# and deliver fully native mobile app experiences to all major devices, including iOS, Android, and Windows. Xamarin's approach enables developers to take advantage of the productivity and power of .NET to build mobile apps, and to use C# to write to the full set of native APIs and mobile capabilities provided by each device platform.

[Sr K] In news article about GoPro: Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said Friday that it has str...

Sr K — 2/5/2016 6:52:10 PM

In news article about GoPro:

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said Friday that it has struck a patent-licensing deal with GoPro Inc.(GPRO) that will cover file-storage technology.

GoPro (GPRO) shares, which have been battered this week and in recent months, added 6.2% in after-hours trading to $10.58 a share. Microsoft (MSFT) shares ticked up 0.2%.

The patent-licensing agreement comes just days after GoPro (GPRO) reported weak fourth-quarter earnings, fueling concerns about the health of its core business selling wearable cameras.

The deal with Microsoft (MSFT) will cover certain file-storage and system technologies.

Nick Psyhogeos, president of Microsoft's (MSFT) patent business, said the company is seeing strong demand from the wearable technologies it has already licensed. Microsoft (MSFT) didn't provide further detail on the agreement.

[Eric L] Qualcomm/Microsoft/Windows 10 Mobile ... Caveat: The source of the article bel...

Eric L — 7/16/2015 3:47:35 PM

Qualcomm/Microsoft/Windows 10 Mobile ...

Caveat: The source of the article below is DigiTimes. Sometimes they get it right but often they are in the right church but wrong pew, and sometimes no gold pans from their nuggets.

Note: Allwinner Technology is here allwinner.com and overview here: allwinner.com

>> Qualcomm, Inc. Partnering With Microsoft Corporation To Push Affordable Windows Phones

Qualcomm is planning to launch an ecosystem of entry-level smartphones next quarter

Martin Blanc
Bidness Etc
July 15, 2015

Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) has had a disappointing year in the mobile market, with overheating issues in the high-end market and tough competition from MediaTek and Spreadtrum in the entry-level and mid-range chip segments. The ailing fortune of the chip supplier has caused inventory to stack up.

So, to prevent the sales malaise and maintain its market share, the company is planning to release a consortium of smartphones for $80 or under with Microsoft Corporation next quarter. According to Digitimes, Qualcomm has been cooperating closely with the software giant, while also aggressively pursuing a partnership with China-based Allwinner Technology to push affordable devices over the Windows Mobile 10 platform.

The move will be aimed at reinvigorating Qualcomm’s market share for entry-level handsets and tablets with phone functionality, where the latter is seen as the perfect way to widen its market base over other platforms. Qualcomm is planning to use Snapdragon 210 solution for the Windows Mobile 10 devices, which hugely benefits the chip giant since Microsoft doesn’t demand licensing fees for its operating system.

This could serve to reduce the overall price of executing a range of entry-level Windows phones, making them more price-competitive against modest Android-based smartphones. However, Qualcomm has been able to dominate the segment in the country, in light of an exponentially growing 4G LTE market in China since 2014.

The company’s premium designed solutions and effective planning reeled in various vendors from the country, subsequently giving the chip maker an upto 80% share in China’s 4G market. Allwinner on the other hand will implement Qualcomm’s 3G and 4G solutions to roll out numerous tablets with phone capabilities. Its high-end 4G processors will target Europe and the US, with a view to enter mass production by the third quarter.

The 3G solutions will target emerging markets where 4G is still catching on and consumers turn to 3G or 2G networks. Allwinner left the cellphone-tablet market after losing out on orders from MediaTek, and will take some time to rebuild the client partnerships and supply chain links to emerge as a long-term consumer electronics mainstay.

More importantly, Qualcomm will now be faced with the challenge of avoiding competition between its clients and Allwinner’s clients (which fall in the same product category), while competing against MediaTek’s surge in the space. For Qualcomm, another major problem surfaces in its bid to ease inventory, which is how well the market will react to a maverick OS like Windows Mobile.

The consumers especially are unaware of what Windows 10 will bring to the table. Despite a recently announced feature that will let users fire up Android-based apps for a limited time period, only time can tell whether Windows Mobile 10 can satiate consumer demands, and if it really is “the best thing to happen to Windows." # # #

>> Digitimes Research: Qualcomm to push inexpensive mobile device market with Microsoft and Allwinner solutions

Eric Lin
DIGITIMES Research: Taipei
14 July 2015

digitimes.com

According to Digitimes Research's findings, Qualcomm's development in the high-end market is not stable in 2015 and facing MediaTek and Spreadtrum's fierce competition in the mid-range and entry-level segments, the chip supplier's shipment performance in China has been weakening, causing some of its application processors (APs) to see inventory buildup.

To digest the inventory and maintain its market share, Qualcomm has cooperated with Microsoft closely over the Windows Mobile 10 platform and is planning to release a solution for the fourth quarter, designed specifically for US$80 or even cheaper smartphones. Qualcomm also partnered with China-based Allwinner Technology to release a solution for the tablet with phone functionality, targeting Europe, the US and emerging markets and to enter mass production in the third quarter, Digitimes Research's findings showed.

China's 4G LTE market had surging growth in 2014. Qualcomm's solutions, thanks to their maturity and the company's well-managed roadmap, had strong demand from China vendors in the year and acquired close to 80% share in China's 4G market at the peak.

However, MediaTek and Spreadtrum's competitive 4G solutions plus the company's misoperation in the mid-range and high-end product lines have both caused Qualcomm to see declining market share since the beginning of 2015 despite the company's aggressive promotions on its advanced technologies such as carrier aggregation.

To maintain its market share, Qualcomm has aggressively cooperated with Allwinner to push Windows Mobile 10-based entry-level smartphones and tablets with phone functionality, looking to improve its shipment performance by expanding its market base via more broad partnerships over platforms.

Qualcomm is planning to use its MSM8909 entry-level solution for the Windows Mobile 10 platform and since vendors do not need to pay any licensing fees to Microsoft for using the operating system, the overall costs for the combination will be much more competitive compared to Android-based entry-level solutions and for the entry-level smartphone market that is gradually seeing less profitability, such a solution is rather attractive to vendors.

As for Qualcomm's partnership with Allwinner, Allwinner has currently decided to release several tablet with phone functionality solutions using Qualcomm's 4G/3G products. The high-end 4G solutions will target Europe and the US markets and in addition to white-box orders, the China-based player will also look to sell its solutions to telecom carriers.

The 3G solutions will target emerging markets. Since most emerging markets were still slow in establishing 4G stations, most consumers in the markets still mainly use 3G or even 2G networks. Allwinner is planning to compete against MediaTek and Spreadtrum for these markets with help from Qualcomm's products.

However, Qualcomm's strategies still have some potential risks. Windows Mobile 10 is a brand new operating system and consumers have no knowledge about it. Although the operating system features a runtime allowing it to operate Android-based apps, whether the system's interface is able to satisfy consumers' demand is still uncertain and need more time to observe.

As for Allwinner, since the China-based chip supplier had left the tablet with phone functionality market for a while after losing to MediaTek, the company will need to re-nurture its partnerships with clients and supply chain players in order to return to the market. Since Qualcomm also has some clients using its solutions for their tablet with phone functionality products, how to avoid competition between its clients and Allwinner's clients and jointly compete against MediaTek is also a major task for the two. # # #

[Eric L] Another view of Microsoft and the Mobile Future (Ron Miller & Alex Wilhelm) ......

Eric L — 7/16/2015 3:02:36 PM

Another view of Microsoft and the Mobile Future (Ron Miller & Alex Wilhelm)

... intelligently written. [underlines mine]

>> Microsoft Will Never Give Up On Mobile

Ron Miller & Alex Wilhelm
Telecrunch
July 16, 2014

techcrunch.com

When Microsoft announced its wrenching $7.6 billion write-down last week, it was easy to presume that the company was giving up on mobile. At the very least, the financial avalanche sent a strong signal that Windows phone in its current guise has failed in a major way.

The 7,800 people sacked in the process, the majority of whom came from the Windows phone division, simply accentuated that point.

Microsoft has badly wanted to be a player in the handset wars, but its market share numbers tell a consistently wretched tale. In the US, it has never managed more than a crawl, and is currently stuck at around the 3 percent mark. The company has seen somewhat higher numbers in some European markets, but there has been evidence that even those relative cratonic bastions have eroded in recent quarters.

Luckily or smartly, Microsoft has placed more than one mobile bet and it doesn’t intend to live and die with handsets. It has other bullets left in the chamber including Windows 10 and the cross-platform mobile apps too.

Whatever happens, Microsoft can ultimately never walk away from mobile because giving up would essentially be ceding a massive portion of the future of computing, and it simply can’t afford to do that.

The Current World View

After some time in the soup, Microsoft has finally detailed its Windows mobile strategy well enough in the last week that we can understand it — whether that’s referring to the operating system level, hardware or cross-platform apps. Leaning on Mary Jo Foley’s excellent interview with CEO Satya Nadella, and the write-down, we can come to the following conclusions:

The company made a large wager through Windows 10’s pricing to bolster Windows mobile.

Here’s the CEO:

“[T]he free upgrade for Windows 10 is meant to improve our phone position. That is the reason why I made that decision. If somebody wants to know whether I’m committed to Windows Phone, they should think about what I just did with the free upgrade to Windows, rather than — hey, I[‘m] making four more phone models of value smart phones.”

That’s quite plain: Microsoft wanted to go after phone market share in the long term, and selling Windows at its old price points would limit broader Windows 10 adoption, eroding at the company’s larger value proposition of having one platform across all your devices. Put another way, the company is foregoing some identifiable revenue to prop up Windows mobile.

The company is more than willing to build its own phones — still.

Satya, again:

“If no OEM stands up to build Windows devices we’ll build them. There will be Lumia devices. So I’m not afraid of saying, okay, it’s all about the OEMs, or it’s all about the ecosystem. It’s about Windows. It is about the overall health of Windows and being grounded in any given day’s reality, but having ambition of where the market is going versus being bound by current definitions.”

Again, that’s simple enough. Microsoft has made new noise about picking up OEM partners to help it in its Windows mobile quest, but at the same time, the firm is willing to do its own heavy lifting if that’s what it takes.

The suspicion that Microsoft wants to get out of the phone game entirely, from a holistic or narrow hardware sense, are, for now, bunk. That fact is backed up by the following:

The company will build new phones that it hopes will accrete market share.

The CEO:

“Last week’s announcement was not about any change to our vision and strategy, but for sure it was a change to our operating approach. The way we’re going to go about it. I’m not going to launch a phone a day. I’m going to focus on a few phones that actually grab share[.]”

All of the above came out of the same interview, meaning the ideas mark a single mote of time in Microsoft’s strategic arc; things may change.

In the age of a $7.6 billion write-down, it can be difficult to understand why Microsoft would keep at the mobile game. When is enough enough? Yet, it has indicated it hasn’t nearly reached that point yet.

Never Give Up, Never Surrender

Whatever happens they fight on. They keep trying. The company didn’t give up when the Kin blew up on them, and neither will they give up after the $7.6B write down. They have cash and they can afford to keep going back to the drawing board — again and again. Perhaps they subject themselves to some ridicule when they fail, but they will keep trying because they understand the importance of mobile.

Satya’s pitch at the Worldwide Partner’s Conference was clear. If the company can’t get at you today with handsets, it will continue to try to push from the applications angle. When Nadella says there is no clear line between the consumer world and work, he’s clearly onto something, and perhaps Microsoft’s best shot at capturing mobile mindshare is via work where it has the strongest presence today.

As people shift to mobile devices controlled by Android and iOS, Microsoft will have a hard time, gaining market share for Windows on the phone or tablet — Surface sales not withstanding. For now that still remains a blip and a pipe dream. What Microsoft can hope to do is build on apps like Outlook and Gigjam and try to force its way into mobile via applications that work across platforms.

This really speaks to the Microsoft three-pronged strategy around mobile. On one point is the lethargic hardware, on another is Windows 10 and its multi-platform delivery model and on the final is the cross-platform application approach, where Microsoft appears to be faring much better. It has to be hoping that if you like Microsoft applications and you’re using Windows 10 at work (as many people will be), at some point in the future, you might also like Windows phones to make your work and personal lives play nicely together.

Microsoft can afford to be patient, but while it hopes that the Windows handset market will wake up, how will it affect financial markets perception of the company?

Financial Pain

Microsoft has more than enough cash to keep the Windows mobile furnaces stoked for long into the future. It is worth noting that supporting rival platforms, while doing so has costs, is likely a far cheaper enterprise than running factories and global distribution channels. (The old joke about sales being easy, and supply chaining being hard does work applies here.)

However, given that the group’s phone businesses’ cost profile has been whacked so badly, it is reasonable to assume that Microsoft isn’t losing too much on the efforts on a quarterly basis. So while the company won’t give up on mobile, it also won’t have to give up too much on its profits. The current quarter with the massive write-down, of course, on a GAAP basis, is screwed. But that’s for investors to handicap.

Also, assuming that piggy-backing on rival platforms feeds directly into its Office 365 engine, it would make the costs of supporting third-party platforms more than palatable.

If Microsoft was willing to spend as much as it has, and keep going, it’s hard to imagine an expense that could crop up and undermine its mobile will. In for $7.6 billion, in for a pound.

Conclusion

Nobody could argue after that mammoth write-down that Microsoft’s mobile future is looking bright, but at the same time, it would be a huge mistake to underestimate Redmond. Microsoft clearly recognizes the strategic importance of mobile, and it’s going to continue to try to find a way to succeed, come hell or high water. That means it’s going to attack by app, by OS and by phone and see what works — and it’s going to keep investing until one shoe or another drops because it has no choice. # # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] A Must Listen: AAWP Insight #146: job losses, focussed portfolio, Windows 10 Mob...

Eric L — 7/16/2015 12:08:54 PM

A Must Listen: AAWP Insight #146: job losses, focussed portfolio, Windows 10 Mobile ...

Rafe Blandford and Steve Litchfield, partners of 'All About Windows Phone' who follow Windows Phone and the overall smartphone industry closer, more objectively and more sensibly than most other joutnalists discuss, speculate and opine about the future of Microsoft Windows Mobile in a 45 minute podcast.

Listen here: allaboutwindowsphone.com

# # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Mike James view of the 'Windows 10 Mobile- future .. Zax: 'Microsoft Scales Do...

Eric L — 7/15/2015 4:53:20 PM

Mike James view of the 'Windows 10 Mobile- future ..

Zax: 'Microsoft Scales Down Windows Phone,' Mike James article for I-Programmer you referenced and linked is indeed worth a read. I paericularly agree with the last two paragraphs ...

>> We will have to wait and see how it turns out when the software is actually finished, but even then it is difficult to see how the availability of desktop apps running on all devices is going to be a force to encourage users to buy premium Windows phones.

