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Comment Re:Windows Phone? (Score 1) 112

Dude, the N9 had glowing reviews from several heavy names, that is irrefutable fact. The N9 was seen as a potential rival to iPhone, that too is irrefutable fact. And it sold like hotcakes in the few countries that released it, even with no future.

Moreover there was no viable path to creating an ecosystem.

Because Elop had killed any chances of it once the N9 hit the ground, yes? It still outsold Lumias once it was released, though.

I gave you details from Kanter. We're done. You obviously have no respect for simple factual refutation, preferring to live in Tomi's world of paranoid delusion even when confronted with data.

That doesn't change the fact that Tomi consistently had the most accurate predictions about current market share of the WinPhone platform and Nokia in and of itself. Or are you saying Windows Phone in reality does not have an installed base of around 3% of the market, today? Despite all the billions thrown at it, despite all the failures that Nokia had going WinPhone exclusive? Are you saying WinPhone did, in fact, consist of more than 2.2% of all phones sold in Q1 2014?

I can't see any chance of WinPhone recovering. Not going to happen. It will be stuck below the 10% threshold for atleast a decade. Android won the mobile war, and any platform that is going to be a serious contender needs to be more open than Android to succeed. Because that is the only way to make a dent in the marketshare.

Comment Re:Windows Phone? (Score 1) 112

"MeeGo was a failed product."

No. The MeeGo development certainly had it's troubles not saying it hadn't, but the Nokia N9 was seen as a phone that quality-wise was even better than the iPhone. Maybe not *everyone* thought so, but, a lot of people thought so. Seriously, they compared it to a serious iPhone competitor at the time where iPhone was the gold standard. You can twist that around however you wish, fact is, getting a phone out the door good enough to rival the iPhone is a failure? I'd like to see a few other of these failures thank you very much.

"No it hasn't. Marketshare is up in virtually every market vs. 3 or 6 months ago. And certainly hugely up vs. 2 years ago."

Right, keep on living in denial, don't really care.

Some markets may be bigger than others, but you are seriously overlooking the global picture. Global 2014 Q1 market share of new devices showed Windows Phone at a 2.2% market share total. Early 2014 Q2 for the global picture reports does not improve these numbers much - in fact, seems to have flatlined. Windows Phone can sell at most 5-10 million units a quarter - and the market itself is growing, not shrinking.

No, Windows Phone has a long, hard, and winding road to go before it can become a serious contender for third Ecosystem. As has all the other emerging platforms (Tizen, Firefox, Ubuntu and Sailfish OS). And the old ones (at this point only blackberry remains).

Comment Re:Windows Phone? (Score 1) 112

"There was a huge drop in Symbian marketshare 6 months before Elop came on as CEO. Causes cannot happen temporally before effects."

Yes, Symbian was an aging OS that needed replacement - and there was a replacement in the works, with a clear migration path, Meego. However, at Nokia, Symbian was still alive and well, albeit the writing was on the wall. Take a look at these three pictures:

http://communities-dominate.bl...
http://communities-dominate.bl...
http://communities-dominate.bl...

And the article in full, in case you're interested: http://communities-dominate.bl...

The data points are rather damning. Sales do not lie. Would Nokia have collapsed as much as it did, had it stuck with Meego or switched to Android? No. They might've lost a bit of market share, but it would have paid off quite handsomely, especially with Meego. It is quite clear that it's the choice of the WinPhone platform that is the culprit, here.

Why they choose WinPhone I do not know. They go from a clear upgrade path for their users to no upgrade path for their users, along with the infamous "Burning platforms" memo, and then expect their customers won't jump ship? Sorry, not happening.

It doesn't matter what you think - WinPhone will have a hell of a hard time to reach even double-digit market share. Right now it's flatlined. Everyone thinking otherwise are either: a) delusional, b) have a vested stake in seeing Windows Phone succeed, or c) has been fed with Snake Oil by their advisors.

What's really, really sad though, is that we've traded the IBM monopoly for the Windows monopoly, and now the Windows monopoly for the Android monopoly.

