Major scoop by Tom Warren.
Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company is seriously considering allowing Android apps to run on both Windows and Windows Phone. While planning is ongoing and it’s still early, we’re told that some inside Microsoft favor the idea of simply enabling Android apps inside its Windows and Windows Phone Stores, while others believe it could lead to the death of the Windows platform altogether. The mixed (and strong) feelings internally highlight that Microsoft will need to be careful with any radical move.
Now, I have a very crazy theory about this whole thing. I obviously have no inside sources like Warren has, so load this image in another tab while reading this, but what if instead of this being an attempt to bridge the ‘application gap’, this is the first step in a Microsoft transition towards Android as a whole?
Much like the PC world, which eventually settled on two players, the mobile world has settled on two players: Android and iOS. It’s the cold and harsh truth. Does it really make sense for Microsoft to focus all that energy on developing Windows Phone – not to a whole lot of avail so far – when they could just take Android, add their own services, and more importantly, their own very popular and ubiquitous enterprise software, and sell that instead? Microsoft actually started out as an application software provider, and not as an operating system vendor, so it’s not like they would do something they’re not comfortable with.
The biggest reason this crazy, unfounded theory came to my mind is that I simply cannot believe Microsoft would actually make it possible to run Android applications on Windows Phone. First, running Android applications on another platform is not exactly issue-free. Second, this has not exactly helped BlackBerry (and Sailfish, for that matter) either. Third, Windows Phone (and Windows 8 Metro) are already afterthoughts for developers, nothing more than mere side-projects in between iOS and Android work. Why would any of them develop native applications if they can just send their already completed APK to Microsoft? It’d be the death of Windows Phone and Metro.
Combined with the news that Nokia’s Android phone is actually going to come out, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Microsoft is thinking about phasing out Windows Phone, with the ability to run Android applications on the platform as a first step in this migration.
There are major issues with such an approach, of course, not least of which the problem Amazon has also run into: no Google Play Services, meaning several popular applications won’t run at all. If you’re truly, truly outrageous, you could even consider a pact between Microsoft and Google, a combined effort that would take some possible antitrust heat off Google’s back, and would give them a united front against Apple and iOS. Even this has precedent: unlike what some think, Microsoft and Apple have a long history of close cooperation. There’s no reason Microsoft wouldn’t do it again, if needed.
In any case, this is all very interesting stuff, and it shows just how much of a problem the lack of any presence in the mobile world has become for Microsoft. The new CEO has some very tough calls to make.
You could say the same thing about IE. Why haven’t they just adopted WebKit? Yet they haven’t embraced WebKit.
I don’t think MS will dump Windows entirely (at least not in the next decade or two), but opening up to other developer eco-systems is definitely in the cards. This looks more about doing what BlackBerry has done, and adding an Android API to their mobile platform, in an attempt to lure developers over with a quick and easy way to port to Windows Phone.
Now, they’ve done this before, so watch for it. What comes after embrace? Ignoring history for a second, you could say all the same things with today as a starting point about .NET vs. Java. Why bother spending development resource on .NET, when Java exists. Back to history, do you remember where .NET came from?
That Android is Java based is just a fun coincidence. I love symmetry.
.NET was sued into into existence by Satya Nadella’s former employer.
From the Ext-VOS project, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dsyme/archive/2012/07/05/more-c-net-generic…
Funny enough, this is what WinRT is based on.
.NET may look like an embrace/extend strategy in hindsight but the success of .NET has more to due with luck and the arrogance of Sun and Gosling.
Early Java applications looked like crap because they didn’t use native controls. Fonts were especially a problem since they didn’t use ClearType. There were also problems with JRE versioning and code protection.
If Sun had listened to developers then .NET would not exist. It really is that simple.
I recall from the old anti-trust trial that there were mails from Bill G himself stating that they needed to make sure that Java applications would offer a worse experience than native applications on windows, so it’s not like Microsoft would have embraced Java, no matter how it looked.
They were scare that Java and platform independence would kill off the cash cow that was Windows. That’s why they were scared of Netscape and Java and that’s why Java was not something they’d get behind.
Microsoft couldn’t choose to reject Java. The JRE installed like any other program.
Microsoft also didn’t have to do anything to make Java programs look worse than native programs. Sun achieved that from day 1 by not using native controls. That isn’t disputable, just read old reviews of popular Java applications and you will see that issue always came up.
Sun chose to not use native controls because it was against their vision of having Java completely decoupled from the operating system.