Then there is the small matter of the "bridges" which Microsoft is working on to allow iOS, Android and web app programmers to move their creations to Windows Phone. With almost no phones to run on it is difficult to see why this is at all attractive. It is probably a better idea to just drop the bridges idea and work on finding ways of getting Microsoft technologies onto iOS and Android. <<

We'll so 1 or 2 new hero machines shortly and perhaps another later but while rhe 'Windows 10 Mobile' software platform will survive and hopefully be well implemented on ARM architected iOS and particularly Android OS devices I don't hold out much hope for the hardaware platform although I'd enjoy being wrong.

Cheers, - Eric L. -

[Eric L] James Kendrick view of The Windows Phone (Windows 10 Mobile) Future ... >> Ye...

Eric L — 7/15/2015 12:56:59 PM

James Kendrick view of The Windows Phone (Windows 10 Mobile) Future ...

>> Yes, Windows Phone is well and truly dead

James Kendrick
kOnTheRun

jkontherun.com

In spite of Windows Phone apologists, er, enthusiasts claiming that the phones from Microsoft aren’t going away, they might as well. The hardware, and thus the platform, is on life support.

The situation with Windows Phone reminds me of a space movie where the lone remaining crew member is walking on a barren landscape in some distant galaxy. A glance at the remaining oxygen level in the HUD shows it nearly in the critical red zone.

He gazes at the stars above and wonders how it would be if everything had gone according to plan, far-fetched though it was. Doesn’t matter anyway, the plan tanked and the end is drawing near. The sound of his breathing in the helmet reminds him that there’s not many breaths left to be drawn. He feels so cold and alone.

That’s how the situation with Windows Phone appears to me. The phones and soon after the platform will be going away, as there’s no reason for Microsoft to keep them around. Once it wrote off the Nokia purchase and laid off the thousands of remaining Nokia employees the writing was clearly on the wall.

“Windows Phone is not going anywhere!”

“Windows 10 Mobile will change everything!”

These are the reactions on enthusiast web sites to the Microsoft announcements about the phone business. You’ll also find the company’s claims to change tactics and aim Windows Phones at business, which hasn’t wanted them so far, and at enthusiasts, who are already its best (and only) customers.

Developers who continue working on Windows Phone apps, Windows 10 Mobile included, are crazy in my view. Who will buy your apps, not even Microsoft is behind your efforts.

Yes, Windows Phones are dead and Windows 10 Mobile will quietly fade away soon. The only thing you’ll hear in the helmet is the rasp of the final breath going in and out # # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Nadella talks about Microsoft's Mobile Ambitions ... ... in the most exhaustiv...

Eric L — 7/15/2015 12:49:41 PM

Nadella talks about Microsoft's Mobile Ambitions ...

... in the most exhaustive piece writen recently expanding on what was said by the horses mouth in his 'letter to emplyees.'

>> Exclusive: CEO Nadella talks Microsoft's mobile ambitions, Windows 10 strategy, HoloLens and more

Microsoft CEO talks about his thinking around product differentiation and being ahead of the curve in this Q&A with Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley.

Mary Jo Foley
ZDNet | All About Microsoft
July 14, 2015

zdnet.com

Minutes after he left the Worldwide Partner Conference stage after delivering a keynote for 14,000-plus resellers, integrators and other Microsoft partners on July 13, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sat down with me in the backstage green room for a 30-minute interview.

His appearance at the annual partner show followed by just a few days the latest of his "hard choices" kicking off Microsoft's fiscal 2016. Last week, Nadella announced Microsoft would be cutting 7,800 employees, most of which are in the hardware and devices unit. Despite the fact that he committed to continuing to make up to two new Lumia handsets in the value, flagship and business segments each year, moving forward, many company watchers considered last week's moves as signifying Microsoft's abandonment of Windows Phone and concession of the mobile market to its competitors.

I asked Nadella about his plans for continuing to compete in the phone/mobile markets; his expectations for Microsoft's HoloLens augmented-reality technology; and his partnership plans, in particular with regards to Microsoft's long-time nemesis, Google.

I've edited this transcript for clarity and length.

MJF: You just got off the stage. What do you hope partners take away from your keynote this morning?

SATYA NADELLA: I really mean this when I say I want us to be a very mission-driven company in the choices we make and the things that we do and how we do it, because the lesson learned for me has been to not conflate or mistake a particular goal with a particular technology and your mission.

When I joined the company in '92 it was about the PC in every home and on every desk. Guess what: We achieved that. And a company has to outlast any given technology paradigm and any ambitious goal. And so for me this going back to what is it that drove Bill (Gates) to build even the BASIC compiler or the interpreter to what we did in terms of inventing productivity or democratizing client-server computing.

That's where I come back to this notion of empowerment. When I even think about the three broad ecosystems out there in the world, we are the only ones who both (consumer and business). Because of what we do in our economic model, we are fundamentally focused on saying it's about our customer's product. IT can be a student writing a term paper or a big enterprise driving their own differentiation of productivity. Both of them are the things that we as an ecosystem care about. And that's what grounds me on what choices we make, what markets we participate in, how we do it.

In this world we have these three big ambitions (reinvention of productivity and business processes; building the intelligent cloud; more personal computing). Of course they're grounded in real product today, But it's also beyond what we're delivering today, beyond the brand names of today. Where are we going? That's where the morning's keynotes were all about and that's what I'm focused on.

MJF: That's a great jumping-off point to one of the things I want to talk about. After last week a lot of people I'm talking to -- partners and customers -- are really worried about your prospects in mobile. You just said not to conflate the technology with what you're going to do next. So, does Microsoft cutting back on the number of Windows Phones you make mean you are getting out of the mobile market?

NADELLA: Not at all. Quite frankly I think it's sort of about the lens through which you view what's happening. I view the mobile opportunity, even today in its broadest sense, and in the future, as being richer.

First, I want to be able to be present on every mobile endpoint. That's a very explicit core goal. It's not (just) the notion of having our application endpoints, Skype, Outlook, Wunderlist, Sunrise, on every one of the two billion devices. We want to have Microsoft experiences, because to me that's a platform play. It's not like, oh, they're just application endpoints. Guess what is behind those applications? It's One Cloud. It's Office 365, either for the consumer or for the enterprise. There's MSA (Microsoft Account) in there.

So to me it's very important to think of our operating system more broadly than some old definition of an operating system. So we want to be in every device, not only have our application endpoints on every device. I want the identity management. It's not MSA alone, it's Azure Active Directory. It is managing those devices, securing those devices in terms of data protection. These are all core capabilities that we have.

Then on top of that, to me, one of the great structural pieces is we don't have with Windows is this problem of Mac OS/iOS. I'm not in some quest to say let me try and replicate Mac OS and iOS or iOS and Mac OS. We don't have the Chrome versus Android. We are Windows, from Raspberry Pi to HoloLens. And when you saw the demo of HoloLens today, to me it's part of my mobility strategy. When the person was using Autodesk and Maya on the desktop and just moved to a 3D model and interacted, they weren't using their phone.

If anything, one big mistake we made in our past was to think of the PC as the hub for everything for all time to come. And today, of course, the high volume device is the six-inch phone. I acknowledge that. But to think that that's what the future is for all time to come would be to make the same mistake we made in the past without even having the share position of the past. So that would be madness.

Therefore, we have to be on the hunt for what's the next bend in the curve. That's what, quite frankly, anyone has to do to be relevant in the future. In our case, we are doing that. We're doing that with our innovation in Windows. We're doing that with features like Continuum. Even the phone, I just don't want to build another phone, a copycat phone operating system, even.

So when I think about our Windows Phone, I want it to stand for something like Continuum. When I say, wow, that's an interesting approach where you can have a phone and that same phone, because of our universal platform with Continuum, and can, in fact, be a desktop. That is not something any other phone operating system or device can do. And that's what I want our devices and device innovation to stand for.

Last week's announcement was not about any change to our vision and strategy, but for sure it was a change to our operating approach. The way we're going to go about it. I'm not going to launch a phone a day. I'm going to focus on a few phones that actually grab share that, in fact, showcase our uniqueness. When you have three percent share of that (phone market), but you also have a billion desktops, you have Xbox, you have innovation in HoloLens; you have Band. It's a graph. It's not any one node. It is the entirety of the device family. And I want to be able to think about our strategy, our innovation, and progress as one.

If anything, the thing that I'm signaling most to the investors, to the employees is let's stop this thing about trying to atomically dissect any one. They will all have a temporal current position and a future ambition. But it is one thing that we need to move on.

MJF: It sounds like you're saying that right now when people talk about "Windows mobile," (lowercase m), they only think it's the phone operating system. But you are saying it's much more than that. You're saying Windows mobile, going forward, is bigger?

NADELLA: That's why whenever I talk about Windows 10, I talk about mobility broadly across all of those devices. For sure there is a form factor today which is the below six or seven inches, which is powered by a very specific operating system instance of Windows 10, which is Windows Mobile. But what do you call that (device) when you use Continuum and then you're using applications on a big screen with a mouse and keyboard? It's Windows 10.

That's why I like to think about Windows 10 as not being bound to any one form factor. What is Alex (Kipman) doing with a HoloLens? It was a Windows 10 UAP (Universal App Platform). I think is what we need to do a better job of communicating.

In my case I have a Band. I have my phone. I have my Surface. I have my Surface Hub and I'll have a HoloLens. And that to me is all Windows 10. And I'll seamlessly move between all of these. I want the notifications to flow between all of these. I want my data and apps to flow between all of these things.

MJF: I saw (COO) Kevin Turner's mail about the moves you made last week, and he made a Surface analogy. He said now what we're doing with phone is more like what you're doing with Surface. Your phones are going to be more of like showcase devices for what Windows mobile can look like on a phone.

NADELLA: Correct. There's a little bit of a distinction because, in some sense, in the world of PCs, we are trying to create new categories like Surface did. Now every OEM has a two-in-one, which I celebrate, which is great. Surface Hub -- I'm sure next year there will be many OEMs with Surface Hub like devices. We will do HoloLens, and then, since the holographic computing platform is right there in Windows, there will be people who will build holographic computers beyond HoloLens. So I want all of that to happen.

If no OEM stands up to build Windows devices we'll build them. There will be Lumia devices. So I'm not afraid of saying, okay, it's all about the OEMs, or it's all about the ecosystem. It's about Windows. It is about the overall health of Windows and being grounded in any given day's reality, but having ambition of where the market is going versus being bound by current definitions.

MJF: Does that Surface analogy break down, though? Microsoft built Surface but there were still many other OEMs building successful Windows devices. But with Windows Phones phones, that's not the case, right?

NADELLA: We will do everything we have to do to make sure we're making progress on phones. We have them. Even today Terry (Myerson, the head of Windows and Devices) reinforced, again, yes, we will have premium Lumias coming this year.

If there are a lot of OEMs, we'll have one strategy. If there are no OEMs, we'll have one strategy. We are committed to having the phones in these three segments. And I think the operational details will become clear to people as they see it. I want people to evaluate us on the phones that we produce, but not the inside baseball -- what are we doing to produce -- because that should not be relevant to our broad consumers. It may be relevant to people like you who are critiquing us. That's okay. But what matters to me is what customers care.

MJF: I'm curious if you see last week's decisions around Windows Phone affecting your universal app strategy. Some believe that if Microsoft makes fewer Lumias -- and Microsoft is making more than 95 percent of all the Windows Phones in the market -- doesn't that kill, or at least weaken, your universal apps play, which is key to Windows 10? Why as a developer do I now want to build an app that runs on Windows Phone if there's going to be even fewer Windows Phones?

NADELLA: Universal Windows apps are going to be written because you want to have those apps used on the desktop. The reason why anybody would want to write universal apps is not because of our three percent share in phones. It's because a billion consumers are going to have a Start Menu, which is going to have your app. You start the journey there and take them to multiple places. Their app can go to the phone. They can go to HoloLens. They can go to Xbox. You talk to somebody like Airbnb. It might be more attractive, given our three percent share on phone, for them to actually build something for the desktop and for the Xbox.

And by the way, when we hook them on that, we have a phone app. This strategy is path dependent, which is a term I use that means where you start is not where you end up. And therein lies a lot of the nuance. The fundamental truth for developers is they will build if there are users. And in our case the truth is we have users on desktop.

Why then make all these changes to the Start Menu with Windows 10? It's not because I just want to bring back the old. It's because that's the best way to improve the liquidity our store. Windows 8 was great except that nobody discovered the store. In Windows 10, the store is right there and done in a tasteful way.

I want that to translate into success for our developers. That's what's going to get them to write to the phone. If anything, the free upgrade for Windows 10 is meant to improve our phone position. That is the reason why I made that decision. If somebody wants to know whether I'm committed to Windows Phone, they should think about what I just did with the free upgrade to Windows, rather than -- hey, I making four more phone models of value smart phones.

MJF: How does making Windows 10 free show that you're committed to Windows Phone? I'm not quite following that.

NADELLA: Because all of this comes down to how are you going to get developers to come to Windows. If you come to Windows, you are going to be on the phone, too. Even if you want to come to Windows because of HoloLens, you want to come to it because of Xbox, you want to come to the desktop, all those get you to the phone. It's not about let's do head-on competition. That will never work. You have to have a differentiated point of view.

MJF: I have a HoloLens question. I've heard that when you first saw HoloLens -- back when it was Project Fortaleza -- you said we need to expand this beyond just gaming. Where do you think the initial demand for HoloLens is going to be? Is it going to be more in gaming, or is it going to be more in business and research?

NADELLA: For sure in the first version, it's going to be more about developers and enterprise scenarios

I did buy Minecraft to create a new genre of gaming for mixed reality. We bought Minecraft for many reasons: because it's the number one PC app; it's the number one console app; it's the number one paid mobile app on iOS and Android. I wanted a hit game even for the new medium of mixed reality. And we will have that. Gaming will always be a scenario and there will be other entertainment broadly. But, with the V.1 of HoloLens, I want us to push a lot more of the enterprise usage.

In general Microsoft's approach will be always this dual-use focus, or this multi-focus. What we can uniquely do is bridge consumer to enterprise. That's in our DNA. That's why it's even in our mission statement of empowering people and organizations. I want every technology of ours to seek that out. In the HoloLens case, when I look at the interest, it's amazing how many are in hospitals, healthcare, retail. That's where I'm seeing the interest and we'll definitely go after it.

MJF: A question on partnerships. Since you've been the CEO, it feels like Microsoft is very different in how it's approaching partnerships. If you look at how (former CEO Steve) Ballmer dealt with companies like Salesforce and Adobe, and how you're dealing with them, it's very different. What is the difference in your philosophy here?

