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Welcome to spring / summer! As the seasons
change, so does the Tech frontier….
Big news at Microsoft! They
have just announced the layoff
of 1,850 staff from their
smartphone hardware business,
with up to 1,350 of those job re-
ductions occurring in Finland at
the former Nokia operations ac-
quired a few years ago by Microsoft.
Given that Microsoft has touted their intent to
create a single Windows OS and universal app
library that will tie together computers, tablets
and phones, this announcement begs a lot of
questions. The uncertainty is further rein-
forced by Microsoft’s 2015 announcement of
Continuum, the ability to create, modify and
store content in OneDrive from any device,
from anywhere. Promotional articles and pho-
tos actually show Windows phones connected
to a monitor and keyboard being used as min-
iature PCs to access and modify content
stored in OneDrive.
In some ways this layoff announcement proba-
bly should not be a surprise. Windows phone
market share, always miniscule compared to
iOS and Android, has actually shrunk in the
past year. Meanwhile, Microsoft has yet to re-
lease Windows 10 Mobile to existing Windows
phone users, limiting it to a few high-end new
phones that were introduced since last July.
Reviews of the new software on those phones
have been mixed; the perception has been that
Microsoft is having problems fine-tuning Win-
dows 10 Mobile and was therefore delaying roll
-out to existing Windows 8.1 Phone users.
Microsoft’s drive toward Universal apps was
supposed to be the catalyst for greater market
penetration by Windows phones going forward.
With truly universal apps, a user would be able
to use their favorites on any device. This was
expected to create an incentive for developers
to step up their focus on the Windows platform,
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and create lots of new Windows apps. And,
lots of new Windows apps would in theory
make Windows phones more competitive in
the smartphone marketplace. Whether be-
cause of the lack of Windows phone market
penetration, existing developer tie-ins with the
Apple and Android universes or something
else, there has not been a significant in-
crease in Universal Windows 10 apps since
that OS launched last July
What happens now is anyone’s guess. Here
is what a Microsoft spokesperson had to say
after the layoff announcement, as reported in
a related PC World online article:
“We will continue to develop new devices
and adapt Windows 10 for small screens,
support Lumia Phones such as the Lumia
650, Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL, and
phones from our OEM hardware partners like
Acer, Alcatel, HP, Trinity and Vaio, where
we’re seeing good traction," a Microsoft rep-
resentative said in a statement, when asked if
the Microsoft Lumia smartphone brand was
officially dead. "We have nothing to share
about our future product roadmap.”
Meanwhile, the same PC World article re-
ports that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has
stated that development will also continue on
Continuum. So, one could assume that this
layoff announcement may simply represent
Microsoft getting out of the phone hardware
business and leaving that arena to their OEM
hardware partners, while development of
phone software and apps will remain a priori-
ty within Microsoft. Time will tell……
Another big Tech announcement, this time
from Alphabet (Google)! Over the balance of
the year Google will modify their Chrome OS
to allow Android apps from the Google Play
store to run on Chromebooks. You can read
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