“Microsoft Corp. is talking to HTC Corp. about adding its Windows operating system to HTC’s Android-based smartphones at little or no cost, people with knowledge of the matter said, evidence of the software maker’s struggle to gain ground in the mobile market,” Tim Culpan, Dina Bass and Peter Burrows report for Bloomberg.
“Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s operating systems unit, asked HTC last month to load Windows Phone as a second option on handsets with Google Inc.’s rival software, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private,” Culpan, Bass and Burrows report. “Myerson discussed cutting or eliminating the license fee to make the idea more attractive, the people said. The talks are preliminary and no decision has been made, two people said.”
“It’s willingness to add Windows as a second operating system underscores the lengths to which Microsoft will go to get manufacturers to carry its software. HTC, the first company to make both Windows and Android phones, hasn’t unveiled a new Windows-based handset since June and has no current plans to release any more, said one person,” Culpan, Bass and Burrows report. “Microsoft, with 3.7 percent of the market, is finding it necessary to make concessions after agreeing to acquire Nokia Oyj’s handset unit, which competes with other smartphone makers.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Imagine having to decide if you want your phone to be an iPhone knockoff or a non-selling also-ran suffering from terminal AppLack™.
We pity those without iPhones.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
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We have a strategy at MS, and we like it, LOSERS
We like it a lot !!! lol
SOAK IT IN, SOAK IT IN HTC, we at Microshit have a great strategy, and you at HTC will like it a lot, NOT
I love it, great strategy. If this is Monkey Boy’s idea of thinking outside the box, he should crawl into it and close the lid. How can such a company have such an incredible buffoon for its boss? Ineptitude to the end.
Go Ballmer go!!!
Fight! claw your way out of M$ with that legendary energy you display at M$ developers events!!!
ps, I am tempted to recite your famous advice to Steve Jobs!!!
Oh shoot! I couldn’t resist it!!
Developers, developers, developers.
Developers, developers, developers.
Developers, developers, developers.
Developers, developers, developers……
sigh……..bliss!
Rinse and repeat. And then rinse some more.
Let them add every half-assed IOS wannabe to their phones, it won’t matter.
I think that is brilliant. I have said for years Apple should also let Android run on iOS like Windows on Macs. What is the downside? I keep saying that here, but no one ever explains why that isn’t a good idea.
Schizophrenia is not considered a good idea
Dilutes the brand and confuses consumers for one or two reasons. I also think it looks weak, like you have no confidence in your own OS. Plus not a chance in hades Apple would ever do it. Bottom line is buy the phone you want and stick with it. Maybe second and third tier competitors can play this game out of desperation but not the number one premium phone.
Huh?
There’s a Ferrari outside round here with a front mounted Chevy engine waiting for your very special care. No warranty.
What’s the matter, you say?
Cupojoe only has never bought a Apple device.
Not so. I was an Apple fan probably before you were born. I bought my first Mac in 1984. I was a member of SMUG (Sunnyvale Macintosh User’s Group) that was run by Woz. I was one of Guy’s Evanglists. I have owned nearly every Apple product since then. I now own a 27″ fusion iMac, 1 Macbook Pro, 2 iPads, 2 iPad minis, 2 iPhone 4s, 1 iPhone 5 and have a 5s on delivery Oct 11. I also run Windows 8 on my Macs. What is in your wallet, son?
Don’t believe a word that a troll writes. Oh, Mac IIci 1989.
Sometimes demented people don’t know when they’re lying.
Derek, you and silver are showing pathetic manners.
You know very well that iPhones from day one have been “jailbroken” by Apple enthusiasts who did not like the arbitrary limitations Apple imposed, just as there is a sizeable Hackintosh community building hardware configurations that Apple refuses to.