NADELLA: Microsoft, even during Steve's time and Bill's time, was a platform company. Rhetoric aside, and stylistic approaches aside, at the core I'm just doing what we have always done well. How many multi-billion-dollar software companies got built on top of Windows? Google wouldn't exist if they couldn't have built a browser for Windows, they couldn't have put toolbars on IE. We were the most open ecosystem on the planet ever.

We were always a platform company. I want us to be able to live that in our approach. That means Salesforce should extend Office, they should integrate, they should use Azure. Same thing with Dropbox, Box, Adobe. They should build great applications. It makes all the sense in the world for us to think about the construct fundamentally as non-zero sum. We may compete with many of these folks in some categories, but at the core we are a platform vendor. In fact, we have three platforms I like to talk about: Windows, Azure and Office. I like to think all three of these will be open for others to extend and, of course, we will construct them together.

MJF: In that vein and you're thinking about partnerships, do you think there's any hope you're going to have a partnership with Google where they build apps for Windows 10?

NADELLA: I would love to. It's for them to decide. I would love for them to have YouTube on Windows Phones. I would love for them to do their best work like they have with Chrome on Windows.

MJF: Is Microsoft actively talking with them about these things?

NADELLA: We'll talk to every developer. Some of these relationships with large players require a level of maturity, which I'm sure we will achieve with all players. I'm hopeful that there are more applications. After all, we now have our apps on Android, and that's good. And then we just hope that it's reciprocated and our users mutually benefit.

MJF: You just announced here at the show a new service and app called GigJam that seemingly creates a whole new application category. It crosses a lot of boundaries. I've heard you talk about Microsoft making fewer, bigger bets. So how does something like GigJam fit in here? Aren't you going off in a whole other non-established category?

NADELLA: It is about the core. It's one category. It's about productivity and business process. Think of it as a new module of Office 365. It's not bound to today's definitions of categories. It's not just a creation tool. It's not just a communications tool. It's not just a development tool. It's all of that. And it spans all devices. It's not bound to one device.

The notion is to be able to generate applications on the fly to adjust to the work that you're doing versus sending you off to five different apps, five different devices, and five different communications sessions. We brought all of that. That's a very revolutionary concept. If you think about the first time you saw Outlook, up to that point I had a contact management app, I had e-mail, and I had a calendar. Outlook took those three categories, came up with a new scaffolding, and since then, nobody has thought about these three things as separate on the desktop. So it's fewer, but big bets with growing addressable markets, not looking back.

MJF: We've heard stories about your decision that the Surface Mini -- that small, ARM-based tablet that nearly came to market last year -- was not differentiated enough, so you axed it. How do you decide what's differentiated enough when it comes to new devices?

NADELLA: What I want us to stand for is not have envy for somebody else's success. I want us to stand for what is it that we've done that customers actually care about. Why is this important for us to take to market? I actually don't even care as much about initial grand success in terms of volume or share. Does it meet a specific scenario that we have done very well for some set of plans? It's a shorthand for doing customer scenarios that are differentiated.

I want to be more customer-led. When we say customer-led, that doesn't mean just listen to customers about X and then do the same feature. It's about being able to anticipate what we can do to really differentiate their own lives. GigJam wouldn't have come from the thinking of let's look out there and see who is doing something.

That is how we created Microsoft. Nobody had done Visual Basic. Nobody had done Access. Nobody had done Outlook. We created categories or democratized categories. We either took something very complex and made it simple so that everyone in the world could adopt it, or created something where it didn't already exist -- where nobody came to us and said, this is what we want. Once we did it, everybody wanted it. That's the bar for devices and our software and services.

MJF: So back to phone, then. You've said one of the three categories of phones you want to make are "business phones." What's the differentiator for you there?

NADELLA: Businesses are actually the place where we're growing fastest among all our phone ones. Think about it. Some of the real (attraction) of Windows devices is management and security. The fact that your latest soccer app is not available, or some social networking app is not available is not much of an issue (in business scenarios). What matters to you is identity management, security, protection.

The other thing that matters is rapid application development. In our case, we take a Lumia device, you power up Azure App Services, and out come Universal Apps that automate workflows. I think that's unbeatable in terms of a value proposition. That's why we have something unique to contribute.

Those three segments, I picked them because we have something unique to contribute. For people who love Windows, we'll have a flagship device. It's not just a flagship device, but it also supports things like Continuum. For business customers, it's about custom apps they want to deploy onto those endpoints with management and security. For the value smart phone segment, I want to focus on where we can put Office and our communications and Skype, so it's more like a Skype and Office phone for the first time smart phone buyer. Those are places where I feel like, yes, that's a kind of uniqueness. Let's grow from there.

You've got to remember even the Apple regeneration started with colorful iMacs. So let us first get the colorful iMacs. I think with what we're doing with Lumia, we're at that stage. I want to do good devices that people like, and then we will go on to doing the next thing and the next thing.

MJF: Are you using a Windows Phone yourself?

NADELLA: Absolutely I do.

ZDNET: I heard you might use Talkman (one of the next expected premium Windows Phones) pretty soon.

NADELLA: I don't think I said that.

MJF: Not publicly, at least :)

NADELLA: This is the 830. Of course I'm using a Windows Phone, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to make sure that everyone I see with an iPhone here, I'm going to get them to download one of our apps. And that's our goal.

We had a CEO conference recently and I did a demo of all the things that we have on the iPhone so that they could all walk out with Wunderlist, and OneNote, and Outlook. By the way, Outlook client on the iPhone is the best Gmail client and the Exchange client on iOS. Now that to me also signals our mobility strategy.

MJF: So bottom line -- your mobility strategy is not just about phones.

NADELLA: It's about phones. It is about our apps on other end points. It is about EMS (Enterprise Mobility Suite). It is about new categories like HoloLens. In the full arc of time, that's what people really value. It's not about one mobile device that rules them all. That would be like saying there's one PC that's going to rule all as a hub. # # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] The Windows Phone (Windows 10 Mobile) Future (continued) << Eric, these statem...

Eric L — 7/15/2015 12:46:29 PM

The Windows Phone (Windows 10 Mobile) Future (continued)

<< Eric, these statements don't jive with Nadella's. >>

They don't jibe with them either (vbg) but although I've been trying to figure out what Microsoft has been trying to do with 'devices and services' and how effectively they have done (or not done) so since Microsoft acquired Nokia's 'devices and services business' I don't see much of a future for Microsoft designed and manufactured mobile devices running on ARM architected silicon and Intel doesn't yet have a near term viable alternative and keeps pushing the latest Atom chips out.

The Mark Hachman article for PC World you linked states "You might think it was doomed, following Microsoft’s reorganization of its phone business just days ago, especially after Microsoft wrote down the value of the business. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella put those fears to rest, however, in an interview with ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella put those fears to rest, however, in an interview with ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley."

They didn't put my fears for what is currently branded as 'Lumia' to rest even though some 4 to 6 Lumia devices will be released in a few months and hopefully will ship shortly afterwards to select network operators in select countries.

What Satya said to Mary Jo is in the article in the next post.

Cheers,

- Eric L. -

[zax] This is a good read: i-programmer.info

zax — 7/15/2015 11:26:06 AM

[Eric L] John C. Dvorak on the future of Windowa Phone ... >> Windows Phone Has a Futur...

Eric L — 7/15/2015 11:05:57 AM

John C. Dvorak on the future of Windowa Phone ...

>> Windows Phone Has a Future (Maybe)

All it takes for some success is for Microsoft to do one little, itsy-bitsy thing: talk about the stupid Windows Phone.

John C. Dvorak
PCMag,com
July 15, 2015

pcmag.com

There have been many articles lately bemoaning the flop known as Windows Phone. But I've been keeping up with the latest builds, either by visiting a Microsoft Store or borrowing a friend's device, and Windows Phone is not half bad anymore.

In fact, it's as competitive as anything out there, and Cortana seems better than Siri.

What's bad is the half-hearted sales and marketing efforts. If the Windows phone is dead, it is because Microsoft has sunk billions into the technology but virtually nothing into actually selling the device.

I've observed this lackluster effort over the past few years. It's also reflected in the media. Take, for example this Computerworld piece titled "Microsoft gives Windows phones one last shot. "The negative headline makes the whole phone strategy sound like a hopeless rescue mission.

In the piece, which emphasizes the failure of the Nokia acquisition and the $7.6 billion dollar write-off, there is this commentary, which struck a nerve: "Microsoft's smartphones will follow the trailblazing of the more successful Surface tablet line, which after two years with little return hit its stride in 2014 with the debut of the Surface Pro 3."

More successful? Hit its stride? That got my attention. Why would the Surface Pro be any more successful than Windows Phone? The phone is the basis for the whole Metro OS, from Windows 8 to the present. The focus for the latest version of Window is almost entirely the phone, yet it almost universally declared a pre-destined flop.

It looks more and more to me like the Windows Vista of smartphones: misunderstood and poorly marketed.

There was a Vista TV ad that came along after Vista failed to catch fire in the marketplace called The Mojave Experiment. A bunch of people were taken to a faux focus group and shown the OS of the future. The features were emphasized, the ease of use promoted. The pretty appearance was factored in. Everyone in the focus group said the future looked rosy and they would definitely buy this futuristic OS. Then it was revealed to be Vista. Everyone gasped.

The ad told me one thing: Microsoft botched the Vista marketing. The company realized that this ad was not showing the marketing in a good light. It was quickly taken out of circulation.

So what is the difference between the Surface and the Phone? Advertising.

When Windows Phone first came out, there were a few ads that were humorous but actually showed the phone in a bad light by emphasizing that other phones currently had people's attention, while the Microsoft phone was "efficient." The subtext was that the phone was boring.

Meanwhile, the folks who advertise the Surface were showing off its unique features in a jazzy eye-catching manner. Can you name one unique feature ever presented regarding the Windows phone? Nope. In fact, Microsoft seems to have killed advertising for the phone while staying the course with the Surface tablet/laptop.

There has been almost no effort to make this phone a success.

Windows Phone is never included in the discussion about phones. Listen to podcasts, read blogs. Who uses any Windows Phone as a point of comparison? It never happens. It's as if the Windows Phone does not exist.

I, for example, have never received a press release or a briefing or even a note announcing a new feature for the device. I've been in the scene writing about this stuff for 30 years. I don't solicit press material, but it is very noticeable when there is none whatsoever. They are not even trying or care to do much of anything. I've never seen anything like it. No ads, no promotions, no nothing. And yet Redmond wonders why there is no traction.

It's obvious. Someone threw in the towel after the first round

When someone suggests the company is being smart by cutting its losses and folding its tent I ask, "when did the company ever try to market the phone in the first place?" There has never been any effort except for the early ads and they were counter-productive. When the entire enterprise boils down to a $7.6 billion write-off, you have to wonder what it's doing.

There is upside potential, Microsoft. Just do something! # # #

- Eric L. -

[zax] Eric, these statements don't jive with Nadella's. Nadella: Microsoft isn't kill...

zax — 7/15/2015 10:20:59 AM

Eric, these statements don't jive with Nadella's.

Nadella: Microsoft isn't killing Windows Phone and will go it alone if it has to
Windows Phone has a role to play as the mobile branch of the Windows 10 ecosystem, so it's here to stay.

pcworld.com

Windows Phone isn’t going away.

You might think it was doomed, following Microsoft’s reorganization of its phone business just days ago, especially after Microsoft wrote down the value of the business. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella put those fears to rest, however, in an interview with ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley.

Nadella has emphasized, time and again, that his goal is for Microsoft to establish new product categories that partners can build upon. In the phone business, however, partners haven’t followed Microsoft’s lead.

Nadella seems to be fine with that. “If there are a lot of OEMs, we’ll have one strategy. If there are no OEMs, we’ll have one strategy,” Nadella said of Windows Phone's future. Microsoft seems content to go it alone, or if a hardware partner like HTC or Samsung commits to the platform, that’s fine too.

</snip> Read the rest here: pcworld.com

More:

Microsoft may have just shut down most of its handset manufacturing business — but Windows Phone is far from dead, according to CEO Satya Nadella.

mashable.com

There are many more references to this. Microsoft even made this a lead story on Bing. In fact, new flagship phones to be released later this year, after Windows 10.

[Eric L] Paul Thurrott on the future of Windows Phone ... "Let's be clear, Windows Phon...

Eric L — 7/15/2015 10:05:46 AM

Paul Thurrott on the future of Windows Phone ...

"Let's be clear, Windows Phone is a failure. ... There's no future for Windows Phone." - Paul Thurott, July 9, 2015 -

... from last week's What The Tech Episode 266:

youtube.com (Video)

There is of course no more 'Windows Phone.' We are back to 'Windows Mobile' (specifically Windows 10 Mobile) and we'll evidently see 4 to 6 new 1st party Microsoft (Lumia?) Mobile devices released at an event on September 24th where the company will launch Windows 10 Mobile officially.

Paul's take on the future of the platform is discussed for 15 minutes starting at 25:16 of the webcast linked above. His lates comments are in the article below:

>> On Eve of RTM, Terry Myerson Speaks About Windows 10, Windows Phones and More

Paul Thurrot
July 14, 2015

thurrott.com

Microsoft’s Terry Myerson spoke at the Worldwide Partner Conference keynote yesterday, and as you might expect, his presentation focused largely on Windows 10. But as a Windows phone fan, I was most interested in what he said—or didn’t say—about this beleaguered platform.

So let’s address the elephant in the room first.

It’s pretty clear that my take on Microsoft’s smart phone moves has been perceived by many as being negative or at least overly-fatalistic. I don’t see it this way, obviously. In fact, I think the warning signs have been there for Windows phones for years. But I do spend an inordinate amount of time parsing what Microsoft says, and regardless of your take on my Windows phone opinions, you may find this mini-assessment of Mr. Myerson’s phone comments of interest. This is especially true as some see Myerson’s comments yesterday to be some kind of indication that Microsoft has recommitted itself to smart phones.

He did not do that.

Myerson did utter a version of the word “phone” 25 times during his bit at the WPC keynote. He repeatedly mentioned phone as a component of the Windows 10 device lineup—”the Internet of Things, on phones, tablets, PCs, Surface Hub and HoloLens,” for example—and there was a major Windows phone demonstration during his speech. These collectively indicate to me that Microsoft is trying to at least soften the blow of last week’s bad news.

My big takeaway, however, is that Myerson simply corroborated my belief that Microsoft’s short-term goal with Windows phone is to find some niche in which this platform can provide a unique and valuable differentiator for the short term: Continuum, a way to turn your phone into a PC. There was a lengthy Continuum demo that should excite the fans of this platform.

What Myerson didn’t do was say anything new about flagships. “Last week, we announced the focusing of our Lumia lineup,” he said. “But let me be clear, soon you will see premium new Lumias designed for Windows 10.” This was met by applause, even though we already knew this. And he was the only Microsoft executive to even utter the word “Lumia” during the entire WPC keynote on Monday. Several mentioned Surface, by comparison.

