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[Jez Corden] OPINION: This week's big Xbox drama showcases how little people trust Nadella's Microsoft — a legacy forged in the death of Windows Phone

Papa_Wisdom

Gold Member
He is wrong though? Businesses are not sports teams at all?
Sport is a business. People get attached to meaningless things. I still cringe when I see grown men cry when their team has lost a cup final or something. Or are able to list of the entire team that played in a final 40 years ago. It’s no different to console warriors, all the shirts and merchandise you buy go to support a multi billion pound institution.
 

devilNprada

Member
Windows Phone never had a chance because Nokia as a company was going downhill pretty damn fast and every high officer at MS, including Gates and Nadella, were against the acquisition, a year and half later they had it to write off. So much shit went wrong.
My thought is they had to try though. Cell phones are too big a market not to at least try to get their share of.
It's arguably the fundamental aspect of just about everyone's lives.

Unfortunately the every other higher ups put all their eggs in the personal computer basket.
I know I went from the "it would be cool to control everything from my laptop" basket, to "everything from my cell phone" basket in nothing flat.
 

Papa_Wisdom

Gold Member
I trust Nadella more than Phil.
Trust No One Ali GIF by Hallmark Movies & Mysteries
 

Dane

Member
My thought is they had to try though. Cell phones are too big a market not to at least try to get their share of.
It's arguably the fundamental aspect of just about everyone's lives.

Unfortunately the every other higher ups put all their eggs in the personal computer basket.
I know I went from the "it would be cool to control everything from my laptop" basket, to "everything from my cell phone" basket in nothing flat.
The reason was that Nokia didn't realize the massive radical shift in the market for iOS and Android and ended up in the same boat as BlackBerry, losing massive market participation in a spawn of few years. They already had moved from Symbian to Windows Phone in 2010 and while initially having major hype, they struggled to gain traction and right before the deal was closed it started to decline in market share.

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Another major issue is that LG, Samsung and HTC had dropped out from Windows Phone OS after 2013, some analysts speculate that Microsoft acquiring Nokia was a desperate move to keep the OS alive as the company was likely switching over to Android.


In the end, they were against it because they were not buying a promising company with some flaws but rather one that was bleeding so hard and fast that they could be gone in 2-4 years, billions wasted, it would have been far more cheaper to have it designed internally.
 

AGRacing

Member
I had and enjoyed Windows phone. Was disappointed myself when it went away.

But if we’re talking about mistrust… for every abandoned Microsoft ecosystem there are 5 more Google ones.
 
We had these reports of xbox doing poorly for years now, I think shareholders had enough, they no longer want a loss making business, and want profit asap, it’s just going get worse form here, ms will keep closing down studios until they start making profit, I can see them being a third party publisher if the next round consoles, don’t do well, they are also likely to go all cloud streaming soon, luckily we still have Sony and Nintendo,
 
Sport is a business. People get attached to meaningless things. I still cringe when I see grown men cry when their team has lost a cup final or something. Or are able to list of the entire team that played in a final 40 years ago. It’s no different to console warriors, all the shirts and merchandise you buy go to support a multi billion pound institution.

It's all in how you look at it. Through one lens you are a bit of a sheep to a faceless corporation, but from the other you are just enjoying the overall whatever it is "sport, whatever" with like minded folks you've formed a bit of a tribe with. I don't think that's necessarily such a bad thing. Obviously, you don't want ridiculous levels of tribalism, but some friends tailgating in warpaint certainly aren't hurting anyone and they are having fun with it. Most of the Xbox channels people complain about here aren't even console warriors really, just Xbox fans that talk about things Xbox. Most of them never even mention Nintendo or PS.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I understand why Jez would still be salty about WP but it turned out to be great for MS. Instead of cultivating this ecosystem based on hardware sales they were able to put their software, the stuff that makes them a company, on everything. It forced them to abandon something they were not knowledgeable in and were trying to buy expertise in (selling cell phones) and instead put those efforts into stuff they are very knowledgeable in (selling Office).

He's right about HoloLens. But that speaks to Microsoft's core problem in that realm. They are not a hardware company. I read an article in The New Yorker a loooooong time ago about Apple and Xerox PARC. As most people know, Jobs got the idea for the GUI from Xerox PARC and turned it into a computer that is still sold by the millions today. Why couldnt' Xerox do that? Well, they were a printer and business service company. They weren't in the computer business. They didn't have the infrastructure, knowledge, or people to turn the ideas in that research center in a real product. The guy who spent years building and selling computers did, though.

Microsoft has the same problem as Xerox. Apple can see the shitty HoloLens and imagine it as a fully fledged consumer hardware product because that is literally what they do. Their entire business operation is in making and selling consumer hardware. I've said it 60000 times here, it is the primary difference between Microsoft and Sony and it matters.
 
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Jez is an idiot. Nadella made Microsoft successful again and has a market cap bigger than Apple now.

It’s a shame really, his smug arrogance and infantile antics is a detriment to a potentially decent writer down the line.

I don’t think true journalism really exists, it’s obvious there are relationships with the publishers that plays a part in what they say/how they behave.
 

Rosoboy19

Member
I really do think everyone should post in as many places as humanly possible to encourage anyone who recently bought a Series X to RETURN IT if they are still in their return period. Microsoft knew precisely what they were doing when they dropped the price to $349.00. Surely some places have 60 day return policies for store memberships, etc. It may not be much, but if enough people call MS on their BS and return the consoles it may give some satisfaction to those who are upset. Microsoft wants to have their cake and eat it too, all at the expense of the consumer.
I hope you are wrong since I was one of those who jumped on that deal thinking it was just clearing out overstock before they released the discless version later this year. The Series X is a great piece of hardware, it would be a shame if they just abandoned it in a year or two from now.
 
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