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Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Windows Is Dead - Business Insider


R.I.P. Windows

By purchasing Nokia’s smartphone division, Microsoft has killed its signature strategy.

Nokia's President and CEO Stephen Elop gestures during a news conference at the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona.
Stephen Elop is stepping down as Nokia president and CEO as Microsoft purchases the Finnish phone-maker. By integrating the hardware and software sides of the Windows Phone, Microsoft is inverting—and thus killing— the Windows business model. Photo by Albert Gea/Reuters
Windows is dead. Let’s all salute it—pour out a glass for it, burn a CD for it, reboot your PC one last time. Windows had a good run. For a time, it powered the world. But that era is over. It was killed by the unlikeliest of collaborations—Microsoft’s ancient enemies working over decades, in concert: Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, and most of all, two guys named Larry and Sergey.

Late on Monday, Microsoft announced its unsurprising, $7.2 billion plan to buy Nokia’s smartphone division. Nokia is the world’s largest manufacturer of phones that run Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system (which is a bit like pointing out that, at 5-foot-6, I’m the tallest member of my immediate family). Microsoft is buying Nokia in order to control both the hardware and software in its devices; this move, Microsoft promises, will improve the phones themselves and make them easier to sell.

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