.NET would not exist if Java applications had looked and acted natively. You have to realize that .NET was the underdog, Microsoft could not have sold .NET as “like Java but not multiplatform” if Java didn’t have flaws. Java was flawed because Sun was arrogant and wouldn’t give into developers that wanted a native translation layer. Java applications were also easy to decompile and slow to launch. Throw on JRE compatibility headaches and it’s easy to see why .NET was a success. It had nothing to do with Microsoft trying to conspire against poor wittle Sun and their billions of dollars and majority developer share.
Sun could have created a virtual machine or an intermediate layer that translated universal code to a native API. Nothing was stopping them and any company today can do the same. In fact there are numerous UI frameworks that do exactly that.
Edited 2014-02-13 07:22 UTC
The reason they don’t dump IE is for corporate customers. The cadence of releases is slower.
They would have adopted if it existed in its current state 20 years ago. It’s too late for that now.
Opera dumped their own engine in favor of WebKit/Blink to cut costs. Microsoft could easily do the same thing. On the other hand their IE team is probably very small, and doesn’t cost them much (compared to their overall budget). Throwing out that team would probably lead to some discontent in their ranks. I’d guess sticking with IE probably has less downside than swapping it for WebKit for MS.
Similarly, they won’t dump Windows on phones, but including Dalvik seems like something that could work. They have much more cred with developers than RIM did with BlackBerry, so it could just be an attractive way to port apps to their system (ways to do that now are limited, which is a real problem for their current app store).
A whole article plus 6 paragraphs and no mention of OS/2’s Windows application compatibility.
yes it looks like Windows is going towards the OS/2 path to death
OS/2 – Better Windows than Windows
WP – Better Android than Android
If they are going down the service route, why bother creating an Android phone ? Why not provide access to your software suite on IOS and Android and charge what you think its worth on the appropriate app stores Google and Apple will take a cut, but does that matter ?
Remember Android is a Linux Distro your moving Windows to Linux – think about that. Which is worse competitors taking a cut or dropping Windows in favour of Linux?
I don’t think this is the route Microsoft will take – I really don’t know what Microsoft will do under this new management its too difficult to say right now.
Throwing all that work out the window just to have a few of those *must have* apps.
Android has no apps/games worth porting over to WP. I have never once said I need that Android app on my Lumia.
iOS is another story.
What work would they be throwing out the window?
And what are the “few” must have apps?
I’d be interested to hear that.
I found the Android Dropbox app a LOT more functional than Filebox which I have now on WP8; and for some reason my bank (which unfortunately I’m tied to) refuses to release a wp8 app whereas the Android app worked quite well.
Those two apps for me make me consider going back to Android, though I’m quite happy with my Lumia 620 otherwise.
For some reason? We both know the reason your bank didn’t bother with a windows phone app. The same reason game developers don’t bother with linux versions of their games.
It would require just as much developer time to maintain as the platforms their customers actually use.
If everything was html5 apps like Mozilla wants it to be, this wouldn’t be an issue, but that isn’t the case.
They’re not going to ditch WP or its underlying NT underpinnings in a hurry. No, what I think MS are going to do is ditch, or at least re-engineer Metro and its associated API’s to be Android compatible. There is no way in hell that MS would actively sell a product using Linux, so i’m sure that any Android compatibility will be implemented as a new NT subsystem. A good idea? Not sure. Will it save Microsoft? Unlikely. Is it cool? Yes.
They don’t have to dump NT Kernel to get Android. They just need to port Dalvik/ART to run on NT Kernel, just as BlackBerry has done on top of QNX. They could even add a native shim of some kind for the NDK, still on top of NT.
After that they can add some proprietary MS extensions. They could even follow the way Google has done with their GApps package, which is separate from the core Android API.
If MS hasn’t changed, they’ll use this to drive users into their eco system, lock them in with Android extensions, and then fork the entire thing when they’ve got the desired market share. If they have, and they really do embrace a multiple platform world (and I hope they have), they could achieve some success doing this. Their services platform, and development tools are really quite attractive.
You can already see some of this at work with their Azure Mobile Services platform, and all the stuff they’ve released for Xamarin. Now we just need a native Visual Studio for OSX (only can happen if they’ve changed, if it’s still embrace, extend, extinguish, it’ll never happen).
1) Get Android userland working on Windows
2) Play nice until you have a big enough userbase
3) extend Android userland to use features that Windows offers but which makes it incompatible with Google’s Android but only in one direction, from your system to Google’s
4) offer office and other goodies only for *your* version of Android and make sure users are locked in
5) as Google’s android fades away, switch users to Windows Phone offering the same goodies
6) kill your version of Android and offer users easy ways to switch to Windows Phone
Done?
