Displaying items by tag: Windows Phone 8

As we near the launch of two new phones the rumors are building again around a Facebook phone (dubbed the Facephone by many). This is a rumor is something we have covered on more than one occasion and while we still think that it would be a flop (for many reasons) the rumors are interesting when we take a look at their origins and the companies they involve. The latest one involves HTC as the potential partner with Android as the base OS. It comes on the heels of new information about the team of developers that Facebook has picked up from Apple and Palm.

It seems that Gabe Newell formerly from Microsoft and also of Valve fame is not a fan of the direction that Microsoft is taking. In a recent interview he was quoted as saying; “I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.” This is something that we have been saying for a while now and for apparently some of the same reasons that Newell has; Microsoft’s recent moves to the cloud (forcing the use of Microsoft services) and also with locking out and competing with OEMs and partners. These decisions on the part of Steve Ballmer are the way to ruin the open platform that the PC was for gamers.

There are a few laws that govern a modern market. One of the most basic is the law of supply and demand. If there is a short supply and a high demand prices will tend to go up. This is because the people that want these products are willing to pay more to get them. Apple is a master of this and calculates their launches to take advantage of this. On the other side of this coin is plentiful supply and low demand. Here, well you can imagine that people will do whatever they can to clear inventory.

Despite the buzz over Google and Asus’ new Nexus 7 tablet there is still a lot of talk about Microsoft and their new Windows 8 combined push. Over the past week we have read a few very enlightening articles that tell us a lot more about the state of Windows 8 (RT and Phone) than is being publicly talked about. Right after surface there were several articles where analysts explored the possibility that Microsoft might be considering building their own phone in the same manner that they built the surface tablet.

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.

Ok so here we are with part two of the Windows Phone 8 information. Microsoft has released the list of phone makers that will be supporting Windows Phone 8 at launch (still listed as “this fall”). The list was surprisingly short with only Nokia, Samsung, Huawei and HTC on the list. HTC is interesting as they were not allowed to make a Windows RT tablet which is what Windows Phone 8 gets the majority of its structure from. In addition to the listing of phone makers, Microsoft also announced that the SoC supplier would be Qualcomm which suggests that we are looking at a controlled BOM for the first round of phones.

Microsoft has made Windows Phone 8 semi-official at its Windows Phone Developer Conference happening right now. We call it semi-official because right now Microsoft is not showing off any hardware running it. They are waiting to have that announcement later. So while the OS is out of the bag and we have some new information no one has made any specific announcements of support for the new OS.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone Developer Conference will be kicking off tomorrow (June 20-21) in San Francisco and there are those in the media that feel we might see Windows Phone 8 Officially launched. On the surface (no pun intended) this would make sense especially right after Microsoft announced their own home grown tablet yesterday. This announcement has sent something of a cold shiver through Microsoft’s partners as many feel they are no competing directly with them for sales.

Microsoft is making a “super-secret” announcement on Monday and it has already invited select members of the press… Wait a minute does this sound familiar to anyone else? Sorry we had a momentary flash back to some of Apple’s announcements. In fact it this this similarity that makes many people believe that the show on Monday June 18^th will be the official show for Windows RT (and a Microsoft made tablet).

It is no secret that we are not fond of the direction that Microsoft is moving in with Windows 8. The new operating system with its phone and touch based MetroUI is a step back from what many feel a Windows system is supposed to be. What many wonder is why this push of the MetroUI and the cloud services that are linked to it.