Microsoft tool to bring Android apps to Windows is delayed

[HEXUS]

Developers at Microsoft have ceased work on Project Astoria says report.

Read more.

[scaryjim]

It also mentioned another option coming soon; to allow the use of older Windows programs (Win32) to run on phones and tablets

Neverwinter Nights on mobile phone? I'll be watching that one *very* closely...

[lumireleon]

if you can install windows 95 on a smartwatch I wonder how difficult it is to run android apps on windows phone 10

[Jowsey]

Does anyone else think they've purposefully dimmed the screen of the Android device? Cheeky...

[spacein_vader]

I imagine this is less of a technical problem and more of a legal one. I can imagine Google saying they can't use anything that works via Google Play (i.e.. virtually all popular Android apps,) without a hefty licencing fee. Or possibly not at all.

[Froggywoggy]

It also mentioned another option coming soon; to allow the use of older Windows programs (Win32) to run on phones and tablets

Neverwinter Nights on mobile phone? I'll be watching that one *very* closely...

Don't even... now I'm over-excited.

[tonyd223]

AMIDuos?

[shaithis]

I was really hoping Microsoft would forge on with this and re-shape the market. Having 2 of the "big platforms" being compatible might have forced a complete compatibility-check across the entire smartphone industry.

[Luke7]

I imagine this is less of a technical problem and more of a legal one. I can imagine Google saying they can't use anything that works via Google Play (i.e.. virtually all popular Android apps,) without a hefty licencing fee. Or possibly not at all.

Blackberry got around it somehow...

[T42]

Been in CEX lately? Shelves full of unwanted Windows phones. Seems an impossible task to have three platforms whatever your marketing budget and sub$idy.

[spacein_vader]

Blackberry got around it somehow...

Possibly by paying aforementioned hefty licence fee?

[rainman]

This isn't a legal or a technical issue. As much as anyone would have loved for this to happen this is Microsoft seeing sense, and they're doing the right thing.

The obvious deficiency in the MS phone ecosystem is the availability of apps in the Store, and whilst end-users would have loved to have access to more than one app repository it would not serve Microsoft's efforts in the mobile space very well at all - in fact it could kill them off completely.

Consider this - you're a developer with an app that you're maintaining for two platforms already. Microsoft want you to put your code their way but you're already quite happy with the market exposure you're getting from the two considerably larger platforms already - why do you need a 3rd one? What is the cost of you adding a 3rd vs your likely income from the 3rd stream? What incentive is there for you to develop for a 3rd platform? The answer is "no need and is likely to generate a net loss".

So lets say that Microsoft do enable access and compatibility with Google Play apps. How does this improve the Microsoft Store? The answer is "it doesn't". App developers are still only supporting two platforms and in fact any incentive to add a 3rd disappears completely. Developers that already do support all 3 platforms are likely to stop supporting the Microsoft Store completely - why continue if two app repositories are able to support 3 different flavours of phone? Developers would stop supporting Windows phone and that would be a disaster, both for Microsoft and for existing Windows Phone customers.

The reality is that most people reading are looking at this from the perspective of the private individual and are not aware that a considerable portion of the corporate world are either in the process of transitioning to Windows mobile devices, or are planning to, or still evaluating. The cost associated with supporting Apple devices is not only extremely expensive to purchase, but also expensive to maintain. The Apple support model is aimed at the end user and the corporates that actually buy these handsets for their staff continually run up against the same support issues which end up inflating the procurement bill since it is often easier to let staff retain their handset when they leave the company than to try and recycle it by giving it to a new member of staff. Apple do not make this easy and many of my corporate clients are looking getting off the Apple mobile platform. Unfortunately, Android also fares badly but for a completely different set of reasons - security, malware and spyware (another reason why MS using Google play is a bad idea) and a total lack of updates and hardware consistency. Compared to the other platforms Windows mobile offers a very strong set of benefits for the enterprise. I suspect that the reason that the transition has been slow is down to most organisations having contracts in place with their respective mobile comms providers. I'm aware of a few large organisations that are quite a way along the road to transition to Windows phones.

Windows mobile isn't going to die any time soon but wider adoption is definitely going to be a slow burn, but there will be a tipping point and will likely come a lot sooner than a private individual might conceive. Blackberry's initial success didn't happen overnight but was driven largely by corporate markets - unfortunately that they didn't keep up with market innovations and were quite happy to let the grass grow under their feet.