“When Microsoft persuaded Nokia to go Windows Phone, one of key reasons for the switch was the $1 billion a year in ‘platform support’ payments [bribes – MDN Ed.] Ballmer offered to Finns,” Stasys Bielinis reports for Unwired View. “Nokia now ships 70 to 90% of all Windows Phones worldwide. And when Microsoft finally acquires Nokia’s mobile division, it will be them making 9 out of ten Windows Phones. While Ballmer&Co may have some hardware ambitions to show off the best Windows can offer and push OEM partners to innovate more, becoming the sole maker of mobile Windows devices is not what they want. So now they are doubling down on ‘platform support’ payments and will start offering a pile of money to smartphone OEMs to make Windows Phones.”
“According to Mobile Review’s Eldar Murtazin, who was the first to tell us about Microsoft’s plans to merge Windows Phone and Windows RT and a major redesign of Metro UI, Samsung is on board and will get $1.2 billion from Redmond this year. There’s also Huawei, in line for $600 million and Sony with $500 million for their WP8 handsets. Another $300 million are earmarked to others,” Bielinis reports. “That’s $2.6 of hard cash doled out to smartphone vendors to push WP8.”
“On the other hand, except for Samsung, none of smartphone OEMs are doing that well,” Bielinis writes. “If, with Microsoft subsidies, they start making some money with WP8, that might be all the reason they need to rethink an almost exclusive reliance on Android, and make Windows Phone a major part of their smartphone strategies in 2015 and beyond.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: You know you have a strong platform when you have to bribe people to use it.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]