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If all else fails, they could always just bribe developers with large amounts of money, as they did with Nokia.

Or small amounts, as it were.

They are playing Poker. They want Pandora and Instagram to develop a fear of being left behind, and support WP7 just in case.

They are playing Poker. They want Pandora and Instagram to develop a fear of being left behind, and support WP7 just in case. "

Doubt Pandora is worry about that given the bind that the RIAA's collection agency has them in. They'd just point out the competitor to the collection agency and the competitor would likely die as Pandora nearly did themselves. So nothing really to worry about there.

Now if the RIAA actually understood Internet Radio and such, then there would be more for Pandora to fear. Until then...

Oh, they get it. Don't worry. The problem is what to do about it.

What they rightly understand is that many companies have zero interest in developing for Windows Phone. This is an acknowledgment of that. Another thing they understand is that you can steal somebody else's idea and take the market from them if you have the resources. So, what they are hoping to do is to artificially inflate the resources of competitors to highly visible apps that will not move to Windows Phone. Basically, they are hoping that the companies that do support Windows Phone will be what "everybody else is using right now" and are willing to pay in order to up the odds.



I would say that their 'expertise' in hindering the competition is exactly what they are trying to apply here. I am not saying it will work. That said, 'hinderance' is a decent tactic when playing catch-up and, as you say, they have some experience at that.

Microsoft is in a tough spot. The exact same kinds of 'network effects' that keep Windows top dog are working against them in mobile. They let not one but two strong competitors dominate the market before they fielded a competitive entry. To win, they have to provide something truly extraordinary to offset the 'what everybody else is using' inertia and they have not really stumbled upon that yet.

That's karma, man...

ummm....

Metro is on Windows Phone.....and WinRT is going to allow app developers to create an application that can compile for the desktop and tablet then use that code base to build a windows phone version.

Actually, both Android and iOS support building code in C++ and using OpenGL... What mostly differs is the gui libraries, a not insurmountable obstacle given that both android and ios are major platforms.

Windows phone is a niche platform, and its totally incompatible with the others meaning not a lot of code can be shared and therefore has to be rewritten... Why would anyone go to that effort for a niche platform?

As another example, *BSD are pretty niche, but they benefit from sharing APIs with linux, so a lot of code written for linux can be used on bsd.

Microsoft are doing what they do on the desktop, a completely incompatible proprietary system... That works when people are already locked in, and helps keep them locked in... It doesn't work when your trying to enter a new market.

Yes, they are too used to their lock in tactics, and not realizing that in this case they rather lock themselves out.

Microsoft still wants their cake and they want to eat it too. Yes they are playing poker to the extent that they really really want a monopoly position in the mobile market like in the PC market. They are afraid of giving up too much to get that market.

The biggest thing they absolutely want is for windows phone to take off with their proprietary APIs so they can be in the lead position forcing everyone else to play catch up to them. And of course there's this problem that MS likely doesn't even have the open api stuff implemented anyways requiring more investment they really don't want to make.

I suspect MS will wait and see with windows 8 tablets. They're probably betting they can grab a huge chunk of that market and push into mobile phones that way. Again, at what cost, with 3 generations of ipad and amazon already entrenched?

Things get very interesting if this fails. I wonder what the shareholders will do. Btw, I personally hope they don't succeed.

Edited 2012-03-27 10:05 UTC

Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka said exactly this in explaining why the WinP7 version of Angry Birds Space would be so late. “We want to be on all screens, but we have to consider the cost of supplying the smaller platforms. With Windows Phone it’s a lot of work to technically support it.”

I guess if Microsoft will write a $1B check to Nokia to manufacture Windows phones, they'll write a nice check to Rovio to port Angry Birds to run on them. It would make me feel a little dirty to buy one, though.

Are you implying that iOS and Android don't use OpenGL (ES)?

Edited 2012-03-26 22:22 UTC

It is.

That's how it works normally. But if it was the only force no new platform could enter any new market ever. Everybody would still hang around on J2ME.
So there are anomalies:
- technological disruptions in one area that cause instant demand despite ommitions in others (Apple)
- fan developers that work against economics (the have forced ms to drop MSHTML and become standards compilant)
- standards bodies and govt. regulated clients (forced MS to support ODF)
- large infusions of cash and corp. bribery (MS + Nokia)

Edited 2012-03-27 12:03 UTC

Yep, Microsoft bought (and killed) the netbook market, and bought a modest share of the gaming console market; it could happen again with smartphones.

Of course, they tried to buy the teen phone market, the tablet market, the search market, the email market, the portal market, the cloud market, the... Well, let's just say it's not a slam dunk.

It's about market share, not developers. Android is definitely critical mass so the developers will do the work. Maybe grumble, but will still do the work because they have a huge potential customer base.

Microsoft has put themselves in a bad position here. Funny, because they were in smartphones market long before apple and google and yet failed to create a market. Now they are very late to the game and still seem to be in a wait and see mode.

Edited 2012-03-27 10:13 UTC

True. I'm in the process of starting a company whose first couple products will be mobile apps, targeting Android and iOS. No qualms about it, and looking forward to the challenges of the new environments. I won't touch Windows development, and am glad to be rid of that ball & chain.



Microsoft was always afraid that the mobile market would take over their desktop market and that they would then lose their dominance. I guess partly because mobile was a more regulated market that is harder for MS to dominate like they did with the Desktop market.

Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for us), their lack of driving a platform in the mobile space years ago, is now their doom as a company as the world is moving to mobile regardless of what MS does, and in the process leaving MS behind - having mostly learned the lessons of MS's dominance.

Despite what some may think, people and companies are not typically masochists or fans of BSDM.

Remind me of the saying: "if you aren't willing to cannibalize your own market, someone else will do it for you" MS desparately wants to replicate their huge profits in the PC space and their reaction to netbooks, mobile, etc has been to try to hold back and/or destroy those markets instead of developing them. They killed the netbook market and are now almost irrelevant in the mobile one.

Edited 2012-03-27 18:02 UTC

A million years from now, nobody will give a damn.

The technology field moves at a quasi-exponential rate, so make it in 5 years nobody will give a damn. ;-)