Long story short, I don’t feel WPC did a thing to change the picture I’ve presented about the future of Windows phones. We’re going to get at least two new flagship devices this year, Microsoft will make fewer and better-targeted handsets, and the firm has no intention of growing this business.

Again. We already knew all that. ... <snip rest> # # #

- Eric L. -

[Jurgis Bekepuris] I think we agree. :)

Jurgis Bekepuris — 7/13/2015 2:06:20 PM

[Eric L] Windows on Mobile Devices ... << What went wrong? Nadella was not a mobile de...

Eric L — 7/13/2015 1:14:23 PM

Windows on Mobile Devices ...

<< What went wrong? Nadella was not a mobile device CEO, he pretty much gave up on that part of the company from the outset. >>

There is no question about that. He's not a 'devices and services' guy but a software (as a service) guy whether in the cloud or on a device.

He kept Elop and Harlow hidden from public view and perhaps internal function. I suspect evolution of devices (particularly smartphones/phablets) was not supported well and was a low prioity.

<< Nokia-Microsoft mobile devices needed a different Microsoft leadership in order to succeed. >>

At the CEO level to be sure. I think Elop/Harlow were rhe right division leaders, but also that Nadella viewed Elop as a threat and by extension Harlow as well.

Devices have never been Microsoft's forte and Nadella may have repositioned Microsoft onto a sensible track, but we'll have to wait and see.

Cheers,

- Eric L. -

[zax] Hey Eric, Microsoft Winding Down Windows Phone ..."Winding Down Windows Phone" d...

zax — 7/10/2015 5:49:38 PM

Hey Eric,

Microsoft Winding Down Windows Phone ...

"Winding Down Windows Phone" doesn't seem like appropriate language.

Nadella stated, "I am committed to our first-party devices including phones,"

They certainly are paring back manufacturing and are indicating they no longer wish to be in a position of competing handset for handset against Chinese handset manufacturers in the low end in hundreds of markets. But I believe your language implies something other than what anyone has stated.

Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, thinks Microsoft will continue with phones for now in a bid to build out its hardware/software ecosystem. "Microsoft will have something very similar to where the Surface line is now," he said. "The idea will be to create inspiring hardware that motivates their ecosystem. They'll go after the 'halo' effect."

Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates, sees it the same way. "The issue for me was always, if Microsoft owns Nokia, why would others want to make Windows phones? You're basically telling your OEMs, 'Compete directly with us,'" Gold said.

Regards,

-- Zax

[Jurgis Bekepuris] What went wrong? Nadella was not a mobile device CEO, he pretty much gave up on ...

Jurgis Bekepuris — 7/10/2015 4:16:49 PM

What went wrong? Nadella was not a mobile device CEO, he pretty much gave up on that part of the company from the outset. Nokia-Microsoft mobile devices needed a different Microsoft leadership in order to succeed.

[Eric L] Microsoft's Vision or lack of same ... "Microsoft's vision is to be on every s...

Eric L — 7/9/2015 11:43:25 AM

Microsoft's Vision or lack of same ...

"Microsoft's vision is to be on every screen you use. But sometimes, that vision cracks a little."

... or a lot.

>> Microsoft is having an identity crisis

Seth Fiegerman
Mashable
July 9 2015

mashable.com

Microsoft's vision is to be on every screen you use. But sometimes, that vision cracks a little.

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced taking a staggering $7.6 billion writedown for Nokia's handset business, which it officially acquired just more than a year earlier for $9.5 billion with the goal of supercharging its position in the competitive smartphone market.

Microsoft won't kill off its flagship Windows phones, but it is slashing a big part of its commitment — cutting much of the staff that produced these devices and changing its strategy to focus on apps and the Windows platform rather than hardware.

The move is a familiar one for Microsoft. Build or buy your way into a promising market. Then retreat or re-tool as it becomes painfully apparent that it's just not working out. Microsoft killed the Zune that failed to rival the iPod. It took a $900 million charge related to the Surface RT tablet that was designed to compete with the iPad. And it bet big on smartphones only to walk back its investment as it remained far behind Apple and Google.

Under the leadership of Microsoft's ebullient former CEO Steve Ballmer, the company often acted like the friend arriving at a party late only to find the other guests had already moved to a new location.

The history of sudden pivots has created the impression that Microsoft is having an identity crisis.

Insiders rush to defend the company's strategy of quick changes. The staff cuts and massive writedowns are framed as marking an end to that era of excess rather than the continuation of old missteps. It comes amid a broader strategy shift under Satya Nadella, who took over as CEO early last year after the Nokia deal had been agreed upon, to trim the fat from a technology company infamous for trying to do everything and too few of those things well.

"They are still rebuilding their identity," says Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester Research. At one time, he says, Microsoft was closely identified with office productivity tools for desktop; now it wants to increasingly be known for its cloud services as well — while spending billions to buy the game Minecraft and acquiring a suite of smartphone applications. "They are working to articulate what that value proposition is to the individual and the business."

The newly defined mission, repeated in interviews and written statements by Nadella, is to "reinvent productivity." But Microsoft has yet to fully translate that vague mission of the average consumer. Indeed, even analysts and some former employees we spoke with admitted to some murkiness about the company's grand vision and identity.

Says Gillett: "They don't have nearly the strength with the individual today that Google and Apple do."

In search of relevance — and profitability — in the post-PC era

Microsoft may have a method to its madness: It was always trying to catch up. Now it's trying to cleanup and present a more coherent business.

"Under Nadella, they are fine-tuning a strategy to only focus on things that they know will be profitable," says Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies. That boils down to three key areas: Office 365, its cloud platform Azure and Windows 10. Other sections like Bing, said to finally be nearing profitability after six years, are shedding load to ensure they stay profitable.

Chasing profitability, while a sound pitch to investors, is hardly a motivating or defining vision for customers.

To win over new users and stay relevant, Microsoft is resorting to its old trick of acquiring its way to stronger footing, albeit this time with smaller deals. In recent months, it has effectively bought its way onto the homescreens of iPhone and Android users by acquiring popular applications like Acompli, Wunderlist and Sunrise.

Microsoft wants to be where the people are and it seems to have recognized the people are not usually on Microsoft phones. Hence making its iconic suite of Office applications available on competitors' operating systems.

Some might call it savvy; others might call it an act of desperation. Microsoft is intent on placing trapdoors in other mobile operating system so that users fall into its ecosystem almost without knowing it: through Sunrise, through Acompli, through older acquisitions like Skype, and the rest. # # #

- Eric L. -

[zax] Bloomberg says Microsoft expects to "make its own phones for at least the next t...

zax — 7/9/2015 10:57:02 AM

Bloomberg says Microsoft expects to "make its own phones for at least the next two years"
Written by Hammad Saleem on Thursday, Jul 9th, 2015 at 02:47AM @hammadsalim

winbeta.org

Yesterday was a little shocking for Microsoft as the company let go of 7,800 employees globally, and wrote down billions of dollars related to the acquisition of Nokia's devices and services division. The company acquired Nokia last year for over $7 billion and things didn't get better with Windows Phone in the competitive mobile space dominated by Android and iOS. Speculations also arose hinting at the demise of Windows Phone after the announcements, but it seems that may not be the case.

According to a new report from Bloomberg, Microsoft expects to manufacture phones for at least next two years, citing people familiar with the plan who wish to remain anonymous. Bloomberg reported,

"The company expects to make its own phones for at least the next two years, said a person familiar with Nadella’s plans who asked not to be named because the plans aren’t public. Microsoft will try to play up its strengths in the markets it has chosen, such as corporate security and collaboration software for business customers."

Microsoft is also expected to change its strategy as well. Instead of selling as many phone as it can, the company will focus on three categories: business phones, high-end models and value phones. The budget-friendly Windows Phones, such as the Lumia 520, has received its fair share of success and is the best-selling Windows Phone handset.

The report says that the Redmond-based company will scale down its business by launching one or two handsets in each of the three categories, as well as say exit carrier relationships and countries where the company's handsets didn't show much growth. As you know, the company has a handful of versions of a same handset in different locations, an approach which is expected to discontinue in the future. The company is expected to adopt the Surface approach, which is to "reduce the target area and try to stand out from the crowd in a smaller field."

It's been a while since Microsoft released a new flagship device. Reports suggest that Microsoft is working on high-end Windows Phone handset which is expected to see the light of the later this year, possibly at the IFA 2015 in Berlin. Rumors hint at the Lumia 940 being in works, but there's no official word from Microsoft about its launch. Windows 10 Mobile is expected to see the light of the day later this year, possibly in September/October.

Lets see what the future holds for Windows Phone.

winbeta.org

[Eric L] Microsoft Phone Hardware Restructuring Press Release & AAWP comments ... “We a...

Eric L — 7/9/2015 10:08:34 AM

Microsoft Phone Hardware Restructuring Press Release & AAWP comments ...

“We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem including our first-party device family.” - Satya Nadella -

>> Microsoft announces restructuring of phone hardware business

Microsoft News Center Press Release
Redmond, Wash.
July 8, 2015

news.microsoft.com

Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to restructure the company’s phone hardware business to better focus and align resources. Microsoft also announced the reduction of up to 7,800 positions, primarily in the phone business. As a result, the company will record an impairment charge of approximately $7.6 billion related to assets associated with the acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services (NDS) business in addition to a restructuring charge of approximately $750 million to $850 million.

Today’s announcement follows recent moves by Microsoft to better align with company priorities, including recent changes to Microsoft’s engineering teams and leadership, plans to transfer the company’s imagery acquisition operations to Uber, and shifts in Microsoft’s display advertising business that enable the company to further invest in search as its core advertising technology and service.

Today’s plans were outlined in an email from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Microsoft employees.

“We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem including our first-party device family,” Nadella said. “In the near-term, we’ll run a more effective and focused phone portfolio while retaining capability for long-term reinvention in mobility.”

Microsoft will record a charge in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 for the impairment of assets and goodwill in its Phone Hardware segment, related to the NDS business. This charge has no impact on cash flow from operations and is nondeductible for income tax purposes. Based on the new plans, the future prospects for the Phone Hardware segment are below original expectations. Accordingly, the company concluded that an impairment adjustment of its Phone Hardware segment assets and goodwill of approximately $7.6 billion is required.

The actions associated with today’s announcement are expected to be substantially complete by the end of the calendar year and fully completed by the end of the company’s fiscal year.

More information about these charges will be provided in Microsoft’s fourth-quarter earnings announcement on July 21, 2015, and in the company’s 2015 Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. # # #

>> Microsoft axes more jobs, phone portfolio to be more 'focussed'

Steve Litchfield
All About Windows Phone
July 8th 2015

allaboutwindowsphone.com

In an announcement, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made yet another 'tough' round of job trimming at the software giant, resulting in almost 8,000 job losses (from around 100,000 total), many of them in the phone division (i.e. producing feature phones and Lumias). See below for the release text and comment.

From the press release:

Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to restructure the company’s phone hardware business to better focus and align resources. Microsoft also announced the reduction of up to 7,800 positions, primarily in the phone business. As a result, the company will record an impairment charge of approximately $7.6 billion related to assets associated with the acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services (NDS) business in addition to a restructuring charge of approximately $750 million to $850 million.

Today’s announcement follows recent moves by Microsoft to better align with company priorities, including recent changes to Microsoft’s engineering teams and leadership, plans to transfer the company’s imagery acquisition operations to Uber, and shifts in Microsoft’s display advertising business that enable the company to further invest in search as its core advertising technology and service

Today’s plans were outlined in an email from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Microsoft employees:

“We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem including our first-party device family,” Nadella said. “In the near-term, we’ll run a more effective and focused phone portfolio while retaining capability for long-term reinvention in mobility.”

Given the savage cutting Nadella has been doing all round since he took over from Steve Ballmer's bloated-and-getting-bigger enterprise, all this isn't that surprising, with the usual caveats that it's hard not to feel very sorry for the employees concerned. Manufacturers across the world are learning the lesson that a device portfolio that's too weighty is unsustainable in 2015 - just look at HTC, at Samsung, and others. And there's far too much phone hardware (mainly at the bottom end) for Satya's liking.

Add to that the considerable overlaps and inefficiencies that were still hanging around from one enormous company (Microsoft, 120,000 employees before today?) integrating another big one (Nokia Devices and Services, about 25,000 employees originally mentioned for transfer), and in the competitive world of 2015, more jobs had to - sadly - go.

The mention of 'first party family' and 'focussed phone portfolio' both imply, of course, that there will still be Lumia smartphones running Windows 10 Mobile, but from a confusing range of over 20 models at the moment, I'd expect things to be simplified to just a handful.

In the revised release text, Satya and the team added:

"We’ll bring business customers the best management, security and productivity experiences they need; value phone buyers the communications services they want; and Windows fans the flagship devices they’ll love."

Which is interesting, only necessarily guaranteeing Windows 10 Mobile hardware at the top end. Certainly the current mass of budget offerings isn't bringing in huge success. My best guess at a simplication of the range would be, at the budget end (think 640), lower-mid range (think 640 XL) and top end (think 940 and 940 XL, these are dead certs in my opinion), all complementing other first party hardware such as the Surface 3 hybrids and tech oddities like Hololens and Surface Hub. And hopefully less phone variants and less pandering to networks around the world. Just produce some no compromise great hardware to run Windows 10 Mobile on and let the market decide.

Further clarifications came from Microsoft's COO Kevin Turner:

"Going forward, we will focus on building the very best Windows phones on a quicker timeline. We will also focus on the channels and markets that offer the best returns. This is a similar approach to the one we have taken with Surface, which has been very successful. Phones remain a critical component of the Microsoft device portfolio and an important piece of our mobility strategy, but a restructuring is in order."

Phrases like 'the very best' and 'a restructuring' do lend more credence to a smaller range of smartphones that's biased, if anything, towards the top end, rather than the current mélange, which is budget-heavy. And, as a bonus, with less outright budget Lumias around, there may even be a chance for other Windows 10 partners to come up with decent sales, since they sit more naturally at the bottom end of the specification scale. # # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Microsoft Winding Down Windows Phone ... >> Microsoft and Windows Phone: What ...

Eric L — 7/9/2015 9:01:02 AM

Microsoft Winding Down Windows Phone ...

>> Microsoft and Windows Phone: What went wrong, and where can they go from here?

Microsoft says it still wants to make phones - but what does the future look like for Windows Phone and Lumia devices?

Steve Ranger
ZDNet
July 9, 2015

zdnet.com

"It's a bold step into the future - a win-win for employees, shareholders, and consumers of both companies. Bringing these great teams together will accelerate Microsoft's share and profits in phones, and strengthen the overall opportunities for both Microsoft and our partners across our entire family of devices and services," said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's then-CEO, as he announced his plan to buy Nokia's phones business in September 2013.