That’s a pretty huge assumption you got going on there buddy.
It’s speculation not an assumption. They both involve lack of evidence but in different ways.
Edited 2014-02-13 09:18 UTC
How well does running Android apps on Blackberry work? I have a friend with a Blackberry Z10, which she loves. I mentioned to her that I’d heard it was possible to run Android apps on it, which she had no idea about. So maybe the problem is that at least some Blackberry users have no idea this is possible. I sent her a couple of links, and she said she’d look into it.
I’m not sure if they added NDK support in recent versions (probably not), but if the app is Dalvik based, they run almost perfectly. The original idea for the compatibility layer was to allow easier porting for developers (BBOS is an pretty developer friendly platform). Many apps in BB world are actually Android versions, and you’d never know it (they have a back button widget tray though, so if you know what to look for you can tell).
In the latest version (10.2.1 I think it is) they even made it possible to install APK files directly, where previously, Android apps had to be packaged a certain way (the original idea being that developers, and not end users were supposed to “port” Android apps to their platform).
I think there’s even a way to get GApps installed, so you can use all the Google stuff, though I’m not sure about Google Play. I’m also not sure if it’s possible to install Amazon App Store.
Yup. 10.2.1 allows installing Android APK packages without repackaging or sideloading. The app for Amazon’s store can be used, and there’s an app called Snap which connects to Google Play. I’ve used both, they work. There are still issues with apps that connect to Google’s services, aside from Play.
Z10 user here. Running Android apps on BB10 was possible from release, though said apps had to be repackaged, then sideloaded via a computer. Performance and stability were so-so.
With the recent 10.2.1 update, it’s possible to install Android apps directly, without repackaging or sideloading. In fact, the Amazon store can be installed and Android apps downloaded through that. Also, there is a BB10 app called Snap which connects to Google Play, and allows download via a Google account. Performance is better than it was, though still spotty in some cases.
how is the compatibility? Are we talking you can install but only 1-% of apps actually work properly and/or feel native
ITs actually dammed good. All the way down to the android slow downs. You can even install launchers. But you get real multi tasking android support, the blackberry way, with a real task manager that shows cpu and memory and actually manages task. To make things even sweeter you have flash built into the system, and it runs like a desktop browser. You cant get root though, but then again you dont need it. I use my wives s4 to patch apks and remove ads, because of the root problem. And again I dont need root because I usually install su to manange apps, and get rid of the launcher and stupid allshare crao and carrier manufacturer bloat and to use zeam and get rid of app drawer, multiple home screens and turn on gestures. In other words bb10 is more like what I have been using android ever since zeam launcher came out. Swipe from bottom to bring up drawer.
So far pretty good. I’ve successfully installed about ten apps from Google Play. Of those, one refuses to work. The rest do work fairly well. They don’t use the BB10 native UI of course, but there are many BB10 native apps that don’t either.
I have seen some commentators posing an interesting alternative what if scenario: Microsoft commits to bringing Office to iOS as an exclusive and Apple switches to Microsoft Services, notably Bing. Apple could even help Microsoft adapt Office for iOS devices.
A sort of reverse Apple – Microsoft 1997 deal.
There is a very interesting discussion of all this on the new Vector podcast with guest contributor Ben Thomson
http://www.imore.com/vector-29-microsofts-new-ceo-and-lenovos-new-m…
Obviously something at Microsoft is going to shift (or else they really are an irrelevance) and waiting to see how the company jumps under the new leadership is truly fascinating.
I doubt Apple would do that, because they want to always have the appearance of offering the best customer experience. Bing doesn’t achieve that against Google from a brand perspective.
Apple is no friend of Google these days, but they know they can’t just dump them in favor of a less desirable product (from their customers’ perspective), or risk losing face. They’d be more likely to roll their own Google alternative, even if it’s not as good like they did with Maps (although, I find it better than Google in my travels – at least now).
Because we do NOT want mobile to turn into the limited-choice PC world. Well, maybe that’s not why MS does it but we should be glad that they are still trying to be a player.
I couldn’t agree more, and not just because I enjoy using Windows Phone. We need several good players in the mobile space, or there won’t be any real innovation.
I cannot imagine Microsoft EVER abandoning Windows Phone in favor of Android. That would be a capitulation of the highest order that Bill Gates simply could not stomach.
