How Google and Microsoft Can Halt a Product | Hacker News Reader

How Google and Microsoft Can Halt a Product

blogs.wsj.com

38 pointsYhippa27 comments

A dual-boot Android/Windows tablet is a big black eye for Microsoft.

I mean, Windows 8 is already supposed to be a tablet operating system fused onto the desktop, so if you're adding Android support you're really saying that Metro is useless.

Or they are trying to entice android users that wouldn't normally try Windows Phone.

I'm not sure what this article has to do with Microsoft.

Granted, the article authors are really stretching to add another big corporate name to their article. However, Microsoft has been known in the past to dictate what an OEM can and cannot do. The example that comes to mind is their "if you want a discount on Win licenses, Windows will go on every machine".

Presumably, subsequent smackdowns by the EU and the US Justice Department have introduced a certain amount of cautiousness at Microsoft.

Disclosure: I am a Microsoft employee.

In the other article (behind the paywall) the WSJ claims that Microsoft used patent licensing threats against Android to kill the dual-boot Windows/Android device.

Will they kill the upcoming Huawei Android/WinPho device as well?

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/huawei-we-are-still-commi...

What can the " European antitrust authorities" do if they decide something? It seems like the damage has already been done, like launching a DMCA request against a rival company's hoster on launch day.

They can't fix the past, but if the EU determines that some actions of Google are illegal, once Google is notified, three things will happen: 1) A fine will be levied for past misconduct 2) Google will know that repeat of similar action will result in swift legal injunctions against it, with potential of heavier fines for repeating behaviour that has been identified as illegal 3) If Google repeats the behaviour anyway, said injunctions could be applied rapidly, and the company that Google was trying to bully could have freer reign to introduce its cutting edge/weird products.

The useful take away here is that these folks to threaten third parties when those third parties displease them, whether it was Intel threatening Dell if they used the Opteron, or Microsoft threatening ASUS when they showed an ARM based Laptop at CeBIT that ran Linux only, or this particular case of the mixed tablet/laptop.

This case should have been easily predicted by Asustek though as Microsoft has bet pretty big on their '2 in 1' branding of the tabtop or lablet thing. The marketing push has been pretty amazing, at least in the SF bay area.

From http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/03/google-and-microsoft-... :

"The report states that Intel's plan around this is to help OEMs ship PCs and tablets to distribution channels with no OS pre-installed. The device could then be loaded with the desired OS when a customer orders a system."

This would encourage less buggy UEFI/ACPI firmware, for one thing.

if I read the article correctly Google is under EU Anti-trust cross-hairs given the stringent requirements it imposes on OEMs using Android.

What is good for goose should be good for gander.

But I think in this case both Google and Microsoft are opposed to it, and these would be the only parties that would be interested in starting such an anti-trust suit.

Edit: I forgot about Intel. Would they be interested in fighting?

I would be furious if I were one of the engineers working on a project that gets canned by another company at the final hour.

Regarding working for a large corporation, this comic has stayed in my mind ever since I saw it.

At times, I have particularly related to the sixth panel.

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-06-02/

Dilbert always gives me paroxysms of laughter and existential pain, but this was above average.

Haha this is perfect, the first 5 panels describe my current work

Android is so open source, you can't dual boot it!

At least Windows and Microsoft still means what it always did.

Except in the case of Win8 secure boot on tablets, which can't be rooted and dual-booted. Unlike Android.

Secure boot can be disabled

Secureboot can't be disabled on tablets.

ObPedant: on ARM-based tablets

Except in the case of Win8 secure boot on tablets, which can't be rooted and dual-booted.

You got an sign error on my meaning.

You do realize that for most Android devices, "rooting" requires finding a security exploit first to allow escalation of priviledges to root? It is not officially a part of Android and is not really blessed by the OEMs.

From a policy/ethical perspective, if you have to find a security exploit first to completely own your device, how is Android OEM policies any different from Windows then?

Every android device I've owned has been freely rootable. Maybe there are some that are more restrictive, but all I've had to do is change a setting in a menu.

Whereas the Win8/secure boot ecosystem is an active pain to dual boot, where it doesn't just downright block it entirely. I had a Win8 laptop that I bought recently, it was an absolute pain in the arse to get anything other than windows booting.

Google has always made the distinction between AOSP and the closed-source suite of apps they license. Nothing about AOSP licensing has changed since the first code was released. Significant and expensive-to-develop enhancements to the Android OS, like ART, got released to AOSP before they were shipped by OEMs.

Google's method to keep OEMs in line is not without costs. For example, you can get Amazon, Kindle, Amazon App Store, and Audible for Google-logo Androids, but you can't (officially) get Google's suite of apps for Kindle Fire devices. Kindle Fire devices are a large percentage of tablets that run Android OS and are compatible with 3rd party Android apps.

At some point, Google might re-think this equation. Perhaps as a way of "participating" inside China without officially being there. Perhaps if Microsoft really does ship an "AndroidAsha" and it catches on.

So far, Google has played clean. Google has done nothing to interfere with Amazon's business selling devices running Google's Apache-licensed code. Contrast that with Sun's FUDding the crap out of anyone using an open source Java implementation.

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