How is more choice bad for consumers? There are phones I currently wouldn't touch that I would consider using if I could put any mobile OS I wanted onto them. We should applaud HTC if they choose to make phones that aren't locked to one OS. If MS wants to provide a struggling HTC with incentives to do just that, so much the better.
Microsoft will push for better interoperability between the two OSes, however MS will notably utilize proprietary features (disk access protocols or some-such) and encourage handset manufacturers to utilize and rely on these proprietary interfaces.
What's the problem with this? More features are better, right?
Wrong. When it comes to Microsoft, they will happily and quickly change proprietary communications protocols and file formats so that competitors -- AHEM, partners -- cannot keep up with these changes. At some point in the future, MS will ignore requests for technical specifications on the changes made and the partner's features will languish into obsolescence.
Features built on top of this integration between the two OSes will be half-baked and second-rate compared to the native Windows Phone experience, and they will be frequently incomplete or unstable.
MS will be using this opportunity to influence the direction of Android (and its derivatives), and they will be pushing it directly into the ground. Integration between the two OSes will break and Android will be left out in the cold.
This cannot be stressed more. Microsoft's business practices have not changed, nor has their mission, this is just another ploy to lock consumers into their ecosystem....
Apple definitely is. They used the same strategy by switching to x86 and making it easy to run Windows on a Mac.
Google is a bit different, since they have a distributed platform that you can use on literally, any OS. They definitely want people on their platform, but so far they haven't taken any steps to 'lock' people in (I mean, they renewed their contract with Mozilla, they open-sourced Chromium/Chromium OS, Android, etc...).
I suspect most people are in Google's ecosystem simply because it's better. And until Google say, makes Chrome and Google services run only on Chromebooks and Motorola phones, I'd say they haven't behaved the same as Apple and Microsoft.
I find this interesting, does platform lock-in have to mean that you've bought a technical platform (OS)? Google locks you in by having your data on their services. The new 'lock-in' is cloud storage and cloud based apps. I think the big money isn't from directly locking in consumers, but rather locking in enterprise. That's where Microsoft also made a ton of its money.
Apple, yes. Google... not that much, for now at least. You can still decide not to use their appstore or their applications at all when you run Android.
Eighteen words: better or worse than Google using their deep pockets to make free alternatives until there aren't alternatives?
Microsoft can't stop the success of other platforms as we've seen repeatedly in the 8000 years since that catchphrase hit the intertube forum messages. Interoperability will happen eventually regardless of whether MS initiates it or the EU demands it, because one day someone's going to be pissed off they're expected to "re-buy" half their apps and forget everything else just because they bought a new phone.
Judging by Google's tracking record, worse, much much worse.
Google Chrome vs. Microsoft's IE6, Android vs WinMo 6/6.5, Gmail vs. 2004-2009 Hotmail. I'd rather put up with Google's decent-but-free alternatives than Microsoft's we-are-the-leader-so-we-will-stagnate-until-the-EU-demands-it-which-could-be-6-years-maybe-more.
If it ships with an open or unlockable bootloader, you can put anything you like on it. This means pretty much any nexus phone, HTC phone or Samsung phone is good to go.
I've tried both Firefox os and Ubuntu touch on my galaxy nexus. I've also tried regular Ubuntu and Debian on my Asus transformer tablet.
That was much easier and cleaner and proper than it was getting my iPhone boot android, which relied exclusively on hacks, and eventually bricked it during a failed factory reset.
Here's one good reason why I don't want any piece of "Microsoft software" to be embedded in Android phones:
Microsoft Thinks DRM Can Solve the Privacy Problem:
> "Under the model imagined by Mundie (a senior advisor to the CEO at Microsoft), applications and services that wanted to make use of sensitive data, such as a person’s genome sequence or current location, would have to register with authorities."
Microsoft still has a lot of this "let's be dicks to make more money" culture inside the company, and until that changes, I want nothing to do with them anymore, and the fact that there are starting to be some serious alternatives to Windows now that are becoming increasingly more mature, makes me happy. I'd like it to remain that way, instead of having Microsoft crawl back to its former power.
You may think "Google does some bad stuff, too", but so far I've seen absolutely no evidence that Microsoft is better in any way than Google, and it's usually worse. So if that's the "choice" that's being offered (ironically by forcing themselves into our phones), then I want none of it. It's like saying Romney was a "choice" to Obama. Sure it was - an even worse one.
What I'd like to see more of is more open source operating systems becoming successful in the mobile world, like Ubuntu Touch or Sailfish or even Firefox OS.
I really hope Ubuntu touch takes off. For one, it's completely open-source (Sailfish has proprietary bits). And it looks like it's coming along nicely, from the looks of it they've got the nicest UI (and I'm acquiring a Galaxy Nexus this weekend to load Ubuntu onto).
I don't understand the downvotes here. On a device with 16gb of storage, 2gb or so for another OS that you may or may not be able to get back is significant - especially since things like "usable capacity" are rarely disclosed at the point of sale.
That's exactly why Microsoft doesn't make it easy /easier for dual boot Windows /Linux machines. They want you to have more space available. Isn't that great?
Yes, I'm all for this, if it means better standardization of hardware.
I had an HTC HD2 back in the day that could multi-boot between Android and WP7, and it was extremely fun to tool around multiple OSs.
Openness of operating systems is only half the story. We need good hardware that allows us choice as well. Nexus devices seem like the one to pick these days, if WP and Android live together on more phones, maybe we will get more? Maybe that's a naive conclusion to reach, though.
