JLG (we can suffice with his initials on OSNews, right?): "Nokia, once the emperor of mobile phones, shipping more than 100 million devices per quarter, is now in a tailspin, probably irrecoverable, taking its employees into the ground. And there is Nokia's chosen partner, Microsoft. What will Nokia's failure do to its future? Ballmer knows Microsoft can't be relegated to a inconsequential role in the smartphone wars. Will this lead to Microsoft going 'vertical', that is buying Nokia's smartphone business and become an vertically player, as it already is in its Xbox business?" Microsoft will eventually buy Nokia's smartphone business. I mean, it's not as if they have any other serious WP7 OEMs they can piss off with such a move.
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Member since:2011-01-28
bassbeast,
"I'm sorry but that is insane, its like saying Apple being one of the biggest sellers of tablets can control the farm tractor business."
Yes, that is insane, but then you aren't seriously trying to assert that's equivalent to what I said, are you?
Never the less I get the feeling many people don't realise how antitrust works. Let me speak hypothetically, just to make a point: IF apple were legally considered a tablet monopoly AND IF apple were using that monopoly to stifle the farm tractor business (*), then apple could be found to be abusing it's tablet monopoly REGARDLESS of it's farm tractor market share.
* The whole thing seems absurd, but we are speaking hypothetically here.
Or on the other hand...
http://www.appletractor.com
:)
"Look up the figures yourself, MSFT has NEVER held more than 5% of the mobile phone market EVER."
Has microsoft ever shipped any OEM phones or computers? If not, from my point of view you might as well say they hold 0% of the hardware market share, but that's not to say they have zero control over the market share of others.
Edited 2012-06-19 05:05 UTC
Member since:2005-11-14
Correct. But buying Nokia, Microsoft will hold more than 30% of the mobile phone business, and having already used their patents offensively to leech money off Android, they no doubt will also use Nokia's patents in the same way (that is, after all, what they will buy). In other words, Microsoft will use their position to stagnate development in the mobile business.
This isn't about having some percentage of a market, it's about abusing a position to stop the competition. We all know that's what Microsoft's intention is.
Member since:2008-09-21
It was once 30%. This days its much lower. A major chunk of that are dumbphones where WP is not going to win any points. The Smartphone-business of Nokia with its Lumia is below 2% market-share.
Why should Microsoft buy a dying Nokia if it can do the Smartphone hardware himself like they just did with the Surface tablet?
Edited 2012-06-21 08:37 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2007-11-11
I'm sorry but that is insane, its like saying Apple being one of the biggest sellers of tablets can control the farm tractor business. Its a classic "anyone but Microsoft" we've seen sadly too many times, where logic holds no sway. Look up the figures yourself, MSFT has NEVER held more than 5% of the mobile phone market EVER. if they bought Nokia tomorrow with such a huge amount of competition from the likes of Apple, HTC, and Samsung they would STILL hold less sway than any of the others so to suggest if MSFT does anything other than just roll over and die means its flexing monopoly powers is FUD, pure and simple.