[mdarscott]

Not really RIM news except for how it will affect the competition between RIM and W8 for third place in the smartphone wars.
Microsoft Screws Over Nokia | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

There will be a lot of stories analyzing the Windows Phone 8 which appears on the heels of Phone 7 hitting the streets. Apparently the most aggressive features on Phone 8 will not run on the latest Nokia Lumia phones, thus not allowing an upgrade for users.

This Nokia-Microsoft thing is rather weird since everyone thought that the connection between the two companies was tight. After all, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop came from Microsoft, where he was in charge of the business division. How he manages to keep his job at Nokia is amazing and we all should assume that Microsoft is doing all this to buy Nokia outright. I guess Redmond would rather buy Nokia in shambles than buy it healthy. It's cheaper.

Nobody has managed to ask either Nokia or Microsoft a simple question: Did Nokia have any sort of long-term warning that this new smartphone OS would not run on the just released Nokia phones? I was under the assumption that the two companies worked closely together, thus Nokia would come out with a phone coincident with this new OS. The last in the line of Lumia phones, the 900, would have been ideal for this. "If you want the latest and greatest, we have the 900 running Windows Phone 8!"

In fact it appears as if Nokia had zero knowledge of this weird announcement. If they did then you really have to wonder why Nokia now looks flat-footed.

Let's ask another question. Exactly what is the Microsoft marketing department thinking with this announcement? The Windows Phone 7 is getting no traction and Microsoft wants people to pay some attention to it. So they decide to submarine the whole OS with a new version that isn't immediately available? Was this a move to sell more Windows Phones by Nokia? Really? Are they that brain-dead?

After pulling this stunt, Microsoft hopes to get other vendors on board with the Windows Phone OS? What company would ever do it? In a panic move Microsoft has killed Windows Phone. They've killed it dead. You watch.

So the new operating environment will be a desktop computing environment and a high-end pad computer both running what amounts to being a Phone OS � Metro.

Wow. I have never seen anything like this, ever. It's as if someone gave a fully loaded automatic pistol to a seven-year-old and told them to go play outside with their friends and didn't expect anything bad to happen.

What's also weird is the fragmented nature of this announcement and how it falls on the heels of both E3 and the Los Angeles event for the launch of the Surface pad machine. There are ways to combine all this. What's the point of running the media ragged? Go here, go there, go here, go there.

This phone situation has now become a full-blown fiasco. Microsoft has got to pull back from this mania. First it must realize that not everything that goes on outside the company is designed to screw the company. Microsoft is still reacting as if it is 1995 and everyone is out to get it. Nowadays, nobody even cares about Microsoft. The company just makes a lot of money and this will continue if it just produces updates for Windows and the Office suite while adding needed features.

The company obviously went nuts over the Apple iPhone taking over the smartphone market long before Microsoft could get any traction whatsoever. Microsoft was also early in the game with tablet computing, to no avail. So what? Instead of just saying, "We were way off base and should leave that market to people who understand it," Redmond go nuts trying to prove that it is just as smart.

But it is not just as smart. Rolling out Windows Phone 8 and screwing over their only real partner proves that.

[Pete6]

I normally have respect for PCMag but this article seems to have completely missed the point of MicroSoft's Surface announcements.

Quite clearly the Surface was not ready to be launched. Invitees we not allowed to play with the devices on show or even to count the ports on them. Why then did MicroSoft elect to launch now? I think (Ballmer has not phoned me to explain hos logic) that MS wanted to show what they had before Apple came out with another iPad. This is an important marketing strategy because the new iPad must now be close to launch and MS has just shown what it will launch just after Apple launches. Oh dear, Apple now has to look again at their release functionality in the new device.

It's also a win for MS since we all got a good look as Windows 8 and we got the message that Windows 8 will more or less run on phones, Surface, and PCs. A powerful message indeed.

As to screwing over Nokia, I just don't see it. Nokia MUST be in the WP8 loop and they must also be close to having some sort of phone that runs it.

Who knows, MS might even be using Nokia's manufacturing capabilities to make the Surface.

For me then the MicroSoft announcement was a little premature from a product standpoint but is was good marketing and will spread some fear into Apple. All to the good, I say.

[tinker2000]

Both sides of the argument well put. Cheers guys

[Thunderbuck]

I normally have respect for PCMag but this article seems to have completely missed the point of MicroSoft's Surface announcements.

Quite clearly the Surface was not ready to be launched. Invitees we not allowed to play with the devices on show or even to count the ports on them. Why then did MicroSoft elect to launch now? I think (Ballmer has not phoned me to explain hos logic) that MS wanted to show what they had before Apple came out with another iPad. This is an important marketing strategy because the new iPad must now be close to launch and MS has just shown what it will launch just after Apple launches. Oh dear, Apple now has to look again at their release functionality in the new device.

It's also a win for MS since we all got a good look as Windows 8 and we got the message that Windows 8 will more or less run on phones, Surface, and PCs. A powerful message indeed.

As to screwing over Nokia, I just don't see it. Nokia MUST be in the WP8 loop and they must also be close to having some sort of phone that runs it.

Who knows, MS might even be using Nokia's manufacturing capabilities to make the Surface.

For me then the MicroSoft announcement was a little premature from a product standpoint but is was good marketing and will spread some fear into Apple. All to the good, I say.

I doubt that Surface has much to do with this one way or another.

WP8 is clearly an entirely new platform. Totally different (and much improved) codebase, so this is analogous to expecting OS7 BlackBerries to upgrade to BB10; new architecture, new hardware, just not happening. I'll admit, I haven't been paying attention to MS' messaging on whether this could or couldn't happen, so I'm not sure just how surprised we were supposed to be on this.

I'd say Nokia was kind of screwed over, or at least their customers seem to have been, since there does appear to have been some upgrade expectation here. Sure, MS is addressing this with a fairly comprehensive upgrade to WP7, and most users might not even care, but there will certainly be a few who will remember this.

[jono212.]

I do not understand the problem Nokia will release WP8 devices and all there existing customers that have just got a Nokia WP will get the update to 7.8 which to be honest i think will please most.

I know its different but Apple do this all the time with certain features in there new OS releases its a way for them to make people buy the latest version of the iPhone if they want these "cool" new features

[Laura Knotek]

It wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft is using Nokia to build the Surface. The colors of the Surface cover/keyboard look identical to the colors of the Lumia smartphones.

I also expect Microsoft to buy out Nokia once the stock gets even cheaper. The government of Finland already stated it will not block a sale of Nokia to a foreign company.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

[shingi_70]

did this person really ask if nokia didn't know about the os stuff before hand when they were on hand and have some of there services in windows phone 8 as well as preparing some of the features for windows phone 7.8.

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk 2

[app_Developer]

I do not understand the problem Nokia will release WP8 devices and all there existing customers that have just got a Nokia WP will get the update to 7.8 which to be honest i think will please most.

The short term problem is that you would have to be somewhat thick to walk into a cell phone store tomorrow and buy a new Lumia 800 or 900 phone. Anyone who has a clue about Windows Phone will now be waiting for the WP8 phones to come out in just a few months.

Meanwhile, current Lumia sales are extremely important to Nokia's financials because they are their high margin phones.

BTW, this has nothing to do with Microsoft's announcement of the Surface(s). That's a different issue all together.