Bonum Certa Men Certa

Nokia Crushed by Microsoft While Windows Mobile Dies. Is Skype Next?

1. Company has legacy dilemmas, suffers internal issues

Crushed cars



2. Microsoft steps in, sends mole/vulture fund/proxy battler into the company (Nokia, Novell, and Yahoo! respectively)

Crushed cars



3. Company totally crushed, run by Microsoft proxies, Microsoft takes all the pieces of interest (patents, userbase, brand names, etc.)

Construction cones



4. Profit! (another competitor eliminated at no cost)

Summary: How Microsoft is abusing the market, this time by sending Nokia to the cleaners and ruining the Skype experience with bad service and disturbances

WHEN Microsoft quits the mobile market (at last, it might have to!) it will officially become somewhat of a patent troll, a non-practicing mobile entity making money out of other companies' phones/platforms. Before Microsoft becomes a patent troll and not just a leech it will have to burn its boats and the process has just begun with the burial of the Windows Mobile shop. "MS discontinue [an]other product," informed us a reader yesterday. To quote an article from a fairly Microsoft-sympathetic source:



Microsoft is sending notifications to Windows Mobile 6.x users this week that it is discontinuing My Phone service, and shutting down the Windows Marketplace for Mobile site for the legacy mobile OS family.

Beginning on July 15, http://marketplace.windowsphone.com will no longer be open for business, and apps for Windows Mobile 6.x will only be available in the Marketplace app or through third party app stores.


Microsoft is trying to gain userbase of phones in the same way it did so in search. It invades one of the market leaders (Nokia), puts in some moles while paying bribe for the company to approve, and before you know it, the CTO quits. What a cheap takeover, eh? The same thing happened in Yahoo! Before a Microsoft manager was appointed to become Yahoo's CTO (who now diverts search traffic in Microsoft's direction). We have a special wiki page on the subject and it is detailed enough to spare repetition.

Yahoo's CTO from Microsoft makes us wonder who is going to become Nokia's next CTO. Will it be another transfer from Microsoft, like Elop? It never seemed like Elop really left Microsoft. Either way, the net results is that Microsoft's entryism leads to many layoffs and the reduction in the number of options that buyers will have. Microsoft is a highly efficient destructor, not creator. It also harmed Qt and MeeGo a great deal. Nokia need not be bought by Microsoft. It was already bought, as some had predicted. Microsoft essentially bought Nokia for a few billions of dollars. It installed its own people. We sometimes refer to it as entryism.

Those who speak about Samsung buying Nokia have no basis for their claim as "Elop re. rumors Microsoft or Samsung is acquiring Nokia: "Those rumors are baseless.""

Probably true, but alas, our reader wrote: "Looks like Elop like Android and maybe it will be real that Samsung will buy NOKIA. Samsung will need QT too to save it?"

Watch Elop proceeding to belittlig of Android by saying that "Apple created Android, or at least created the conditions necessary for Android to come into being"

This is FUD. In fact, Apple imitated many others, as usual (it was new in the mobile arena at the time). Here is an article about Elop's FUD:

Despite Elop's comments about Android, he still didn't choose the platform. Four months ago, Nokia announced that it was choosing Microsoft's Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform. Two months ago, Nokia and Microsoft finally signed a definitive agreement regarding their global mobile ecosystem partnership.

It's generally accepted, however, that Windows Phone is not selling well. AT&T Mobility CEO believes things will start to pick up with Windows Phone 7.1 (codenamed Mango) and as the Windows Phone Marketplace gains more apps.


"Windows Phone is not selling well" to say the very least. We heard it only sold a few millions after over half a year in the market.

Upon inspection of the stagnant/falling Microsoft stock, we discovered that Elop is still the eighth largest shareholder in MSFT. Yes, Mr. Elop still works for Microsoft and has vested interests in Microsoft's success, not Nokia's. He has done a fantastic job so far (for Microsoft, not for Nokia). How come no lawsuit has been filed by shareholders yet? It is extremely unlikely that Nokia can save itself the way IBM did because when put in Microsoft's hands it usually ends in tears like Novell and Yahoo! (very bad stuff going on there at Yahoo!, but no sale to a Microsoft partner like Attachmate, at least not yet). As we argued repeatedly (with evidence), Microsoft is sabotaging Nokia like an abusive spouse, maybe with the intent of getting its patents for extortion purposes. Microsoft is just exploiting what's left in Nokia. Microsoft remains a destructive parasite and the sooner people realise it, the fewer victims it is likely to find in the future. According to a new article or hypothesis, it is sabotaging the Skype status quo following the awkward buyout [1, 2, 3, 4] in order to spread its own products. Mr. Dvorak writes:

Skype went down again. Many people, like myself, who rely on Skype for podcasting connectivity, have recognized that the service has not been up to par in recent weeks. The problems began coincidentally when Microsoft announced it was buying the company.

