Andromeduh? (Premium)

I've been trying to set expectations for Andromeda accordingly. But there's something about this quirky and erstwhile product that makes fans forget the past. And the reality of the situation Microsoft is facing.

Which is this: Microsoft, which has consistently failed in both mobile and hardware, is quietly working on a mobile hardware project called Andromeda that will somehow change the world.

Not helping matters, most of the reporting on Andromeda so far has been both unprofessional and uninformed. And that's true across the board: Everything written about Andromeda so far has been pure speculation, and that's true even when a blogger or reporter has received first-hand information from actual sources, as we have. Or by viewing internal Microsoft documentation. Which we also have.

So I've tried to maintain this perspective, to be clear about what is and what is not speculation. To not irresponsibly stoke the hopes and dreams of fanboys to drive page views and somehow attach me, or this site, to the story. I find this entire situation to be depressing, frankly. And irresponsible.

But it was with great interest to see, yesterday, that an actual reporter with credentials and decades of experience finally provided both the perspective and the reality that I think has been largely missing from the Andromeda story: As Mehedi discussed yesterday, Mary Jo Foley has finally weighed in on Andromeda and has delivered a sobering report that Andromeda, in her sources' words, is going "back to the drawing board."

She writes that the Andromeda OS bits have been pulled from Redstone 5, the version of Windows 10 that Microsoft expects to ship in September 2018. And this means that Andromeda, the quirky, two-screen pocketable mobile device that requires this software support, probably won't happen until sometime in 2019, if it all.

What I find particularly appealing here---and to be clear, yes, we all love being right---is that the reasons for this delay are pragmatic: "There's still no compelling reason for Microsoft to come to market with its current iteration of a small, dual-screen mobile device."

Exactly. This is what I've been saying all along. That no matter how "cool" this thing looks, no matter how innovative the hardware design is, none of it matters if the device has no real purpose. And Andromeda makes no sense if it is not backed by a reasonable software and services ecosystem.

Critics, detractors, and, yes, haters have already provided some overly-obvious counterpoints. My favorite: The iPhone wasn't by a reasonable software and services ecosystem when it arrived in 2007, either, and it changed the world, I've been told multiple times. It could happen again.

Yes, it could. But it's not going to happen in mobile: The next change-the-world moment, the next wave, will happen in a different market. It's not going to happen with a device that is really just a Windows-powered PC; that ship has sailed. And, sorry folks, ...

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