Apple finally realized that the switch to Intel chips for the Mac offered an excellent way to show its OS side-by-side with an alternate OS without a huge emulator penalty, and so it wisely offers Bootcamp and endorses modern emulators so that users can enjoy Macs while still supporting legacy non-Mac programs they need. Don’t assume a similar option for iPhones is impossible or without merit.
Hackers are already working to adapt alternate OS for the iPhone (the iDroid project or Ubunto mobile, to name just two) to enable some functions that Apple does not currently offer. Each project has merits and drawbacks, but should not be categorically dismissed. Apple could learn a thing or two from these efforts.
Why you refuse to look objectively at the issue and attack a fellow forum user shows lack of taste.
“Mike”, are you the same blatant troll who used to hang around here using the same anonymous coward nick. WHO has been ill-mannered? I can’t tell. So much for credibility.
As for your revisionist Mac history above, no thank you! I prefer real history.
Let me point out that these days anyone with a Mac circa 2006 onwards has the ability to run one of two excellent competing virtualization programs as one as one open source virtualization program in order to run Windows on a Mac (if so coerced) at full speed. No emulation required.
I don’t know how you got onto the subject of hacking another OS onto an iOS device, but I’ve never complained about hacking except to point out that the ONLY malware for iOS exists for hacked iOS. At this time, Apple’s walled garden iOS devices have zero malware.
Would I hacked an iOS device, if I wasn’t using it for critical purposes? That would be terrific fun! But I would also count on there being malware out in the wild also into having fun with iOS devices. I’d stick to well known software, never installing random whateverware.
Now back to discussing dementia…
The situation is really different.
Having Winblows run on Macs was an immensely powerful tactic to get all those people who wanted Macs but had that one legal/CAD/accounting Winblows program that they simply had to run.
Over time, many could then ease of their real or perceived need to run Windows.
The ultra-fragmented, so-called “Android” is really different.
– There is no huge, entrenched base that Apple would like to make inroads in.
– Android didn’t leap ahead because of one clever or lucky move at the beginning.
– Apple already has all the quality market; they don’t need to capture the cheapskates or the good-enough crowd.
– And as others say, it would cheapen the Apple brand – grossly so.
One last point that doesn’t matter — WHICH version of the many incompatible versions of so-called Android? If the largest, that’s still only a minority share of all versions of Android.
Well, that’s gonna make the HTC phones a TWO HEADED idiot.
Like Ray Milland and Rosey Greer.
The BorgPhone –
Your mobile OS will be assimilated.
Wow, no licensing fee? Because that has worked out so profitable for Google, hasn’t it?
The good, the Bad, and the ugly. Easy choice!
Ha ha ha! The ultimate “no compromise” phone. Why not stick Blackerry and full Windows on there, too! Or OS/2, and maybe Amiga OS. After all, the customer deserves choice!
Just think: a 128GB phone with 3K of space free after all the OSes are installed!
and an external port so you can plug a mouse in, possibly a keyboard too..
I thought HTC wanted to make money. How will widows phone do that?
Merge a derelic product with a cripple knock-off product and enter the wonderful Microsoft world of the future.
The HTC One is a nice bit of HW.
I think it will be good for HTC to have both os on its phone. Thats how much I dislike samsung! I still stick to my iphone no matter what.
I like Ballmers scivvy Myersons desperate strategy, I like it a lot. Microsoft is very stingy, they want money at every opportunity, it’s well known, so when they giving away OS for free or office for free, they are desperate, the feel the wrath if the superior competition. Micro shut is defo not in the lead, desperate to follow and if they don’t innovate then they should get out the way, switch the lights off when they leave like dell boy did
This stupid leading the blind
“Well, gee whiz, Mr B. That strategy worked so well against Netscape, let’s try it again.”
Except iOS on an iPhone a Netscape is not. The training floor back to going you shall be, young MS Padawan.
😆
I think Microsoft wants to buy HTC in about 9 months.
HTC has it’s own problems without taking on Microsoft’s decline and FAIL.
FSCK OFF Microsoft!