Microsoft's roots are contrary to characture in popular culture - they sold and developed for Unix throughout the 1980's. It's big and corporate, but it's still a company founded as a software startup and always dogfooding its way into new products.

+1 for Xenix: the first Unix variant I met, where I learnt C and sh, and capable of handling 8 student terminals linked to a single 386!

>they sold and developed for Unix throughout the 1980's

Even into the late 90s. I remember trying out MSIE 5 for Solaris circa 1999. It ran like crap, but that was probably just as much a function of the SS20 I was using at work at the time as it was IE's fault.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_UNIX

And don't forget Excel, Word and PowerPoint all started as early Mac apps. (Yes, there was Word and MultiPlan for DOS before, but the Windows versions are more directly descended from the Mac). And of course, MS Basic ran on many platforms.

Except it doesn't have the Google Play store or Play Services, so it's not going to appeal to the usual Android user.

As someone who uses Windows Phone, I keep scratching my head wondering why Microsoft even bothers.

It's a Nokia phone, not a Microsoft phone. It takes an average of 18 months to bring a phone to market. The Nokia acquisition was completed just two months ago, and the teams must be fairly independent right now. While the Nokia acquisition was being completed, Nokia was legally required to act as if the acquisition would fail.

China approved the Nokia acquisition only on April 8, what would have happened if they didn't? Without an Android strategy, Nokia would be left without any momentum for atleast a year in a fast moving market. Remember how FTC denied AT&T and Tmobile's merger?

The only interesting thing here is that Microsoft didn't immediately kill the X2 and lay off Nokia's Android team. They could do that anytime or sell that division to some other company. There would be a lot of people at MS calling for its head. The headline, story and most of the comments seem to be implying that it's Microsoft that conceived and implemented this idea which is wrong.

I've received an invitation from Opera for publishing/porting app on Nokia, which stated that Microsoft team will be contacting me should I choose to proceed... So it does sound like they seems to be taking some part handling Nokia store.

I don't know about the 18 months, the Blackphone started development in December or January and is coming out in a few days, which is a far cry from 18 months. Maybe that's an outlier, though.

> The Nokia acquisition was completed just two months ago

Do you seriously think there would be any other possible outcome for the burning platform memo?

"the Nokia X smartphone achieving top-selling status in Pakistan , Russia , Kenya and Nigeria,3 while earning the third-best-selling smartphone spot in India ," said Timo Toikkanen , head of Mobile Phones, Microsoft Devices Group.

This phone is not aimed at people who a power users. This phone is aimed at emerging economies where people are buying their first smartphones. Nokia X has all the basics (music, free messaging, email, Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp), all running on some reasonable hardware.

    >This phone is not aimed at people who a power users.

I think we have started confusing "power user" with "power app purchaser". A Pakistani cab driver that runs his business off multiple cell phones or a dual simmed phone is probably more of a "power user" in the context of a mobile communication device than your average 1st world iPhone wielding instagram-aholic that happens to have extra disposable income that can be trifled away on an IAP in Angry Birds.

I'm not suggesting it appeals to the Android user at all, it appeals to the prospective smartphone user. As long as you can install basic messaging apps on these things (which you can), this is a really good deal.

This is a market segment which can also easily be filled by Windows Phone - it's probably even better for that. That I also find baffling. Windows Phone doesn't seem to be compatible with the particular SoC used in this device, but that is a problem Microsoft should be able to fix...

This could hurt manufacturers, who produce Android smartphones. If MS produces the phone in a low-budget segment and with decent quality. Manufacturers could consider WP with a higher profit margin, but that's my first guess.

My second would be hurting Google by not providing their services as default, while increasing traffic to their own cloud services.

My third guess would be increasing their global smartphone marketshare by entering the Android market and it's massive apps marketplace.

And a fourth guess, if 200.000 app makers enter the Nokia store, they could easily email all of them to consider converting their app to the WP market... With some clever subsidizing in place (eg. 0% cut the first 6 months, instead of the default 30%), it could increase the WP Apps quantity in a very short period.

Will it be possible to flash the phone with a stock Android ROM, or some other ROM that has access to the play store?