Microsoft should simply provide revenue guarantees to select developers who support their platform. Pick 1000 top apps from iOS/Android, offer 250k in revenue guarantees (or outright payout to support the platform). A quarter of a billion a year is a drop in the bucket for Microsoft.
Nokia/Microsoft had this program to fund apps but it was so asinine ( they only funded ‘unique’ apps ) that it totally defeated the purpose of that funding, which was to bring bread and butter apps to the platform.
That was suggested years ago and they can’t seem to stomach that idea either.
They blew hundreds of millions on Surface dance commercials but still have this attitude where they are above writing a hundred checks to the top developers.
“Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company is seriously considering allowing Android apps to run on both Windows and Windows Phone.”
I’m sure these conversations were less about becoming an Android shop (thus completely changing direction), and more about the level of support they’ll give Nokia’s Android phone, and possibly other Android phones that may have been in the pipeline.
Microsoft, being a hugely profitable company, has enough money and willpower to stay in a losing market until they are successful in the market – effectively brute-forcing their way in. They’ve done this with Windows Server (into a market dominated by UNIX and Novell Netware), they’ve done this with X-Box (into a market dominated by Nintendo, Sega, and Sony), and they’re going to do this with Windows Phone. They certainly aren’t going to throw in the white flag and completely cede control of their mobile ambitions to Google.
They also are not about to spend $7 billion on Nokia’s devices division – which includes lots of expertise in bringing great WP handsets to market – only to turn it into an Android shop. If they were going to do that, the struggling HTC probably would have been a better purchase, seeing as they make great Android handsets (and somehow can’t sell them).
Here’s the thing about Windows phones, and, Windows Surface tablets for that matter: People like them. Sure, they sell like crap, but the people that buy them generally like them.
There’s plenty of indications of an upcoming merge between Windows Phone and Windows RT. I think Microsoft is in the process of dialing back the tablet stuff within Windows (I think the Windows 8 fiasco damaged Windows Phone), and they’re going to make the future Windows Phone their tablet OS, like they should have done in the first* place.
Also, as somebody pointed out in another thread, Ars’s Peter Bright has some very cogent arguments about why it’s a bad idea for anybody to fork Android or otherwise try to use Android to compete against Google.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/neither-micro…
*Second place? Third place? Windows on Tablets has been around for a long, long time. WinCE probably wasn’t a good choice for tablets back in 2001
Not less Phone platforms.
I hope Windows Phone make it.
See a long route, too.
Great mistake
was trying to leverage it on Windows Desktop.
Great mistake
was trying to “appleize” the Desktop
by “dumbing-down” and “over-merchandizing”.
They are doing fine on Server
and Corporative Services now.
Well if developers are able to submit their android applications to the windows phone store and MS takes a cut of the sale instead of google, this would seem to be a possible win for MS, even if they lose visual studio developers in the short term.
And its a classic starting point for the embrace/extend/extinguish that they are so famous for.
The “extend” part might be to try to pull developers back over to the MS platform, poisoning android while they are at it.
The above strategy probably would not work since MS probably couldn’t generate enough influence to pull it off considering their lack of marketshare.
google cutting a deal with MS? How much influence would an outraged tech community really have on the market?
Edited 2014-02-12 18:58 UTC
Create an Android environment in Windows Phone, probably using an IKVM like technology so that it runs in the .net runtime. This will allow lots of applications to run on the platform.
Create a Windows Phone environment on Android. Port the .net runtime and windows phone apis to android. This will make the API more popular. Perhaps create a tile based launcher
Last but not least, open source the .net framework and mean it.
Do these 3 disruptive steps and Google will be under pressure.
Point 2 is already taken care of:
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-and-xamarin-tighten-mobile-app-devel…
Let’s pretend that such information is accurate. After all, Google itself is trying to exploit Windows to improve popularity of Chromebooks by allowing users to run such apps on a Windows desktop, hoping that those users could simply decide to switch to Chromebooks on their next iteration. Note: this is *not* working.
Microsoft itself could try to exploit huge Android eco-system to let Windows Phone users quickly find their favourite applications on WP while still providing WP advantages, thus improving WP numbers by providing more choice than standard Android phones.
Theoretically, this could be done and it’s technically feasible since both Android and WP apps run on a bytecode interpreter.
However, in my opinion that would be wrong for WP. First of all, it would bastardize WP, ruining its superior UI and overall more polished and good-looking design, the only one which could spawn from 5″ monitors to huge 40/50/60″ monitors in a beautifully coherent way. Second of all, it would NOT encourage developers to create more WP apps because they would know that an Android version could run on both systems.
