DecryptedTech - Technology News and Reviews Done Right

One of the things that continues to annoy me about Microsoft is their constant failures. These failures are not due to product failures. The products they make are pretty solid; no it is because Microsoft fails to understand the market they are competing in. In the Operating system market Microsoft truly only has one competitor. I know I am annoying the Linux guys when I say this but Apple is their only real competition when it comes to the desktop OS. The same thing can be said for their Productivity suite Office. Even Mac owners use Office for Mac. Again I know there are multiple open source office products but even the most popular of them cannot compete with Microsoft sales in this area.

Microsoft’s Windows 8 has been pushed to RTM and the lucky few with TechNet accounts already have this new software downloaded and installed. We are already starting to read the reviews and observations of people that are fascinated with the new UI and those that hate it. We will have our own review in a few weeks that will include traditional desktop, laptop and also a tablet PC. Still there is a lot of misinformation about the strengths of Windows 8 and also how it will fit into the market.  We were sent a link to what we have found to be one of the better comparisons of the pros and cons of Windows 8 and wanted to cover our take (based on experience in the IT industry) and also to add to their findings.

Last year when Microsoft handed Nokia a very large check to help them promote Windows Phone, we joked about it wondering if Steve Ballmer really expected to see any of that money back. It was the type of moment when you can almost see the writing on the wall (that Nokia was in trouble). Nokia at the time was having financial problems and had even been blocked from transporting some of their gear out of one country they still owed money to. Microsoft saw this as an opportunity to get in with a phone company on the ground and partner with them directly. Nokia was not in any direct legal battles with Apple so there was not any worry that Apple could directly affect imports or sales of the products. Things were looking good.

Will we see a compelling line up of Windows Phone products? Yesterday we had an official statement from Microsoft about who their launch partners would be for the Windows Phone 8 launch. You had Nokia, Samsung, Huawei, and HTC. This little group would all be using Qualcomms SoCs under the screens to provide the power for the new phone OS from Microsoft. At the time we thought that including HTC was a little odd since Microsoft shut them out of making an ARM based Windows 8 tablet for the launch. According to some unconfirmed information the reason was that Microsoft did not feel HTC was able to deal with supply issues with Qualcomm and other critical components for the device.

The internet has been flooded with talk about a Facebook branded phone (both for and against). There have been rumors of purchases, new hires and more floating around all that seem to point to the fabled device. We have talked about some of the market concerns with a device like this (mostly privacy and user data collection), but many of these concerns relate to the US where laws on consumer protection and privacy are still in their infancy. We took the time to speak with Paul Amsellem, CEO of Mobile Network Group about the drive behind and the importance (to Facebook) of this device.