"Given our long partnership with Nokia and the many key Nokia leaders that are joining Microsoft, we anticipate a smooth transition and great execution," Ballmer went on. Microsoft paid €5.44bn for Nokia's devices and services business, and as part of the deal 32,000 Nokia staff joined Microsoft. The idea: the combination of Nokia's design brilliance with Microsoft's software engineering could create a smartphone business to take on the might of Apple and Google.

But yesterday, less than two years after the acquisition was announced and only 15 months after it was completed, Microsoft announced it is cutting 7,800 jobs, mostly in the phone business. The cuts come on top of a round of 12,500 redundancies that affected former Nokia employees. Microsoft is also taking a $7.6bn writedown on the acquisition of the Nokia devices and services business, plus a $750m to $850m restructuring charge. It's hard to think of a clearer sign that the acquisition of Nokia's smartphone business has failed.

And while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said this week he is "committed to our first-party devices including phones," it does not sound like a ringing endorsement. According to Nadella, Microsoft's strategy will focus on three areas: "management, security, and productivity" for business customers, "communications services" for value phone buyers, and "flagship devices" for Windows fans.

It's worth pointing out that two of those three elements don't necessarily involve Microsoft actually building Windows Phone devices anymore. Nadella's remarks suggest that Microsoft may reduce its involvement in phones even further in future.

"In the near term, we will run a more effective phone portfolio... In the longer term, Microsoft devices will spark innovation, create new categories and generate opportunity for the Windows ecosystem more broadly. Our reinvention will be centered on creating mobility of experiences across the entire device family including phones," he said.

In an email to staff on Wednesday, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner dropped some hints about the future of Microsoft's phone business. He said the company would have to make phones faster, but also said it would focus on the channels and markets that offer the best returns. "This is a similar approach to the one we have taken with Surface, which has been very successful," he said - but while the Surface hybrid PC has been succesful, at least if you're feeling particularly generous, it is a much more modest business than the smartphone empire Microsoft once planned to build.

So what went wrong? Part of the problem is that the tie-up between Microsoft and Nokia was based on weakness, not strength. Microsoft had been trying to persuade manufacturers to use its Windows Phone operating system on their phones, but with little success. Similarly, Nokia had found the competition from Android and iOS too strong - Nokia CEO Elop memorably described Nokia as standing on a "burning platform" by adhering to its Symbian OS.

Putting together Nokia's smartphone hardware and Microsoft's software and marketing power seemed to be a reasonable bet, but it was by no means a certain one.

But the phones' hardware and software was not the problem: Nokia's long history of creating elegant hardware meant that the Lumias won plaudits for smart design. And, after a few false starts, Windows Phone with its tiled user interface seemed far cooler than iOS. Nonetheless, together, they just didn't sell enough phones.

In its best-ever quarter Microsoft managed to sell 10.5 million Lumias (likely weighted towards the cheaper models). To put those numbers into context, Apple sold 61 million iPhones in its most recent quarter. Today, IDC puts Windows Phone market share at 2.7 percent worldwide. For Microsoft, that's just nowhere near good enough.

Partly that was because Android and iOS were well entrenched by the time Windows Phone had matured, but also because Windows Phone has never built up the same app ecosystem the other two operating systems did. This meant that some top apps would not arrive on Windows Phone for a long time, if they ever arrived at all.

Microsoft's mobile strategy has at times been hard to fathom too. It has favoured a scattergun approach, launching an array of different smartphones and then waiting to see which ones find favour - in contrast to the measured approach of Apple.

Lumias found most of their success at the entry level. Indeed, there hasn't really been a 'flagship' Lumia (a clear top of the range device) released for a while. In the meantime, Microsoft has been experimenting with putting its services onto iOS and Android devices instead (Nokia even testing out an Android device) which may have given some customers one less reason to buy its hardware.

So what of the future of Microsoft's mobile strategy? # # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Microsoft writes-off Nokia purchase and Lays-off more employees ... >> Microso...

Eric L — 7/9/2015 8:32:36 AM

Microsoft writes-off Nokia purchase and Lays-off more employees ...

>> Microsoft writes-off Nokia purchase with massive layoffs ahead of Windows 10

Most of ex-Nokia staff set to go bye-byes

Chris Merriman
The Inquirer
Wednesday July 08 2015

theinquirer.net

Microsoft has confirmed a major round of job cuts in its hardware (ie ex-Nokia) division.

The news, which arrived as speculation from The New York Times, has now been confirmed with the culling of a 7,800 roles, in addition to the 18,000 Microsoft cuts already made last year.

This night-of-the-long-knives is centred in the hardware division, which reflects the already acknowledged shortfall in the success of Microsoft's Lumia (Nokia) and Surface brands.

Neither has turned out to be the disruptive force that that the company had hoped and it now looks as if the company is preparing to take a step back from design, instead buying in products from companies like, believe it or not, Nokia, which recently confirmed a return to the mobile game.

In an e-mail to employees today, CEO Satya Nadella said, "We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem including our first-party device family.

"In the near-term, we'll run a more effective and focused phone portfolio while retaining capability for long-term reinvention in mobility."

Steven Elop, the Nokia CEO who came as part of the $7.2bn deal, left the company last month as the Windows Phone platform continued to lose ground to Android and iOS.

In addition, the company has confirmed that it will write off $7.6bn in the next quarter, reflecting the failure of the purchase - nearly half a billion dollars more than it paid.

Microsoft recently divested its display advertising business to AOL, with the transfer of 1,200 roles, but it is expected that many of these too will be made redundant once the merger is completed.

These employees have been given until 16 July to accept their tenure with AOL come what may.

Nadella gave a rallying cry to his troops in the form of an email in June, but warned that the company would have to "make some tough choices in areas where things are not working and solve hard problems in ways that drive customer value". That prediction has most definitely come to pass.

The news comes three weeks out from the start of a new era for Microsoft's flagship Windows product as the company moves to an as-a-service model, removing large swathes of the existing licensing that has become hugely unpopular as free alternatives such as Chrome OS and Linux become more palatable.

Microsoft failed to crack the 20 percent barrier with its current Windows 8, and there was much criticism of the hybrid Metro/modern/tiled/shambles UI.

Today's announcement will act as a profits warning to shareholders ahead of fourth quarter earnings which will be declared on July 21st. µ # # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Nadella's Latest 'Streamlining' (Leyyer to employees) ... Satya Nadella email ...

Eric L — 6/17/2015 11:28:54 AM

Nadella's Latest 'Streamlining' (Leyyer to employees) ...

Satya Nadella email to employees on aligning engineering to strategy

From: Satya Nadella
To: All Employees
Date: June 17, 2015
Subject: Aligning Our Strategy & Structure

Team,

As we approach a new fiscal year, I’d like to share with you how we are aligning our structure to our strategy and the changes to our Senior Leadership Team.

Over the past year, I have said that Microsoft aspires to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. To do this, building the best-in-class productivity services and platforms for the mobile-first, cloud-first world is at the heart of our strategy, with three interconnected and bold ambitions:

• Reinvent productivity and business processes
• Build the intelligent cloud platform
• Create more personal computing

To better align our capabilities and, ultimately, deliver better products and services our customers love at a more rapid pace, I have decided to organize our engineering effort into three groups that work together to deliver on our strategy and ambitions. The changes take effect today.

• Terry Myerson will lead a new team, Windows and Devices Group (WDG), enabling our vision of a more personal computing experience powered by the Windows ecosystem. We will combine the engineering efforts of our current Operating Systems Group and Microsoft Devices Group (MDG) led by Stephen Elop. This new team brings together all the engineering capability required to drive breakthrough innovations that will propel the Windows ecosystem forward. WDG will drive Windows as a service across devices of all types and build all of our Microsoft devices including Surface, HoloLens, Lumia, Surface Hub, Band and Xbox. This enables us to create new categories while generating enthusiasm and demand for Windows broadly.

• Scott Guthrie will continue to lead the Cloud and Enterprise (C+E) team focused on building the intelligent cloud platform that powers any application on any device. The C+E team will also focus on building high-value infrastructure and business services that are unique to enterprise customers, such as data and analytics products, security and management offerings, and business processes. Today, we are also moving the development teams who build our Dynamics products to C+E, which will enable us to accelerate our ERP and CRM work even further and mainstream them as part of our core engineering and innovation efforts. C+E will work closely with ASG to ensure the end-to-end experience is cohesive across communications, collaboration and business processes.

• Qi Lu will continue to lead the Applications and Services Group (ASG) that is focused on reinventing productivity. This group is leading the charge in building productivity services for digital work that span all devices and appeal to the people who use technology at work and in their personal lives. ASG has already made advancements in these areas, and the only change as part of today’s announcement is that the engineering efforts to build solutions for Education will move to ASG.

Changes of this nature require us to look at our leadership structure overall, and as a result a few Senior Leadership Team members will leave Microsoft at the conclusion of a transition period.

When Stephen Elop returned to Microsoft, he oriented MDG to create the best Microsoft experience through its devices, inclusive of hardware, software and services. He has been a strong advocate of the need to drive focus and accountability around the delivery of these experiences and has helped drive tighter alignment toward the ambition of more personal computing. With the structural change described above, Stephen and I have agreed that now is the right time for him to retire from Microsoft. I regret the loss of leadership that this represents, and look forward to seeing where his next destination will be.

Kirill Tatarinov is going to explore what’s next for him. Under Kirill’s leadership, the Dynamics business has grown to a nearly $2 billion business with an ambitious wave of products on the horizon. Perhaps most important though, Kirill and team have shown us that participating in a meaningful way in the CRM and ERP market opens up new opportunities we can uniquely take advantage of by bringing Dynamics into Microsoft’s mainstream engineering, sales and marketing efforts. I am very thankful for Kirill’s unswerving leadership in bringing Dynamics to this point and building a strong leadership team to carry it forward.

After more than 25 years at Microsoft, Eric Rudder has decided to try something new. Eric has played a number of key roles at Microsoft including founding and growing the Server and Tools business in its early days, leading Microsoft Research, and most recently driving our advanced technology and education efforts. I will deeply miss Eric’s passion, technical and business acumen, and keen intellect, and I appreciate all he’s done for Microsoft.

Lastly, a number of months ago, Mark Penn shared with me that he is planning to leave Microsoft in September to form a private equity fund, among other things. Over the years, Mark has leveraged his talents and insights on Microsoft’s behalf. From helping craft a Super Bowl ad and helping design new business and marketing models to his work in data analytics, Mark has helped me set the company on a new course. I’m thankful for the wise strategic counsel Mark has provided, and I look forward to seeing what he does next.

I’ve worked closely with Stephen, Eric, Kirill and Mark and have incredible respect for each of them and wish them well.

I’m counting on our Senior Leadership Team to inspire innovative products and services and lead excellent execution. Our competition and our customers don’t care about our organization structure — they care about innovation. While we are distinctly aligning our engineering structure and core capabilities, our ambitions are interconnected. Success requires all of us — and particularly the Senior Leadership Team — to work across boundaries as one Microsoft and in harmony with our partners. Here’s the new team effective today:

• Chris Capossela, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (will now also take on responsibility for Dynamics and Education marketing)
• Kurt DelBene, Executive Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Planning
• Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President, Cloud and Enterprise
• Amy Hood, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
• Peggy Johnson, Executive Vice President, Business Development (will now lead our partnerships with mobile operators around the world)
• Qi Lu, Executive Vice President, Applications and Services Group
• Terry Myerson, Executive Vice President, Windows and Devices Group
• Harry Shum, Executive Vice President, Technology and Research
• Brad Smith, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Legal and Corporate Affairs
• Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer (will also now take responsibility for the Dynamics sales and partner organization)
• Jill Tracie, Chief of Staff

I’m certain that matching our structure to our strategy will best position us to build products and services our customers love and ultimately drive new growth. Please feel free to send any questions you have to one of the Senior Leadership Team members or me.

Looking forward to what we can do together.

Satya

# # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Stephen Elop to depart Microsoft ... [graphic] >> Former Nokia CEO Elop Leavi...

Eric L — 6/17/2015 11:09:10 AM

Stephen Elop to depart Microsoft ...

>> Former Nokia CEO Elop Leaving Microsoft

Elop had run Microsoft’s hardware devices business; Windows exec Myerson to step in

Shira Ovide
The Wall Street Journal
June 17, 2015

wsj.com

Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella continues to put his stamp on the company, announcing Wednesday an executive shuffle that involves the departure of former Nokia Corp. chief Stephen Elop.

Mr. Elop was the biggest surprise departure in the executive shuffle. Two other Microsoft executives, Kirill Tatarinov and Eric Rudder, will, like Mr. Elop “leave Microsoft after a designated transition period,” the company said in a news release. Separately, Mark Penn, who had served in a senior strategist role, is leaving Microsoft as well.

Mr. Elop’s departure is the latest sign Microsoft is hitting the reset button on its struggling smartphone hardware business. The more than $9 billion purchase of Nokia’s handset business—a deal struck by Mr. Nadella’s predecessor Steve Ballmer in late 2013—was supposed to make Microsoft a relevant player in smartphones.

Instead under Mr. Elop’s leadership at Microsoft, the company’s Windows smartphones lost market share and bled red ink. The company recently said it planned to further cut costs at the smartphone business and other hardware units. Nokia already was targeted for thousands of job cuts in the biggest layoffs in Microsoft’s history, announced last year.

Microsoft’s hardware devices businesses, which Mr. Elop ran, will now be folded into a new division with Microsoft’s operating systems group. Terry Myerson, also an executive vice president, will lead the division. # # #

- Eric L -

[Eric L] You Tube: Microsoft Windows 10 Event January 2015 (Full 2:15 hours) [youtube vi...

Eric L — 1/28/2015 12:10:10 PM

You Tube: Microsoft Windows 10 Event January 2015 (Full 2:15 hours)

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Windows 10: Unifying Patforms and Apps ... [graphic] - Eric L. -

Eric L — 11/30/2014 11:26:21 AM

Windows 10: Unifying Patforms and Apps ...

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Microsoft Devices & Consumer in CQ3 2014 (FQ1 2015) ... [graphic] [graphic] ...

Eric L — 10/25/2014 11:10:22 AM

Microsoft Devices & Consumer in CQ3 2014 (FQ1 2015) ...

# # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Microsoft Devices (Lumias & Surface tablets) in CQ3 2014 ... "Sales of its Lum...

Eric L — 10/25/2014 10:32:45 AM

Microsoft Devices (Lumias & Surface tablets) in CQ3 2014 ...