That would be even more dangerous for games, which are the real cash cow for mobile systems. Developers could be pushed to develop Android-based games while Microsoft has a compelling and the only REALLY COMPLETE platform for games, spawning desktops, consoles and mobiles. No other company was able to build a complete platform for games and entertainment like Microsoft has. When you read that, please remember that games market is bigger than movies and music ones.
IMO, Microsoft should not attempt to walk shortcuts. Soon Windows 8 and Windows Phone will merge and Microsoft will be the only company being able to provide developers a strategy and an unified platform to develop on desktops, mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) and consoles (Xbox).
Microsoft doesn’t need money and it can wait until its strategy will finally succeed. Any attempt to bastardize Windows Phones like running Android apps or even trying to provide users a way to dual-boot into WP or Android would only make things confused for users.
Google has services and Android but failed at desktops, servers and consoles and it is desperately trying to enter the TV/entertainment market, failing so far. Apple has devices but failed at consoles/entertainment, servers, services and TVs. Sony has consoles and maybe some entertainment but failed at everything else. Samsung has devices and TVs but has no servers, consoles or services.
Microsoft is the only company that successfully runs a business on desktops, servers, services, consoles/entertainment while still struggling on devices. They should simply stick with their strategy to unify all those eco-systems at maximum speed.
Perhaps they can do something like Amazon with their own app store and have “.Net for Android”, or something similar.
A lot of people seem to think MS is making the same mistake as OS/2. However there is one big dif. when OS/2 came out is was the new kid on the block so people saw little value in running it compared to windows. Now windows is the big kid on the block and running android apps effects it very little.
No one is going to go “why run windows when I can do all my computing on a phone”. Windows will gain the advantage of running both win64/32 apps and android apps. If done right and windows has access to the official google play store people will be able to buy apps/games on their phone and play them on the big screen at home. What its doing is reducing the chance of android desktop OS as windows will be able to run the apps anyway +win32/64 apps
OS/2 was the product of a company that was a former tech titan, that invented the PC as we now know it, but had lost its grip and was seeking to retake it. Doing so required it to launch a new platform. Sound familiar?
You forgot to mention it was bloody expensive.
When I bought my 386SX back in 1992, I would have needed to shell out more 500^a'not to fulfill the hardware requirements.
If it means the death of Metro, I’m all for it!
As an app developer, I would not write a single win phone app, if I knew my android app would run without issue on that platform.
For me win phone support is just a headache, and one I usually just avoid. This would allow me to support win phone more often, but at the cost of no native win phone apps.
Desktop os’s, somehow I think they gain from this…
I have always wanted Mac OS X to just run iOS apps…obviously with touch hardware, but then if an iOS player was built into the oS, that would rock. Of course I wouldn’t write a single Mac OS X app either, but then I was never going to do that anyway.
So, this is how it feels when MS makes sense. Weird.
“A humorous way to run Windows applications,” Bill Gates quipped when IBM touted OS/2.
Now we have a humorous way to run Android apps.
Now, I have a very crazy theory about this whole thing. I obviously have no inside sources like Warren has, so load this image in another tab while reading this, but what if instead of this being an attempt to bridge the ‘application gap’, this is the first step in a Microsoft transition towards Android as a whole?
whoa there, what’s this? that just woke me up. thom going for the big score?
Much like the PC world, which eventually settled on two players, the mobile world has settled on two players: Android and iOS. It’s the cold and harsh truth. Does it really make sense for Microsoft to focus all that energy on developing Windows Phone – not to a whole lot of avail so far – when they could just take Android, add their own services, and more importantly, their own very popular and ubiquitous enterprise software, and sell that instead? Microsoft actually started out as an application software provider, and not as an operating system vendor, so it’s not like they would do something they’re not comfortable with.
yes but this application-only focus was many, many moons (and million$) ago. microsoft has been an OS behemoth for well over 20 years now. i do agree that the new CEO will abandon this ‘windows everywhere’ program which ran it’s course long ago. that grown idiot ballmer never realized windows *was* everywhere. which made him never realize that most people hated it and longed for any alternative available. hence OSAlert…
The biggest reason this crazy, unfounded theory came to my mind is that I simply cannot believe Microsoft would actually make it possible to run Android applications on Windows Phone. First, running Android applications on another platform is not exactly issue-free. Second, this has not exactly helped BlackBerry (and Sailfish, for that matter) either. Third, Windows Phone (and Windows 8 Metro) are already afterthoughts for developers, nothing more than mere side-projects in between iOS and Android work. Why would any of them develop native applications if they can just send their already completed APK to Microsoft? It’d be the death of Windows Phone and Metro.
