The New York Times further fans the flames of the emerging uneasiness between Microsoft and its hardware partners. As the paper reports, Microsoft decided it needed to get into the hardware game (with Surface) after the utter failure of HP's Slate 500 Windows 7 tablet. "Microsoft worked with other hardware partners to devise products that would be competitive with the iPad, but it ran into disagreements over designs and prices. 'Faith had been lost' at Microsoft in its hardware partners, including by Steven Sinofsky, the powerful president of Microsoft's Windows division, according to [a] former Microsoft executive." The biggest news is not Surface itself. It's the changing industry it represents. Microsoft failed to deliver capable smartphone/tablet software, which pissed off OEMs, who, in turn, turned to Android (and webOS for HP) - which in turn pissed off Microsoft, leading to Surface. Had Microsoft gotten its act together sooner, we'd have had far better OEM products.
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Member since:2005-11-15
Same here about Nokia. I really have a hard time to try to understand companies that try to bring someone from outside to sort out their problems, seeing them like a savior. When they bring expertise on distribution/business relations or about new technologies is one thing, but what did Elop (and many others like him on other companies) brought? Nothing! They try to "revolutionize", wasting valuable efforts on a crisis moment.
You don't get too big a company just doing stupid things, even thought big companies do stupid things, but unlike most of us, as long as the stupid thing they did is not insane, or that the bleeding is not related to a huge technology shift, they will have the time to adapt. Nokia could do that, they had market presence, business relationship and expertise on the field. They could have improved their mix of offerings on service and options and what they did? The most dumb movement I ever saw on any gigantic company with their market presence.
Member since:2005-07-06
Elop brought, and continues to bring, pretty much what Nokia board wanted... (whatever that is, long-term)
That did include an expertise of sorts with one business relation, BTW. And Nokia was visibly stumbling before Elop. And Elop seems to aggressively push further the development of S30 and S40.
Member since:2005-07-06
Until Nokia got Elop'd and fell into software madness, I used to recommend their phones for their sturdiness and the good stability/feature set equilibrium provided by s40 and Symbian for the price.
S40 seems better than ever, and being developed further, under Elop? Symbian similarly, so far... (and while this one supposedly has writing on the wall, it should still be good at least for one typical mobile phone lifetime)
Member since:2010-03-08
Oh, I'm pretty sure that Nokia phones are still good, I just don't want to fund their current practices unless all of the alternatives would really horribly suck.
I want Nokia's financial health to go bad enough that they will have to get themselves some common sense, start firing the people who are actually responsible for the current disaster instead of dumping fine employees from the bottom of the hierarchy, and work on some great new thing instead of rehashing the same old stuff and being Microsoft's bitch. Then they can count me as a potential customer again.
Edited 2012-06-28 07:46 UTC
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Member since:
2010-03-08
It is possible to differentiate through hardware quality and software stability though.
Until Nokia got Elop'd and fell into software madness, I used to recommend their phones for their sturdiness and the good stability/feature set equilibrium provided by s40 and Symbian for the price. Similarly, I strongly suggest friends not to buy Acer laptops due to their horrible build quality.
Edited 2012-06-25 12:24 UTC