"Sales of its Lumia smartphones hit 9.3 million in the first full quarter since the close of the Nokia deal. Sales of the Surface tablet more than doubled to $908 million from $400 million in the year-ago quarter." - Reuters on Microsoft Q3 -

Microsoft Devices and Consumer revenue grew 47% to $10.96 billion, while Commercial revenue grew 10% to $12.28 billion.

allaboutwindowsphone.com

It's results time again, with an interesting couple of statistics coming from Microsoft's (effective) Q3 financials - it seems (according to Reuters) that 9.3 million Lumia smartphones were sold in the period, a slight increase year on year from Nokia's 8.8 figure in the same quarter last year.

With the sale of Nokia to Microsoft in the intervening year and the disruption that this inevitably caused, the rise in sales is reassuring. In fact, Microsoft generally had a very good quarter. Devices and Consumer revenue grew 47% to $10.96 billion, while Commercial revenue grew 10% to $12.28 billion.

9.3 million Lumias in a quarter (plus, no doubt a million or two from other licensees, including the new ones, a contribution which will only grow and grow) should be put in context against typical Apple iPhone sales of 30 million or so (i.e. only a third as many as iPhone shipments) and typical Samsung Android sales of up to a hundred million per quarter. Worldwide smartphone market share for Windows Phone is still somewhere between 3 and 6% (depending on how you define 'smart', as always), though of course higher, up well over 10% in some markets. Still, Windows Phone is very much still in the game, especially with the Windows 10 thrust/unification happening over the next 12 months [see Below]. ###

>> The next-gen version of Windows Phone to be called "Windows 10"

Steve Litchfield
AAWP
September 30th 2014

allaboutwindowsphone.com

In an event in the USA today, Microsoft announced the name and desktop features of its next-gen version of Windows, to be dubbed 'Windows 10', and the version that nominally integrates phone, tablet and laptop/desktop in one platform. According to Microsoft, Windows 10 will encompass "one product family, one platform, one store." So, in theory, come the end of 2015, we could be used to talking about Windows 10 on our smartphones.

Details are still very sketchy, and the requirements for Windows 10 are likely to be such that very little 2014 phone hardware will be upgradable. So it's not something most of us will have to worry about in the short term.

Will the software on our phones really be the full 'Windows 10'? Obviously not, Joe Belfiore confirmed that there won't be a 'desktop' in the phone interface (thankfully), and my bet is that the build for smartphones will be an evolution of what we have today, but with even more in common with the desktop in terms of compatibility/universal applications, and so on.

What's next for the 2012/2013 Snapdragon S4-powered phones like the Lumia 920/925/1020? Maybe one more major OS update, WP 8.1 Update 1, maybe Update 2 in the Spring? But probably no more than this. It's possible that Snapdragon 800-powered phones like the Lumia 1520 and 930 might get a sniff of Windows 10, but at this stage it seems unlikely.... and a long way off! ###

- Eric L. -

[zax] The last emblems of Nokia are being removed from Microsoft products. "Microsoft...

zax — 10/21/2014 11:57:52 AM

The last emblems of Nokia are being removed from Microsoft products. "Microsoft Lumia" is the new brand name that takes their place. The name change follows a slow transition from Nokia.com over to Microsoft's new mobile site, and Nokia France will be the first of many countries that adopt "Microsoft Lumia" for its Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. Microsoft has confirmed to The Verge that other countries will follow the rebranding steps in the coming weeks. Nokia itself continues as a reborn company focusing on mapping and network infrastructure services.

via SlashDot

[zax] A Microsoft smartwatch could be here within weeks Summary: Microsoft's smartwatc...

zax — 10/20/2014 9:58:29 AM

A Microsoft smartwatch could be here within weeks
Summary: Microsoft's smartwatch could be available before consumers can get their hands on Apple Watch.

By Liam Tung | October 20, 2014 -- 09:09 GMT (02:09 PDT)

Microsoft's long-rumoured smartwatch could be announced within weeks, giving the company a device to square up to wearables from Apple and Google's Wear partners.

zdnet.com

[Sr K] computerworld.com

Sr K — 10/15/2014 7:48:20 AM

[Sr K] Cut from NPR Patrick McBride, a spokesman with iSight, says the hackers targete...

Sr K — 10/15/2014 2:38:27 AM

Cut from NPR

Patrick McBride, a spokesman with iSight, says the hackers targeted specific officials using a well-known kind of attack called spear-phishing. Hackers would craft a message with a PowerPoint document attached. For example, they'd say, "We'd like to be involved in the conference."

And when an unknowing recipient opened the corrupted PowerPoint, the file was exploited to load a piece of malware onto the computer that the attacker could then use later to "exfiltrate documents," McBride says.

The hacker group, dubbed the "Sandworm Team," allegedly pulled emails and documents off computers from NATO, Ukrainian government groups, Western European government officials, and energy sector and telecommunications firms.

In the mad dash to grab information, McBride says, the hackers got a little sloppy and dropped hints about their identity. He says they're Russian, "but we can't pinpoint if they work for the Russian government or work in a particular department in the government."

The Russian embassy did not immediately respond to NPR's inquiry. Microsoft says that Tuesday, it's patching the security flaw so that PowerPoint and other Office products can't be exploited again in the same way.

[zax] Windows 9 (Threshold): Welcome to Modern UI 2.0 Written by Zac Bowden on August...

zax — 8/25/2014 11:52:45 PM

Windows 9 (Threshold): Welcome to Modern UI 2.0
Written by Zac Bowden on August 25, 2014 - 02:03AM

winbeta.org

<snip> ...

There is no middle ground between devices that have the Modern UI and devices that have the desktop. You either have the desktop or you have the Modern UI, you cannot have both. As reported around a month ago, the Start Menu for desktop users in Windows Threshold can 'act' like a full screen Start Menu however, meaning if you want that functionality you can have it on the desktop. This will be helpful for devices like the Surface Pro 3.

The removal of the desktop has been talked about about in the past, and will be mostly apparent with Windows RT devices. Current Win32 applications are being replaced with Modern UI alternatives which means the desktop will have no real use. Of course, the removal of the desktop isn't for all devices, so don't be alarmed fellow desktop users.

</snip> Read the rest here: winbeta.org

[zax] Yesterday, word came down that Microsoft was starting to lay off some 18,000 wo...

zax — 7/18/2014 11:58:06 AM

Yesterday, word came down that Microsoft was starting to lay off some 18,000 workers. As of June 5th, Microsoft reported a total employee headcount of 127,005, so they're cutting about 15% of their jobs. That's actually a pretty huge percentage, even taking into account the redundancies created by the Nokia acquisition. Obviously, there's an upper limit to how much of your workforce you can let go at one time, so I'm willing to bet Microsoft's management thinks thousands more people aren't worth keeping around. How many employees does Microsoft realistically need? The company is famous for its huge teams that don't work together well, and excessive middle management. But they also have a huge number of software projects, and some of the projects, like Windows and Office, need big teams to develop. How would we go about estimating the total workforce Microsoft needs? (Other headcounts for reference: Apple: 80,000, Amazon: 124,600, IBM: 431,212, Red Hat: 5,000+, Facebook: 6,800, Google: 52,000, Intel: 104,900.)

via SlashDot

[Eric L] Elop Speaks: No More Nokia Android, Series 40 or Asha. The focus is Windows Phon...

Eric L — 7/17/2014 11:34:02 PM

Elop Speaks: No More Nokia Android, Series 40 or Asha. The focus is Windows Phone ...

microsoft.com

Hello there,

Microsoft’s strategy is focused on productivity and our desire to help people “do more.” As the Microsoft Devices Group, our role is to light up this strategy for people. We are the team creating the hardware that showcases the finest of Microsoft’s digital work and digital life experiences, and we will be the confluence of the best of Microsoft’s applications, operating systems and cloud services.

To align with Microsoft’s strategy, we plan to focus our efforts. Given the wide range of device experiences, we must concentrate on the areas where we can add the most value. The roots of this company and our future are in productivity and helping people get things done. Our fundamental focus – for phones, Surface, for meetings with devices like PPI, Xbox hardware and new areas of innovation -- is to build on that strength. While our direction in the majority of our teams is largely unchanging, we have had an opportunity to plan carefully about the alignment of phones within Microsoft as the transferring Nokia team continues with its integration process.

It is particularly important to recognize that the role of phones within Microsoft is different than it was within Nokia. Whereas the hardware business of phones within Nokia was an end unto itself, within Microsoft all our devices are intended to embody the finest of Microsoft’s digital work and digital life experiences, while accruing value to Microsoft’s overall strategy. Our device strategy must reflect Microsoft’s strategy and must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope. Therefore, we plan to make some changes.

We will be particularly focused on making the market for Windows Phone. In the near term, we plan to drive Windows Phone volume by targeting the more affordable smartphone segments, which are the fastest growing segments of the market, with Lumia. In addition to the portfolio already planned, we plan to deliver additional lower-cost Lumia devices by shifting select future Nokia X designs and products to Windows Phone devices. We expect to make this shift immediately while continuing to sell and support existing Nokia X products.

To win in the higher price segments, we will focus on delivering great breakthrough products in alignment with major milestones ahead from both the Windows team and the Applications and Services Group. We will ensure that the very best experiences and scenarios from across the company will be showcased on our products. We plan to take advantage of innovation from the Windows team, like Universal Windows Apps, to continue to enrich the Windows application ecosystem. And in the very lowest price ranges, we plan to run our first phones business for maximum efficiency with a smaller team.

We expect these changes to have an impact to our team structure. With our focus, we plan to consolidate the former Smart Devices and Mobile Phones business units into one phone business unit that is responsible for all of our phone efforts. Under the plan, the phone business unit will be led by Jo Harlow with key members from both the Smart Devices and Mobile Phones teams in the management team. This team will be responsible for the success of our Lumia products, the transition of select future Nokia X products to Lumia and for the ongoing operation of the first phone business.

As part of the effort, we plan to select the appropriate business model approach for our sales markets while continuing to offer our products in all markets with a strong focus on maintaining business continuity. We will determine each market approach based on local market dynamics, our ability to profitably deliver local variants, current Lumia momentum and the strategic importance of the market to Microsoft. This will all be balanced with our overall capability to invest.

Our phone engineering efforts are expected to be concentrated in Salo, Finland (for future, high-end Lumia products) and Tampere, Finland (for more affordable devices). We plan to develop the supporting technologies in both locations. We plan to ramp down engineering work in Oulu. While we plan to reduce the engineering in Beijing and San Diego, both sites will continue to have supporting roles, including affordable devices in Beijing and supporting specific US requirements in San Diego. Espoo and Lund are planned to continue to be focused on application software development.

We plan to right-size our manufacturing operations to align to the new strategy and take advantage of integration opportunities. We expect to focus phone production mainly in Hanoi, with some production to continue in Beijing and Dongguan. We plan to shift other Microsoft manufacturing and repair operations to Manaus and Reynosa respectively, and start a phased exit from Komaron, Hungary.

In short, we will focus on driving Lumia volume in the areas where we are already successful today in order to make the market for Windows Phone. With more speed, we will build on our success in the affordable smartphone space with new products offering more differentiation. We’ll focus on acquiring new customers in the markets where Microsoft’s services and products are most concentrated. And, we’ll continue building momentum around applications.

We plan that this would result in an estimated reduction of 12,500 factory direct and professional employees over the next year. These decisions are difficult for the team, and we plan to support departing team members with severance benefits.

More broadly across the Devices team, we will continue our efforts to bring iconic tablets to market in ways that complement our OEM partners, power the next generation of meetings & collaboration devices and thoughtfully expand Windows with new interaction models. With a set of changes already implemented earlier this year in these teams, this means there will be limited change for the Surface, Xbox hardware, PPI/meetings or next generation teams.

We recognize these planned changes are broad and have very difficult implications for many of our team members. We will work to provide as much clarity and information as possible. Today and over the coming weeks leaders across the organization will hold town halls, host information sharing sessions and provide more details on the intranet.

The team transferring from Nokia and the teams that have been part of Microsoft have each experienced a number of remarkable changes these last few years. We operate in a competitive industry that moves rapidly, and change is necessary. As difficult as some of our changes are today, this direction deliberately aligns our work with the cross company efforts that Satya has described in his recent emails. Collectively, the clarity, focus and alignment across the company, and the opportunity to deliver the results of that work into the hands of people, will allow us to increase our success in the future.

Regards,

- Stephen -

# # #

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Microsoft's Job Cuts Comments (Wired & AAWP) ... >> Why Cutting 18,000 Jobs Wa...

Eric L — 7/17/2014 10:15:17 PM

Microsoft's Job Cuts Comments (Wired & AAWP) ...

>> Why Cutting 18,000 Jobs Was Likely Microsoft’s Plan All Along

Issie Lapowsky
Wired
07.17.14

wired.com

Microsoft will slash up to 18,000 jobs by the end of the year. That’s 14 percent of the company’s workforce, and it amounts to the largest round of layoffs in the nearly 40 year history of the software kingpin.

On Thursday morning, with an email euphemistically titled “Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture,” CEO Satya Nadella announced that the bulk of the cuts would affect employees working for Nokia, the mobile phone company Microsoft acquired last September. According to Nadella, these cuts would encourage “work simplification,” “integration synergies,” and “strategic alignment.” But even the heavy-handed business jargon couldn’t mask the simple fact that 18,000 jobs is a hell of a lot of jobs to lose.

And yet, tragic as these deep cuts will be for Microsoft employees and their families, it may be premature to assume this massive round of layoffs means Microsoft is in dire trouble. In fact, tough as the decision may have been, it might be the best thing for the company in the long term. “I find myself saddened and disturbed at the news, but there are definitely legitimate business cases to do it,” says J.P. Gownder, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.
Tough as the decision may have been, it might truly be the best thing for the company in the long term.

The fact is: when Microsoft acquired Nokia and its 25,000 employees, Nokia had already fallen far behind in the smartphone market, beat out by frontrunners like Apple and Samsung. What Microsoft needed was not the Nokia brand, but greater control over phones running its Windows Phone operating system, so it could work to further expand its place in the market.

Some, but not all of Nokia’s employees, would be critical to that goal, and according to Gownder, this restructuring was likely part of Nadella’s plans all along. “A lot of what’s going on is eliminating what are, on paper, redundancies,” he says. “It’s not a willy nilly thing. I’m sure when they bought Nokia, this was the plan.”

With a slightly leaner organization, Nadella now feels Microsoft will be better suited to compete with the likes of Apple and Google in the smartphone space. Still, even with reduced overhead, Microsoft has a huge task ahead of it to truly compete with other smartphone-makers, and it’s unclear whether Nadella is willing to take enough risks to make that happen. For instance, plans to develop a Nokia phone that runs on Android, a move that might have attracted more consumers to Nokia’s devices, have been shelved. Instead, Nadella is committed to taking the Windows Phone operating system mainstream, which Gownder says is a major challenge, considering it doesn’t have much of an app ecosystem. “All these new apps come out for iPhone and Android, and they don’t come to Windows Phone, in some cases, ever,” he says. “That’s a huge demerit in the efficacy of the platform.”