Yes, Android has passed iOS in both market- and mindshare - and there are no other viable competitors. Free software blew it - again! :(

Comment Re:Windows Phone? (Score 1) 112

Except it isn't. Tomi has rather damning evidence in his wall of text:

The FACT is, that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop told Nokia shareholders - and I quote - "Indeed, Microsoft did buy the Skype company as part of the ecosystem that comes with Windows Phone and Windows. The feedback from operators is they don’t like Skype, of course." Elop went on to explain why carriers/operators hate Skype " (because) it could take away from revenues."

This is spoken by Elop himself. Why do you think Nokia fell from being twice as large as it's biggest competitor to completely fall out the top ten in mobile in a mere three years? It's called Windows Phone, and nobody wants a windows phone!

The problem is not that retail does not carry WinPhone. The problem is that carriers - e.g. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint etc - Will not subsidize windows phones, and they started this ever since the Skype purchase. That is what is meant by the "carrier boycott". Oh sure they will sell those phones, but only at full price. Why is this a problem? Well, "you want this winphone for $49 a month or this androidphone for $29 a month?" is a serious problem because Joe Sixpack doesn't care about Android or Windows, he will take the cheapest alternative.

Is this a fixable problem? No, it is not. Skype is now an integrated part of Microsofts Cloud strategy. So this means Microsoft has to choose between Skype or Mobile.

Please do note that carriers do not wish to support technology that will one day make them a "mere data channel". Carriers have built their business on exclusive services in their own networks. By subsidising Windows phones, they are funding technology which will make them obsolete one day. Sure they are only delaying the inevitable, but that's how they roll.

Comment Re:Windows Phone? (Score 3, Interesting) 112

Because of the Carrier boycott.

Windows Phone will most probably never see double digit market share. The reason? Skype. Microsoft owns Skype, the single biggest threat to current carrier revenue. The Skype/VOIP revolution will happen, but if you were a carrier, would YOU invest in technology that would kill you off, long-term?

Tomi Ahonen has a rather complete rant about this topic from late 2012, and very little has changed since then.

Comment Re: Windows Linux for small business (Score 1) 589

Re messed up docs: Yes, exactly, and those errors come up because Word uses the "visual" workflow, while Writer uses the "structure" workflow which IMO is both easier to understand, less prone to errors and easier to use.

LibreOffice is just as capable as Office, as Munich has proven with it's LiMux migration. Different, but capable. Besides - is it LO being incompatible with MSO or MSO being incompatible with LO? ;)

As for resumes - I always send those as PDFs which are super-easy to create in LO. But whatever.

Comment Re: Windows Linux for small business (Score 1) 589

If that is your only argument - Office2007 isn't compatible with Office2003/2000 either. So not a very good one.

The reason why LibreOffice sometimes "messes up" your layout is that it uses the "document structure" workflow instead of the "visual" workflow as seen with Word. Once you find out "Wait, I don't have to care about how this looks until I've finished with the report, and then I just change a few parameters", it's amazing how much Writer throws itself to be out of your way as much as possible.

With word I have to constantly mind what format I need to use. "Wait, should I use 12pt or 16pt text here? And was it Verdana or Times New Roman?" In LO - no need for that. "That's a headline, that one is a paragraph, that one is a bullet list, and there we have a quote." Mark text accordingly, insert emphasis where needed, done, no need to bother about looks at all, and it's easy as pie to, for instance, a table of contents. That's why I find LO superior.

Oh and now you might say "But word has that too!" - yes, and LO has the visual styles too. But in LO everything is designed through the document structure paradigm. In Word it's just a half-assed mess.

Finally, yes, LO Writer is quite a bit limited when designing, say, a pamphlet - but why on earth would you use a word processor to make a pamphlet? Get indesign or Scribus for that!

Comment Re:What is MediaGoblin? (Score 1) 22

I think the path of least resistance when it comes to federation would be to make MG compatible with the BuddyCloud MediaServer concept, since BC being based on XMPP already has excellent federation.

Regardless I think this is promising. My hope is that GMG+Federation will some day in the future challenge both Facebook, Youtube and similar sites - which is sorely needed because the contentID-issue at Google has shown that we need a solution where users control their own data.

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