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Microsoft has announced partnerships with 20 device manufacturers to pre-install apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Skype, OneNote, and OneDrive on various Android devices:
In addition to Sony and LG, Microsoft is also announcing 18 other partners today, including Haier and a number of smaller manufacturers, bringing its total partner count up to 31. Microsoft previously made deals with Samsung, Dell, and Pegatron to have these apps pre-installed on tablets. A number of apps also come preinstalled on the Galaxy S6. The exact business agreement between Microsoft and these manufacturers isn't detailed, but Microsoft says that it opens up "new revenue streams" for its partners. LG is supposed to begin including the apps in an upcoming tablet, and Sony will add them to the Z4 tablet within the next few months.
In addition, Cortana, Microsoft's "digital assistant" alternative to Siri and Google Now, will be coming to Android and iOS:
This should not be very surprising since the Redmond based company has moved quickly over the last year or so to bring most of its services to iOS and Android, and Cortana is just the next step. Just like with Cortana on Windows Phone, you can use it to track flights, check sports scores, or use the geo-fencing to set location based reminders. Unlike Windows Phone though, the deeper integration with Cortana such as "Hey Cortana" voice activation or the ability for Cortana to perform actions within other applications is not going to be possible on the third-party systems.
[...] The Phone Companion app will be coming soon to Windows 10 through the Insider Program. Most of the apps are already available for iOS and Android, but Cortana support will be coming at the end of June for Android and later in the year for iPhone.
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday May 28 2015, @11:53AM
A bit of a stretch to call "work with" the bribing of its partners to preinstall their software in an effort to stay relevant. Doesn't seem like a profitable business for MS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @01:22PM
It also ignores the windows phones they made since about 1999 and the iPaq. They were 'ok' devices in fact I would say they were pretty cool. They didnt stick because they had puny dataplans (think along the lines of 10 meg a month for 40 bucks). That and activesync was a horid crappy way to do anything. You basically had to pair it with a computer to get it to do anything cool. You had to go that way because not everyone had 802.11 and especially not in their phones. You couldnt rely on the dataplan to support a 'store' because the carriers charged a premium for it. So you were stuck with pairing. And it *SUCKED*. Then even lets say you were willing to put up with it. Most devices had at most 8 or maybe a spacious 16 meg of flash. Then on top of that WinCE was flaaaaaaaaky. Its antiquated build system encouraged you to do bad things with code. If you were lucky you had at least version 3 and not 2.11.
I am willing to bet every one of those preinstalled items has a banner for advertisements. Served up thru bing. Advertisements seem to be doing pretty good for their competition. Having onenote on my phone is pretty cool... If you dont use onenote. Try it. It is seriously good.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Thursday May 28 2015, @01:24PM
Don't for get threatening with more 'patent' lawsuits. It *is* profitable, as it helps keep the "Microsoft Office as a standard" bullshit going. Many parts of the world are making decent progress of moving to open formats which is extremely bad for Microsoft. Doing something to make their products convenient to use on mobile platforms is probably worth billions to them in future business.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:52PM
I don't forget it (this is why I used "effort to stay relevant").
Yes, but in comparison with the almost obiquous precence of MSOffice era, it will still be a struggle against an existing competition. In other words*, MSOffice peaked sometime 2008-2009.
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* i.e. non-MSWord, like LibreOffice Writer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday May 29 2015, @04:45AM
I can see Microsoft's efforts to keep their flagship Office products "in the loop". By now, I am sure there are quite a bit of people looking to replace these bloated proprietary formats with something more trustworthy and verifiable against hitchhiking malware.
However, Microsoft has a big freight train in motion, with a lot of marketing inertia, along with assortment of patents to ward off any competitors. Once a corporation has achieved this kind of success, it does not go away overnight, but it can go away.
We have just seen this happen to Research-In-Motion ( RIM aka BlackBerry ). They were once the darling of the stock market. However, they seemed to take their success for granted and thought people would always spend more for a BlackBerry.
Just because things have a track record of success does not guarantee future success.
Quite frankly, I am extremely puzzled on how Microsoft has managed to keep the sales machine going - given the inability, even to this day, of even opening up a business document file without risk of getting malware.
Many businesses lack the ability to communicate with their customer without placing their customer at risk for malware infections by as much as even opening the document in a Microsoft reader.
And that constant barrage of things that need fixing.. or sometimes things that someone else wants Microsoft to break for them ( FTDI chips, for instance ).
.
Businessmen still seem to need the illusion of "support" than the reality of a much simpler but secure operating system.
If there is anything the world needs today - its a good robust public OS kernel that will unify our machines just as ASCII unified our communications protocol.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]