The desktop is increasingly becoming less relevant. It won't go away, but mobile platforms are where the revenue and activity is.
Re: "WinPhone sales catch up with IOS" - That battle is over. It's not even up for debate. There was a reason why Nadella has terminated the Windows "Services and Devices Business." and fired most of the Windows Phone engineers - and that's because Microsoft has been thoroughly and completed defeated by Android and iPhone.
There are going to be lots of places where Windows Phone will still be used, and, in fact, even be a popular choice. But there are also places in the world where Blackberry Phones are still used. But in all the key (and profit generating markets) - Android and Apple have carried the day handily.
By the way - I'm not saying the Microsoft isn't dangerous - they are wicked smart, have tons of cash, and have demonstrated that they are willing to make a significant adjustment to strategy "Devices and Services" to "Mobile first, Cloud First" and fire their CEO to do so.
What I am saying is that Microsoft is no longer in a position to "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish." as Microsoft no longer has the market power to extend important standards and have others adopt those extensions as people are increasingly less likely to be using one of their products, and, more importantly, are increasingly no longer required to use one of their products to get their job done.
To bring this conversation back to the beginning Microsoft has released a translation/recompilation layer that will let people who have written applications for iOS, quickly recompile them and release them for Windows, without having to write much, if any, new code. The objective is to have people write apps for Windows 10 and iOS using this mechanism, because currently, effectively 0% of people are writing first class apps for windows phone (there are, as always, small exceptions, but windows phone basically gets the dregs).
The problem with this strategy, is that now Microsoft is playing on Apples platform - and this further reduces the incentive for people to write native Windows phone Apps. Effectively, this is Microsoft giving up and saying, "If you won't write apps for our platform, as least we can emulate other ones and run those apps."
The desktop is increasingly becoming less relevant. It won't go away, but mobile platforms are where the revenue and activity is.
Re: "WinPhone sales catch up with IOS" - That battle is over. It's not even up for debate. There was a reason why Nadella has terminated the Windows "Services and Devices Business." and fired most of the Windows Phone engineers - and that's because Microsoft has been thoroughly and completed defeated by Android and iPhone.
There are going to be lots of places where Windows Phone will still be used, and, in fact, even be a popular choice. But there are also places in the world where Blackberry Phones are still used. But in all the key (and profit generating markets) - Android and Apple have carried the day handily.
By the way - I'm not saying the Microsoft isn't dangerous - they are wicked smart, have tons of cash, and have demonstrated that they are willing to make a significant adjustment to strategy "Devices and Services" to "Mobile first, Cloud First" and fire their CEO to do so.
What I am saying is that Microsoft is no longer in a position to "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish." as Microsoft no longer has the market power to extend important standards and have others adopt those extensions as people are increasingly less likely to be using one of their products, and, more importantly, are increasingly no longer required to use one of their products to get their job done.
To bring this conversation back to the beginning Microsoft has released a translation/recompilation layer that will let people who have written applications for iOS, quickly recompile them and release them for Windows, without having to write much, if any, new code. The objective is to have people write apps for Windows 10 and iOS using this mechanism, because currently, effectively 0% of people are writing first class apps for windows phone (there are, as always, small exceptions, but windows phone basically gets the dregs).
The problem with this strategy, is that now Microsoft is playing on Apples platform - and this further reduces the incentive for people to write native Windows phone Apps. Effectively, this is Microsoft giving up and saying, "If you won't write apps for our platform, as least we can emulate other ones and run those apps."