Combined with the news that Nokia’s Android phone is actually going to come out, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Microsoft is thinking about phasing out Windows Phone, with the ability to run Android applications on the platform as a first step in this migration.
this is where i think your theory gets into swampy ground. microsoft has never shown a desire to use a superior, free, existing product that they can’t own. look at SQL and silverlight as two of many more examples. they want to own and sell, not license and share.
i think allowing android apps to run on windows phone could actually be their play to kill android.
android’s biggest problem, IMO, is the “wild-west” nature of the platform — every device is different, hacks are abundant, updates are a mess, security is a huge concern. windows mobile’s biggest problem is lack of apps. this move makes the best place to deploy corporate android apps – windows phone (nokia). this move also makes the best place to get a family pack of non-iOS devices – windows phone (w/xbox integration).
where does this leave “pure android”? there’s no such thing, and the raw android platform becomes it’s true self – the linux of the mobile world.
There are major issues with such an approach, of course, not least of which the problem Amazon has also run into: no Google Play Services, meaning several popular applications won’t run at all. If you’re truly, truly outrageous, you could even consider a pact between Microsoft and Google, a combined effort that would take some possible antitrust heat off Google’s back, and would give them a united front against Apple and iOS. Even this has precedent: unlike what some think, Microsoft and Apple have a long history of close cooperation. There’s no reason Microsoft wouldn’t do it again, if needed.
In any case, this is all very interesting stuff, and it shows just how much of a problem the lack of any presence in the mobile world has become for Microsoft. The new CEO has some very tough calls to make.
My theory isn’t much wilder than yours, but I don’t think they will kill their Win mobile for Android. That’s a fantasy. I do imagine them hatching approaching to effectively removing the android/google threat from the OS market, leaving them to compete head up with apple yet again.
It’s about the apps — Windows mobile will never catch up. You are correct that it’s a 2 horse race. So which horse does Microsoft adopt and compromise? It needs those apps, so writing an android runtime layer into the windows services backend just cuts the loose android-OS concept.
I’ll tell you right now looking at my Galaxy Tab 3 — if that thing ran Metro or WinPhone underneath the android apps it could be a much better device.
Edited 2014-02-13 15:50 UTC
Ask IBM how well it worked that they had a “Better DOS than DOS and better Windows than Windows”. It was VERY true about both. I LOVED IBM’s OS/2 (ever better than I like Mac OS X now – Windows is a distant 20th or thereabouts) but with so much of the focus by developers on making sure that their Windows programs worked on both Windows and OS/2, as well as IBM making sure that was true too, most developers didn’t see a reason to make an OS/2 native version.
Windows ’95 didn’t kill OS/2. IBM did and their EXTREMELY STUPID ads with nuns walking down a hallway and talking about OS/2 and NEVER showing what the OS/2 desktop looked like. If they had, Microsoft might have had to change what Windows looks like or they would have been a “me too” OS. Wait, they’ve always been that, but they might have had to change it some.
OS/2, not eComStation, still has a lot of great things going for it. Lots of native applications that I need is not one of them. Yes I have scoured the world to find them but what “I” need is only about 40% there and any OS with only 40% of the apps I need is 60% of what I can’t do and … well at least Apple came to the rescue.
Keep in mind I don’t care about brands. I care about quality and ease of use where my OS gets out of my way and let’s me do my work with as few steps as possible. OS/2 did that very well. I miss you very much OS/2.
Windows and Windows phone will follow the same route if Microsoft is stupid enough to do this.
It is just really strange to me that running android apps in linux still isn’t really there yet. It would be very odd if windows beat standard linux distros to the punch.
And I’m not talking about using an emulator, but an x86 dalvik VM. Though honestly, it probably doesn’t matter for most applications.
Edited 2014-02-13 16:25 UTC
The failure of OS/2 was entirely due to IBM not MS. a)OS/2 needed very expensive hardware, b) OS/2 had very few drivers for non-IBM hardware such as printers and c) IBM ran the most bizarre ad campaign in history – they never actually explained what OS/2 was.
Edited 2014-02-14 08:11 UTC
Windows does not need Android’s app space. I can only assume Metro’s apps space will grow over time albeit slowly. So why not various top Linux distributions instead ? They could benefit way more from Android’s apps.