Gownder also warns that Nadella shouldn’t underestimate the business cost of cutting so many employees. “I do tend to think this will have costs in terms of losing people who have embedded knowledge you don’t realize you’re getting rid of,” he says, adding that the layoffs will have “tangible affects on morale.” To avoid a disastrous fallout, Gownder says, Nadella ought to make it clear that though this is an unprecedented change, it is not just the first of many to come. “My hope is that this is a carefully thought out restructuring, and this will be a one-time change, so they can go and execute,” he says. “There’s always a cost associated with these kinds of moves, but companies can survive and move on.” ###

>> Microsoft/Nokia job cuts, Nokia X line to transition to Windows Phone

Steve Litchfield
AAWP
July 17th 2014

allaboutwindowsphone.com

Filed under 'link of interest', certainly, but big news for many ex-Nokians today, as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced heavy job cuts, quoted below, plus threw out what seems the death knell for Nokia's still-born 'X' line of Android smartphones.

microsoft.com

From the Microsoft missive from Satya:

The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign our workforce. With this in mind, we will begin to reduce the size of our overall workforce by up to 18,000 jobs in the next year. Of that total, our work toward synergies and strategic alignment on Nokia Devices and Services is expected to account for about 12,500 jobs, comprising both professional and factory workers. We are moving now to start reducing the first 13,000 positions, and the vast majority of employees whose jobs will be eliminated will be notified over the next six months. It’s important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we are adding roles in certain other strategic areas.

12,500 out of between 25,000 and 30,000 employees acquired with Nokia means that almost half the workforce acquired are being made redundant over the next 12 months, which must be a big blow to many ex-Nokians. Such massive job cuts aren't unexpected, given the merging of two very large companies, with large areas of duplication, but it will still hurt those involved. Engineers and designers, those close to the technology, are likely to be safe. Satya goes on in much the same vein:

Second, we are working to integrate the Nokia Devices and Services teams into Microsoft. We will realize the synergies to which we committed when we announced the acquisition last September. The first-party phone portfolio will align to Microsoft’s strategic direction. To win in the higher price tiers, we will focus on breakthrough innovation that expresses and enlivens Microsoft’s digital work and digital life experiences. In addition, we plan to shift select Nokia X product designs to become Lumia products running Windows. This builds on our success in the affordable smartphone space and aligns with our focus on Windows Universal Apps.

Several interesting turns of phrase in here:

'breakthrough innovation' (in the higher price tiers) presumably refers to imaging and also to new UI concepts based on 3D interaction over the phone screen.

'Nokia X product designs to become Lumia products running Windows' - many people had speculated (wildly) that Microsoft allowed the Nokia 'X' line of handsets to be launched because they (and Android) were the future and that Windows Phone would ultimately be canned. Instead, sensibly, the X line is being changed in upcoming devices to run Windows Phone, keeping Microsoft focussed on just one mobile/portable OS.

The second bullet point above doesn't preclude that Android compatibility plays some part in Microsoft's and Windows Phone's future, of course. Informed observers have speculated that the next version of the OS (8.1 Update 1) may have an Android virtual machine built-in, in the style of Blackberry/Jolla, wherein selected Android applications can be added by a user. ###

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] [graphic] Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction a...

Eric L — 7/17/2014 9:52:04 PM

Last week in my email to you I synthesized our strategic direction as a productivity and platform company. Having a clear focus is the start of the journey, not the end. The more difficult steps are creating the organization and culture to bring our ambitions to life. Today I’ll share more on how we’re moving forward. On July 22, during our public earnings call, I’ll share further specifics on where we are focusing our innovation investments.

The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign our workforce. With this in mind, we will begin to reduce the size of our overall workforce by up to 18,000 jobs in the next year. Of that total, our work toward synergies and strategic alignment on Nokia Devices and Services is expected to account for about 12,500 jobs, comprising both professional and factory workers. We are moving now to start reducing the first 13,000 positions, and the vast majority of employees whose jobs will be eliminated will be notified over the next six months. It’s important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we are adding roles in certain other strategic areas. My promise to you is that we will go through this process in the most thoughtful and transparent way possible. We will offer severance to all employees impacted by these changes, as well as job transition help in many locations, and everyone can expect to be treated with the respect they deserve for their contributions to this company.

Later today your Senior Leadership Team member will share more on what to expect in your organization. Our workforce reductions are mainly driven by two outcomes: work simplification as well as Nokia Devices and Services integration synergies and strategic alignment.

First, we will simplify the way we work to drive greater accountability, become more agile and move faster. As part of modernizing our engineering processes the expectations we have from each of our disciplines will change. In addition, we plan to have fewer layers of management, both top down and sideways, to accelerate the flow of information and decision making. This includes flattening organizations and increasing the span of control of people managers. In addition, our business processes and support models will be more lean and efficient with greater trust between teams. The overall result of these changes will be more productive, impactful teams across Microsoft. These changes will affect both the Microsoft workforce and our vendor staff. Each organization is starting at different points and moving at different paces.

Second, we are working to integrate the Nokia Devices and Services teams into Microsoft. We will realize the synergies to which we committed when we announced the acquisition last September. The first-party phone portfolio will align to Microsoft’s strategic direction. To win in the higher price tiers, we will focus on breakthrough innovation that expresses and enlivens Microsoft’s digital work and digital life experiences. In addition, we plan to shift select Nokia X product designs to become Lumia products running Windows. This builds on our success in the affordable smartphone space and aligns with our focus on Windows Universal Apps.

Making these decisions to change are difficult, but necessary. I want to invite you to my monthly Q&A event tomorrow. I hope you can join, and I hope you will ask any question that’s on your mind. Thank you for your support as we start to take steps forward in evolving our organization and culture.

- Satya -

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Microsoft FY 2014 and FYQ4 Earnings next Tuesday after the bell ... [graphic]...

Eric L — 7/15/2014 2:58:08 PM

Microsoft FY 2014 and FYQ4 Earnings next Tuesday after the bell ...

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] What exactly will the New Microsoft's Focus be ... ... and better yet when will...

Eric L — 7/15/2014 1:49:52 PM

What exactly will the New Microsoft's Focus be ...

... and better yet when will investors, partners, developers, customers and potential customers be able to determine exactlt what that focus will be?

>> Where will the new Microsoft put its focus? Expected job cuts will provide clues

Mary Jo Foley
All About Microsof
July 15, 2014

zdnet.com

Summary: Microsoft is believed to be ready to cut thousands of jobs this week as part of management's attempt to focus on areas where the company can win. Which teams are likely to take the brunt?

Microsoft is expected to cut thousands of jobs, most likely this week, just ahead of its Q4 fiscal 2014 earnings report next week.

Expectations are the Nokia handset division, which Microsoft officially acquired earlier this year, will bear the brunt of the cuts. (Microsoft acquired 25,000 Nokia employees as part of that transaction, adding to its workforce of close to 100,000.) Beyond those possible cuts, Microsoft also may cut more jobs in marketing across the company, Bloomberg reported on July 14, as it did in 2009 when it shed more than 5,000 employees.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is working to focus the company on fewer, key areas where it has a better chance of winning. The areas where Microsoft is trumpeting its wins at this week's Worldwide Partner Conference are largely in the cloud -- with Azure, Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online -- and Office, Windows Server and business intelligence/SQL Server on premises.

The areas where Microsoft is struggling right now -- in terms of market share, positioning or both -- are in Windows on non-PC form factors (in other words, Windows 8, not Windows 7), Windows Phone (both hardware and software), Surface tablets and Xbox consoles.

Some on Wall Street, such as its newest board member, ValueAct's Mason Morfit, are believed to be in favor of Microsoft sticking to its enterprise software and services knitting. Things like tablets and gaming consoles don't have the meaty margins that software and cloud services do, they argue.

But Microsoft officials continue to publicly espouse the belief that Microsoft needs to be a player in both consumer and enterprise because -- as Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner told Microsoft's resellers this week at the partner show -- customers are "dual users" with intertwined home and business lives.

Microsoft is in the midst of attempting to pivot and remake itself as a "productivity and platforms" company, rather than a devices and services company. That change is more than semantic. In the post-Ballmer Microsoft, hardware is interesting only insofar as it "lights up" productivity software and services.

Does that mean Microsoft will or should offload its hardware-focused businesses and leave the building of gadgets and appliances up to its OEM partners? I think many on Wall Street would say yes, but Microsoft management still seems to be saying, at least for now, no.

So if you're Microsoft management, where do you make cuts if you're trying to pare Microsoft down to core businesses where it has the best chance of winning?

Do you continue along the low-cost, high-volume path, which has been where Microsoft traditionally has focused? In the case of Windows Phone, that might make sense, given the bulk of Microsoft's success with that platform has been with cheaper smartphones, not higher-end flagship Lumia phones. If that's your plan, things like an Android phone running Microsoft software and services make more sense.

Or do you shift gears and focus on offering premium software, services and hardware like Surface tablets and Perceptive Pixel large-screen touch displays? Leave the race to the bottom to Android vendors and focus on finding ways to upsell users on more premium hardware, software and services?

I don't know which way Microsoft will go. I'm thinking the expected layoffs -- based on what the company has done in the past when it has cut jobs -- won't result in many entire product lines or divisions being axed. (And at least some of those cut are likely to end up in new roles at Microsoft if the past is any indication.) But the cuts should provide more of an indication of where this "productivity and platforms" company will focus in 2015 and beyond. ###

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Lumia Cyan with Windows Phone 8.1 Software Update starts rolling ... [graphic]...

Eric L — 7/15/2014 12:06:38 PM

Lumia Cyan with Windows Phone 8.1 Software Update starts rolling ...

Nokia Conversations article is here: conversations.nokia.com

Steve Litchfield of 'All About Windows Phone' (AAWP) abstracts and comments the update here: allaboutwindowsphone.com

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Nadella's Vision Missive ... Long time Microsoft Watcher anf Vulture Central's...

Eric L — 7/15/2014 11:04:00 AM

Nadella's Vision Missive ...

Long time Microsoft Watcher anf Vulture Central's former 'Man in San Francisco' reacted in similar fashion to me after reading Nadella's latest Vision thingie ...

If you are a Microsoft salesman keen to answer key questions from customers such as: "What will you be doing differently?" or "What will be new and exciting?", you will have nothing new from the CEO to go on.

Nadella's "memo" is not just verbose, it's thick with repetitive platitudes and windy aspirations - so much so it almost makes you yearn for Steve Ballmer's bluntness. Clarity and direction were mostly lacking - two things Microsoft most needs right now.

Nadella gave his readers a Bollywood-length epic of motivational clichés. "Our first-party devices will light up your digital work and life" was one of the most wretched. Another contender was "drive customer usage first and foremost" … a radical idea nobody has yet tried. Or how about "Microsoft has a unique ability to harmonize the world's devices (by remotely turning them all off? - ed] apps, docs, data and social networks in digital work and life experiences so that people are at the center and are empowered to do more and achieve more".

It's all weirdly disembodied and robotic - perhaps an early experiment with "Cortana (CEO Edition").

Many hoped that with the ascent of Nadella - who is hard-working and bright, and who has done a brilliant job with Microsoft's cloud Azure - Microsoft would be getting more than a functional, process-driven COO filling the CEO's shoes, with the Board continuing to pull the strings. But reading his memo, they may getting a sinking feeling.

We know the Board remains hopelessly divided over strategy, giving a seat to an activist shareholder who wants to see Microsoft shed its consumer businesses, and focus on higher margin, more profitable enterprise IT. Yet the Board/Nadella (Boardella?) didn't give a compelling reason why Microsoft should continue to dabble in tablets, make "first party hardware", (that's the new expression for own-brand Lumia smartphones and Surface) or consumer services.

Nadella had previously tried to put a sticking plaster over the gash by inventing a new cliché - "Cloud first Mobile first" - but this has already come unstuck. The dilemma highlighted by "Cortana-gate" is that there will be times when they can't both come first - you deprecate the interests of one platform (such your branded hardware) to advance the interests of another (such as your branded service). Or vice versa.

But Nadella could have done things a little differently. He could have offered some bold new initiative to differentiate Microsoft as a platform from company. There are many ways Microsoft isn't Google, but apart from the "Scroogled" ad campaign, it's oddly nervous about saying so. Microsoft could, for example, share anonymised consumer data with business, commoditising the data just as it commoditised the personal computer.

The speech-that-wasn't-a-speech could have benefited from using Microsoft's own products as concrete illustrations. The challenge is why Microsoft needs to retain a consumer division, but this is best illustrated by real examples – where the benefit is positive, or where the distinction between consumer and enterprise is meaningless. Or where consumer drives IT sales (or even vice versa), for example.

There was little recognition that when Microsoft's "consumer experience" is compared to the iPad, Microsoft doesn't come well out of it. Surface might look beautiful and be full of clever hardware - but I can't envisage anyone managing a decent size music or photo collection using just the Metro software - it just isn't up to the job. Can you? It would take an honest CEO to say so.

And where Nadella has stamped a personal hallmark, it's quite ominous - as readers have already spotted.

"Each engineering group will have Data and Applied Science resources that will focus on measurable outcomes for our products and predictive analysis of market trends," is one of the few concrete promises he made. Words to set the pulse racing, and as readers have pointed out, Windows 8 didn't fail because the programmer's lacked market data or didn't have enough focus groups. It was questionable strategy executed using some pretty awful design.

"Thinking that statistics and data are about numbers is like thinking that the Declaration of Independence is about spelling and grammar; statistics is about insight," responded one reader. "And then I felt better about Windows 8 being data-driven: they just didn't collect the right data or they mis-interpreted it (or, even more likely, they extrapolated beyond the circumstances that gave rise to their data)."

Sinofsky's catastrophic management created to a lot of pain (disrupting the Windows upgrade cycle and the revenues that come with it; inviting businesses to look to Apple and Google for productivity platforms) and no discernible gain. I predicted Surface would be landfill in 2012 - and the costs continue to mount.

Employees will also be promised greater mobility "to move about the company". This means less ownership of products, and a higher risk that they will take less personal responsibility for failures. How does this square with Nadella's "more emphasis on accountability"?

To conclude, Nadella is still relatively new in the CEO's seat and he may still be in a honeymoon period with most Microsoft watchers. But six months on, there's no indication that he has something interesting to offer other than efficiency and data-driven managerialism. I hope I'm wrong, but we didn't see it last week. ®

- Eric L. -

[zax] Looks sort of like the Windows Phone menu is integrated into the Windows start m...

zax — 7/15/2014 7:57:22 AM

Looks sort of like the Windows Phone menu is integrated into the Windows start menu. Very smart idea..