I realize that's not relevant to the vast majority of the market, but I'm curious.

Microsoft has a competitive advantage in the Android market because they're the only manufacturer that doesn't have to pay Microsoft $15 in Android licencing costs for each device released. (Actually, does that still hold true...?)

Can one still load apks ? though ? I wonder.And is there a specific sdk for this phone?

This is not at all a "really good Android phone". It's a great phone for its price but it comes nowhere near high end Android phones. It's largely equivalent to a Motorola Moto E (in price and specs)[1]. Ultra cheap Android phones for developing markets is a new class of phone and cheap but relatively powerful SoC like the Qualcomm 200 (used by both) are new as well so there isn't much competition here yet.

It's a good phone when you consider the price but let's not exaggerate the fact that its killer feature is its price, not its specs.

1. http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=6323&idPhone2=...

Moto E has roughly the same specs (some better, some worse):

http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_moto_e_dual_sim-6323.php

Just because you're not looking, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Comparison http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=6323&idPhone2=...

> Just because you're not looking, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Did I say really say that? And was that jab really necessary?

I'm well aware of the Moto E. It's definitely a competitor to this phone, but it's likely more expensive.

This phone has the same launch price. If one sees a price drop, the other is likely to as well. You can get the Moto E for $130 on Amazon right now as well.

"Android phones in that price range are generally extremely bad quality, but this seems to be a very decent package." - Not the Moto E

The interesting news are the implications of Microsoft distributing the Linux (and the Android) kernel under the terms of the GPLv2.

What happens to their patent portfolio they allege Linux infringes on?

They have been distributing server based Linux through Azure for far longer. Creating a Linux VM is a matter of a few clicks and they have hundreds of ready to go VM images.

https://www.simple-talk.com/iwritefor/articlefiles/1610-VM-p...

http://vmdepot.msopentech.com/List/Index

On the flip side of what you said, now that they're an Android OEM they may have the legal standing to complain to regulatory agencies about how Google forces Android OEMs(which was kept secret from the public until it came out recently in court cases) to have Google Search as the default in order to get access to important Android Apps and APIs including the Play Store to the detriment of alternate search engines like Bing and DDG.

http://bgr.com/2014/05/05/google-search-and-apps-on-android/

They use the same loophole as with phones. Microsoft distributes Linux VMs through its subsidiary Microsoft Open Technologies, which was created just for this purpose. It does not own the patents so MS doesn't have to license them.

Would this hold up in court, or would a judge conclude it was simply a scam to avoid their legal responsibilities?

Unfortunatey they created a subsidiary called Microsoft Mobile that sells the phones. The subsidiary does not own the patents, so no patents gets licensed. Qualcomm uses the same loophole.

well they didn't create it so much as buy Nokia D&S and rename it.

I thought that GPLv2 didn't include a patent license. I thought that was much of the reason for GPLv3 which Linux hasn't adopted.

so people see Tiles and Cost - same Tiles but cheap cost - Chuck WP phones and go with X devices :P

I am not sure about that. I have seen several examples where the WP is way cheaper than the X alternative

Which makes Microsoft's strategy all the more confusing. At least if they decided to use a fork of Android for sub-$100 devices, then it would be one thing. But they're mixing it up with no clear vision.

The only reason they are continuing to make them is because they got a lot of press for it, because a lot of people wanted "Lumia with real Android" - and most tech sites thought: "Not Lumia...and with a bad clone of Android, must be good enough, so let's write about it anyway".

Without that press and misleading hype about "Nokia with Android", Nokia X would've never launched.

Yes. No strategy at all. They want to sell everything. Just Sales figures? That qualifying factor won't let them survive in market for a long time. They need Strategy. If WP is their vision, they should just stick to it. Launching forked Android might be okay for Amazon, but for MSFT, if they keep on doing this and that too at this low cost, they are marketing for Google!

I agree but keep in mind that this phone was already done even before they launched WP's Lumias. So what they are doing is not killing an initiative that started at Nokia.

I don't like the idea but I can see how this is consistent with the new Microsoft view of being more open.