This could all be coincidence, as some suggest, but to me, both sabotage and outside attacks have to be considered as possible causes as well. But why would anyone do this to Skype?

If you have to ask that question, then you do not follow the industry. To be blunt, Microsoft is an extremely disliked company in many quarters of the technology community. Or maybe I should put it even more bluntly; the company is hated to an extreme by many.

Skype, on the other hand, is this benign and beloved company that has provided a free service to its users and the world at large for years. It's a contrast. It makes sense to me that attempts would be made by certain elements of the hacking community, as well as technicians within the company, to sabotage the product in hopes that it might queer the deal with Microsoft or give Microsoft pause for thought.

As things now stand nobody really knows why Microsoft bought Skype in the first place. There are vague comments about it being used with Microsoft's Lync product or MSN Live or who knows what. EBay bought control of Skype with some hair-brained notions and didn't do much with it. But eBay did not ruin or dismantle Skype and, in fact, it never bought the source code to the product.

Nobody has discussed who owns the source ever since.


Guess what happens to Skype just weeks after the takeover announcement? It gets sued for patent violations. From yesterday's news:

Internet video phone company Skype Inc was sued in U.S. federal court Thursday for infringing the patents of a Luxembourg company, which has filed similar lawsuits against Skype in Europe.


It was hardly happening before Microsoft touched Skype. The company from Redmond has a tendency to ruin everything it touches. Well, let us hope this helps promote SIP at the end.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Some Cola Formulas Aren't Secret, But the Barrier is the Branding
That's the power of the channel/distribution, marketing, and brand recognition (accomplished through endless marketing)
Tesla's Debt More Than Doubled in 2 Years and the Company Will Operate in the Red (at a Loss) Quite Soon
If your first-quarter net income is $409 million and you borrow billions from banks, plus interest to pay on those loans, then you're not far from returning to losses
Microsoft and Windows Have Many Back Doors, But LLM Slop Keep Claiming That Linux Has "Backdoor"
It's another example of LLM slop as FUD amplifier, via slopfarms as well
 
