Here's your crazy story for the day: Microsoft may be figuring out how to bring Android apps to their Windows platform.
Now that Microsoft has a new CEO in place, they're inevitably going to try out some different new things to give their Windows Phone platform a shot in the arm. According to some close to Microsoft, this radical change would be to embrace Android apps to artificially inflate their app count. Now, we've seen BlackBerry try something similar, and it didn't help them much, but Microsoft has quite a bit more clout to push its own services.
If Microsoft did start to allow Android apps in its Windows marketplace, it could do a few positive things for the company. The biggest change would be the potential for gaining more market share with Windows Phone. Currently, most people buy Android or iOS devices, and then continue to buy Android and iOS devices. If Microsoft can slow that down, even a little bit, they can get a better foothold to stand a better chance against Apple and Google.
On the flip side of that, it could also pretty much destroy what's left of Windows Phone. Given the choice between building a new app for a platform or porting an older app over, most developers opt for porting, if possible. That's why we see some apps (looking at you, Instagram) that basically look like iOS apps on the Play Store, and other apps never even making their way to other platforms. Android eventually sees most major applications, but Windows Phone doesn't. By allowing Android apps on their platform, Microsoft risks having an app store full of applications that adhere to Google's design standards and don't fit in well with Windows Phone. At that point, you're back to square one: if all of the apps are just inferior versions of the Android apps, why wouldn't I buy an Android device instead?
And speaking of those design standards, I'm not sure Microsoft would have an answer for apps that rely on Google's Play Store services, and considering more and more apps are becoming reliant on them (to Google's advantage) it would be tough to port them over to another platform that didn't support Google's Play Store. The solution to that would be to build Android devices, but that would almost certainly be the end of Windows Phone. Definitely not a good thing from Microsoft's perspective.
Microsoft is in a tough situation with their mobile phones, so it's good to see them considering off-the-wall ideas to try to salvage Windows Phone. I don't think this would be much more than a temporary fix that would eventually lead to Microsoft abandoning Windows Phone entirely, but I'm also not a business expert.
What do you guys think? Would you be interested in seeing Microsoft adopt this strategy like BlackBerry tried to do, or do you think they should stick to trying to increase developer interest on their platform separately? Let us know in the comments.
source: The Verge