A leaked alpha of Windows 9 has been brewing on the internet. Today a screenshot shows what MS showed us at BUILD which includes a start menu with additional tiny tiles for things like people, calendar, pc settings, and news etc. " The new hybridized Start menu appears to be part of build 9788, which was compiled on July 4. While no one seems to have leaked the ISOs for build 9788 yet, the general consensus seems to be that the build does indeed exist somewhere at Microsoft — and that it might also feature Windows NT kernel version 6.4 (i.e. the complete version number is 6.4.9788). The screenshots show a Windows 8.1 Pro watermark, but this isn’t unusual for a very early alpha of a new build of Windows. If this really is the next version of the Windows NT kernel, then we’re most likely looking at an early build of Windows 9 (Threshold) rather than Windows 8.2."

via Slashdot

[zax] via Slashdot: One of Microsoft's main goals with Windows 9, the next major vers...

zax — 6/30/2014 5:28:34 PM

via Slashdot:

One of Microsoft's main goals with Windows 9, the next major version of Windows, is to win over Windows 7 hold outs. The operating system will look and work differently based on hardware type. Microsoft is looking to showcase the desktop for desktop and laptop users, while two-in-one devices like the Surface Pro or Lenovo Yoga will support switching between the Metro interface and the classic desktop interface. The new desktop will allow Modern UI apps to run in windowed mode, and have Modern UI apps pinned to the Start Menu instead of a Start Screen. There will also be a mini-start menu. Microsoft is looking to undo the usability mistakes it made with Windows 8 for those who are not on a touch device. WIndows 9 is expected around spring of 2015.

It appears also perhaps that Windows Modern apps will come to the desktop, and active tiles from the Start Screen will be able to live on the start menu.

From The Verge ( theverge.com )

[Eric L] Branding: The latest rumor from @evleaks "This is pretty exciting: Microsoft i...

Eric L — 6/28/2014 2:02:25 PM

Branding: The latest rumor from @evleaks

"This is pretty exciting: Microsoft is reportedly in the final stages of licensing the Nokia brand, for the purpose of calling the handsets “Nokia by Microsoft.” Furthermore, say goodbye to Surface, and hello to Lumia, as the tablet lineup faces brand streamlining." - @evleaks -

>> Microsoft rumored to be planning to replace 'Surface' branding with 'Lumia'

Summary: Would it help or hurt Microsoft more if the company consolidated its mobile branding using the 'Nokia' and 'Lumia' brands instead of using the current 'Surface' branding?

Mary Jo Foley
ZDNet All About Microsoft
June 28, 2014

zdnet.com

Branding is hard. Branding is expensive.

And changing brands mid-stream is hard, expensive and sometimes (often?) ill-advised.

But according to known leaker @evleaks, Microsoft may be doing just that. According to his unnamed sources, Microsoft may be moving toward rebranding its Surface tablets as "Lumia" devices.

@evleaks also claimed that Microsoft may be negotiating to keep the Nokia brand longer than originally planned so that it can use it for future phones and possibly other devices.

Earlier this month, @evleaks published what looked to be some kind of Microsoft "technical branding" guidance document, which indicated that Microsoft planned to phase-out Nokia branding on a very specific schedule: 18 months post close of the Microsoft acquisition of the Nokia handset business for Lumia devices; through December 31, 2015 for Nokia X Android phones; and 10 years for Asha mobile phones. (From the way that planning document is phrased, I would guess it predated the close of the Microsoft acquisition of Nokia's handset business in April 2014.)

I don't have any first- or even second-hand information about these branding rumors. I've asked Microsoft but am not expecting any kind of comment.

I will note that Microsoft has spent a lot to land the Surface brand ever since officials decided to use it to refer to Microsoft's mobile tablet family, rather than its large-screen tabletop devices. The company is continuing to advertise the new Surface Pro 3 massively on TV during the World Cup 2014.

However, the Nokia and Lumia brands have stronger recognition outside the U.S. than they do here. And Microsoft is doing better selling Windows Phones outside the U.S. than here in the States.

Consolidating the Surface and Lumia brands would fit in with the company's "One Microsoft" messaging and positioning. And with Windows Threshold, the next major version of Windows due in spring 2015, Microsoft is expected to launch a single Windows SKU that will work on both phones and touch tablets. Would it be easier to land that unified message if the phones and tablets were all under the Nokia/Lumia brand? Possibly.

Would Microsoft stand to gain more from changing branding at this point in Surface's life -- such as being able to better distance itself from its early Surface history, as well as perceptions by some that the Surface devices aren't selling as well as Microsoft expected -- than it would lose by changing naming conventions at this point? Maybe... ###

- Eric -

[Eric L] Clinton Jeff Reviews (Praises) Windows Phone 8.1 ... "Microsoft’s mobile OS, ...

Eric L — 6/24/2014 9:15:58 AM

Clinton Jeff Reviews (Praises) Windows Phone 8.1 ...

"Microsoft’s mobile OS, which until now seemed like it was way behind iOS and Android in terms of features. With Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft has finally caught up, and in some specific ways even managed to exceed rival mobile platforms. At the end of the day, there’s much to like about Windows Phone 8.1, and it’s actually quite impressive what Microsoft has brought to the table. Sure, it took them a while, but Microsoft has finally closed the gap, and it no longer feels like a platform that is trailing behind by years. For the first time, Windows Phone finally feels like a *finished* OS that is no longer in Beta. Now all Microsoft needs to do, is get the app ecosystem sorted." - Clinton Jeff, Unleash the Phones -

CJ's Complete Review is here ... unleashthephones.com

youtube.com

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Microsoft's New Android OS Dual SIM Nokia X2 ... [youtube video] >> Microsoft...

Eric L — 6/24/2014 8:40:52 AM

Microsoft's New Android OS Dual SIM Nokia X2 ...

>> Microsoft launches its first Android smartphone -- the Nokia X2

Wayne Williams
Beta News
June 24, 2014

betanews.com

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) back in February, Nokia surprised people with a new Android-powered smartphone series. The Nokia X line consists of the X, X+ and XL, with the devices designed to fit somewhere between Nokia's low-end Ashas and high-end Windows Phones. There was speculation that once Microsoft had taken over the Finnish manufacturer's mobile business that this new line would be killed off -- keeping the focus solely on Windows Phone devices -- but that turns out not to be the case.

Today Microsoft announces the Nokia X2, which the tech giant introduces "as the newest addition to the expanding Nokia X family of affordable smartphones designed to introduce the 'next billion' people to the mobile Internet and cloud services". Like the Nokia X, the new device gives users access to both Android apps and popular Microsoft services, like Skype, Outlook.com, and OneDrive.

Additional services, including OneNote and Yammer, are available to download for free from the Nokia Store.

The new device is powered by a dual core 1.2Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor and 1 GB of RAM, and it comes 4.3-inch ClearBlack display, 5MP rear camera, VGA front camera and an 1800 mAh battery. It has a seamless monobody and exchangeable colorful back covers.

It comes with the next-generation Nokia X Software Platform 2.0 and allows users to choose between three UI types -- the Windows Phone style Home screen with resizable tiles, Fastlane, which provides access to recent apps and calendar items, and a new Lumia-inspired apps list. There’s a pull-down notifications tab, a new home key and visual multitasking.

"The Nokia X family is going from strength to strength, with the Nokia X smartphone achieving top-selling status in Pakistan, Russia, Kenya and Nigeria, while earning the third-best-selling smartphone spot in India," says Timo Toikkanen, head of Mobile Phones, Microsoft Devices Group. "The Nokia X2 elevates the Nokia X experience with a stellar new design, ease of use and new Microsoft experiences. We’re proud to continue to bring smartphone innovation to lower and lower price points".

The Nokia X2 will be available at launch in glossy orange, black and green. Glossy yellow, white and matte dark grey will follow shortly afterwards.

The new phone is priced at €99 -- a little more than the €89 Nokia asked for the entry level Nokia X -- and will begin rolling out globally in July. ###

- Eric L. -

[Sr K] The error seems to be the [/url] in the URL, in post #99 (not 100).

Sr K — 6/21/2014 8:18:14 AM

[Eric L] Microsoft's Android Killing Patent Stash ... [graphic] >> Chinese gov’t reve...

Eric L — 6/16/2014 8:15:54 PM

Microsoft's Android Killing Patent Stash ...

>> Chinese gov’t reveals Microsoft’s secret list of Android-killer patents

Microsoft crows about transparency, but it didn't reveal this list of 310 patents.

Joe Mullin
Ars Technica
June 15 2014

arstechnica.com

For more than three years now, Microsoft has held to the line that it has loads of patents that are infringed by Google's Android operating system. "Licensing is the solution," wrote the company's head IP honcho in 2011, explaining Microsoft's decision to sue Barnes & Noble's Android-powered Nook reader.

Microsoft has revealed a few of those patents since as it has unleashed litigation against Android device makers. But for the most part, they've remained secret. That's led to a kind of parlor game where industry observers have speculated about what patents Microsoft might be holding over Android.

That long guessing game is now over. A list of hundreds of patents that Microsoft believes entitle it to royalties over Android phones, and perhaps smartphones in general, has been published on a Chinese language website.

The patents Microsoft plans to wield against Android describe a range of technologies. They include lots of technologies developed at Microsoft, as well as patents that Microsoft acquired by participating in the Rockstar Consortium, which spent $4.5 billion on patents that were auctioned off after the Nortel bankruptcy.

The list of patents was apparently produced as part of a Chinese government antitrust review relating to Microsoft's purchase of Nokia. Microsoft described the results of that review in an April 8 blog post, writing that the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) "concluded after its investigation that Microsoft holds approximately 200 patent families that are necessary to build an Android smartphone."

To suggest the lists are the "conclusion" of the Chinese government is unusual phrasing. It's unlikely anyone other than Microsoft itself would have the expertise and resources needed to sift through its thousands of patents and decide which ones they believe read on Android.

More likely, Microsoft was compelled to produce the list to appease Chinese regulators, who feared that the software giant could become more aggressive with its patents after the Nokia purchase. It seems equally likely that Microsoft wouldn't be too thrilled about the patents being published on a public webpage. In fact, the English-language version of the MOFCOM site about the merger doesn't have the patent lists.

Doing transparency, the hard way

While Microsoft's blog post talks about hundreds of patent "families," the lists published by MOFCOM make it clear that most of those "families" appear to be one-patent "households."

The Chinese agency published two lists on a Chinese-language webpage where it laid out conditions related to the approved merger. The webpage has an English version, but it doesn't include the patent lists. There's a longer list [MS Word Doc] of 310 patents and patent applications and then a shorter list [MS Word Doc] of just over 100 patents and applications that MOFCOM focused on. The shorter list appears to be a subset of the longer list, divided into families connected to Microsoft technologies like the exFAT file system and Exchange ActiveSync, denoted as patent group 24(EAS) in the short list.

The longer list is divided into three sections: 73 patents that are said to be "standard-essential patents," or SEPs, implemented in smartphones generally, followed by 127 patents that Microsoft says are implemented in Android. The final section includes another section of "non-SEP" assets, which includes 68 patent applications and 42 issued patents.

Of course, the list includes some patents that Microsoft used against Barnes & Noble, including all 14 mentioned in this 2011 Network World article. Those patents include Nos. 5,889,522 entitled "System Provided Child Window Controls," and 6,339,780 "Loading Status in a Hypermedia Browser Having a Limited Available Display Area."

It also has many newer and previously unrevealed patents, like 8,255,379 "Customer Local Search," 5,813,013 "Representing Recurring Events," and 6,999,047 "Locating and tracking a user in a wireless network through environmentally profiled data."

Notably, both the SEP section and the Android-specific section include patents that Microsoft apparently acquired when it participated in the Rockstar bid.

Rockstar paid $4.5 billion for patents belonging to Nortel. Some of those were handed off to Rockstar Consortium, a patent-licensing company that sued Android makers and Google in October. Other patents were handed off to the companies that participated in Rockstar, which included Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, Ericsson, and Sony.

Nortel patents now owned by Microsoft include 5,982,324, which describes combining GPS with cell signals in an "efficient position location system" said to be used in Android phones. More Nortel patents are in the "general smartphone" section, such as No. 6,430,174, which describes a communication system that supports simultaneous voice and multimedia.

The patent lists are strategically significant, because Microsoft has managed to build a huge patent-licensing business by taxing Android phones without revealing what kind of legal leverage they really have over those phones. Recent estimates of its Android licensing business suggest Microsoft is earning somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion from Android device makers paying royalties. Microsoft said last year more than 50 percent of Android devices are made by companies with licensing deals in place, and the estimates now range as high as 70 percent.

As the debate over patent reform has heated up in Congress over the past year and a half, Microsoft has said it supports bringing more transparency to the patent system. Last year, the company made a big to-do about publishing a full list of patents it owns.

But the recent publications by Chinese authorities, revelations the company likely tried to avoid, are much more indicative of what real patent transparency would look like. If large-scale licensors like Microsoft were forthcoming about what patents they believe their competitors infringe, that would create a much improved system of "public notice" about intellectual property rights. The patent system is supposed to create that "public notice" on its own, but it's sorely lacking. Patents today are written in legalese that can only be interpreted by a select tribe of professionals, and Microsoft benefits by keeping lists like this secret.

This disclosure on a foreign website, presumably compelled by the Chinese government, may produce more "transparency" about Microsoft's campaign against Android than years of unclear threats.

Asked by Ars about the lists, a Microsoft spokesman declined to comment beyond what it said in its April 8 blog post. ###

- Eric L. -

[Eric L] Noteworthy Nokia Branding Document from EVLeaks ... [graphic] Very Important...

Eric L — 6/12/2014 11:43:54 AM

Noteworthy Nokia Branding Document from EVLeaks ...

Very Important More: The above image (zoom to enlarge) and 32 fleshed out points about the Brand Transition are at the EVLeaks link below ...

evleaks.at

- Eric L. -

[zax] An opinion piece at ReadWriteWeb makes an interesting suggestion: Microsoft's ef...

zax — 5/22/2014 2:27:22 PM

An opinion piece at ReadWriteWeb makes an interesting suggestion: Microsoft's efforts in the tablet market aren't aimed at competing with the iPad or any of the Android tablets, but rather inventing a new facet of the PC market — one Microsoft alone is targeting. Quoting: 'Microsoft wants everyone to think the Surface Pro 3 is a tablet, but its pricing gives the game away. Microsoft wants to recreate the lucrative PC market that made the company billions of dollars by repackaging a PC into tablet clothing and then hammering away at the Surface product line until everybody believes that PCs never really went anywhere, they just got a touchscreen and a cellular connection.' This is also supported by the lack of a smaller Surface tablet, which many analysts were predicting before this week's press conference. Microsoft is clearly not pursuing the tablet-for-everyone approach, but instead focusing on users who want productivity out of their mobile computing device. The Surface Pros are expensive, but Microsoft is hoping people will balance that cost against the cost of a work laptop plus a personal tablet."

via SlashDot