Gemini Links 05/08/2025: Lagrange v1.18.6, No Stagnation in Geminispace, and Fake Coding (Slop)
Links for the day
The Register's Editor in Chief (Who Left for Google) Told Me "AI" Was a Bubble, But Now The Register Gets Paid to Participate in Inflating This Bubble
A lot of the online media is a scam
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Introducing Mission:Libre and FreeXR (and BreakXR)
efforts that accompany the foundations put there by the Free Software Foundation in 1985
Slopwatch: WebProNews, LinuxSecurity, and Some Success Stories
Google News still has a slopfarm issue
Links 05/08/2025: Hey Hi (AI) Passing Fads and GAFAM "Embracing the Military"
Links for the day
Links 05/08/2025: Samsung and Microsoft Layoffs
Links for the day
Rumours of Mass Layoffs at Red Hat Next Week (August 11th, 2025)
The eleventh means next Monday
IBM is Shutting Down (Piecewise)
IBM is basically being liquidated
The Debian Language Police Department (PD)
"there has never been complaints about anyone that was offended by this -off package"
When The Register MS Says "Linux Backdoor" It Actually Talks About Malware
The leading story in The Register US/MS this morning is Microsoft
Microsoft Windows Fell to 19% "Market Share" in Montenegro
Microsoft must be well aware of this trend
Why We Also Include Gopher Links in Our Gemini (Protocol) Links
There are still many people who use Gopher to relay their messages (like blog posts). They're mostly technical people.
Shouting is an Indication of a Lack of Convincing Argument
Beware what they are attempting to distract from
Mongolia: Microsoft Windows at All-Time Low
in 2009 when Windows was at 99.45% in Mongolia the company was "worth" less than 200 billion dollars
About a Quarter of Today's "linux" News in Google News Came From One Domain and It's a Slopfarm
Not kidding!
Gemini Links 05/08/2025: Zombie Threat and Switching to NixOS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 04, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 04, 2025
ChatGPT in Trouble
Watch out for the newer buzzwords
The Register MS Links to the Wrong statCounter Page
They link to older data
Dr. Andy Farnell Explains How Google Turned From "Librarian" Into "Oracle", Telling Us What to Think Instead of Where to Look
Google was always a lousy librarian
Microsoft Layoffs Continue in August 2025
If Microsoft is doing so well, how come about 10 rounds of layoffs in about 7 months in 2025?
In Many Countries Vista 11 Adoption Stalled or Became Negative
Not just because people move to GNU/Linux
Microsofters' Lawyers Are Name-calling and Insulting Microsoft Critics, Even Their Spouses
How not to win arguments
Flagging or Tagging Slop That We Find Online
Right now we use ImageMagick
Links 04/08/2025: Very Bad Weather and Travel Restrictions in China
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/08/2025: Misiamisia and Mobile Linux
Links for the day
Microsoft's Stock is Like a Religion, Microsoft Goes Into 'Hiding' (From Shareholders)
like a religious person or devout believer, the media just parrot anything Microsoft says
Links 04/08/2025: 80 Years Since Last Nuclear War, IPv6 in China
Links for the day
Groklaw Static Site Relaunches With New Theme, But Many Pages and All the Comments Are Missing
We suppose that's still a lot better than the site being offline, as it was for several months
"For Five decades; For freedoms; For all users" (Original EMACS Turns 50 Next Year)
Linus Benedict Torvalds was only 6 when EMACS started
In Spain, Microsoft's Search Engine Market Share Fell to 2%
16 years have passed since Bing was introduced
Protecting GNU/Linux-Centric Journalism From Serial Sloppers
Unoriginal slop is taking away traffic from the people who did all the real work
It Looks Like Managers at Oracle Now Use LLM Slop to Write Blog Posts
Did he cheat by prompting LLMs for mindless text "filler"?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 03, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/08/2025: Qubes OS and Curious crypto case of certificates (CCCC)
Links for the day
They Tell Us That "Cloud Storage" is Safe and Robust to Incidents Like Fires
Do you have backups? Where are they and who controls them?
"Allowing SDL to default to Wayland caused a number of customer issues so keep the default at X11 for now"
2025 is another year of Wayland ambitions. It's also a year of self-fulfilling prophecies.
In The United Kingdom (UK), Microsoft Search (Bing) Falls to All-Time Low
Grow? What grow??? It's collapsing.
GNU/Linux Reaches 5% in Oman
Some GNU/Linux distros are made in Oman
Google's "AI Mode" is a Pathetic Joke Prematurely Introduced in the UK (Like "Bard", Which Sank the Company's Shares)
what Google "thinks" about PCLinuxOS
What the Free Software Foundation Started Four Decades Ago is Becoming Mainstream
"Four decades; Four freedoms; For all users"
Doing a Better Job at Labelling Slop Images
we'll label screenshots that contain slop, typically with red-coloured text overlay
Social Control Media is Out of Style
What's your excuse for wasting time on (or in) it?
Maldives: GNU/Linux at All-Time High, Windows at New Lows
data from statCounter shows a reassuring trend
Efficiency is Good, So Why Won't Governments Cull LLM Companies Using Stronger, Stringent Policies?
Like every bubble that ever existed, including some recent ones, an end will come
The Defunct Site LinuxConfig Has Published a Fake Article About Richard Stallman Using LLM Slop, Which Stallman Calls "Bullshit Generator"
Worse yet, it is writing using a "Bullshit Generator" (the term used by Stallman) about Stallman's health
Microsoft Windows Falls to All-Time Lows in Morocco and Algeria
About 70% or even less
StopGenAI in the Cyber Show (C|S)
covering a theme that we too covered a lot lately
Gemini Links 03/08/2025: Once-a-Decade Couch Shopping and Blessings in Disguise
Links for the day
Links 03/08/2025: Political Catch-up, Global Warming, and Hunger
Links for the day
Brittany Day Entered LLM Slop Into LinuxSecurity.com and Something Hilarious Happened: The Site is "Exploited"
The brainless, effortless copypasta of "slop artists" shows its limits
Links 03/08/2025: Microsoft Exchange 0-day Exploited and Avoidable Nuclear Escalation
Links for the day
Next Month 'New Techrights' Turns Two
Next month, on the fourth week, it'll be 2 years since the migration
Definitely Not a Ponzi Scheme
Bitcoin v Microsoft
Online Safety Act Tries to Accomplish the Impossible
All I can say is, "good luck with that!"
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a Billionaires' Lobby
Billionaires that control tech companies
Microsoft Borrows 3 Billion Dollars Per Month, a Company Truly Worth Trillions Would Not Do This
if Windows (and Office) "market share" fell from about 90% to barely 30%, how come Microsoft is now "valued" at 20 times more?
It's Even Worse Than Microsoft Lunduke Puts It; GNOME is SLAPPing Journalists
In our experience, GNOME is so malicious - some elements of it in particular - that it would launch multiple simultaneous SLAPP campaigns not only against journalists but also their spouses
GNU/Linux Adoption Reaches All-Time Highs in Chile, statCounter Indicates
This month marks 4 years since Vista 11 came out (as a fake "leak") and some surveys still measure its adoption at less than 40%
Slop Will Not Change the World
Some of us grow up sooner and leave that nonsense behind (or altogether avoid/skip it)
Gemini Links 03/08/2025: Nostalgia and TOFU
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 02, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 02, 2025