http://liliputing.com/2014/02/asus-transformer-pad-tf502t-launches-in-taiwan-...

This is another case where Windows RT is being replaced by Android so the vendor can actually sell the units.

What makes this case is different is the vendor is admitting freely what they are doing.

If you remember correctly, Microsoft wanted all RT machines to be locked down in such a way that you could not change the operating system.  
Asus has cracked this lock down system and knows how to do it and could tell others.

The dry rustlng sounds you hear up in the eves is Microsoft's various lawyers unfurling their wings getting ready to feed .....

Microsoft is up against the wall.   Nadella has told the crew to fix Windows Phone right frick'n now or he will spike it and go down another pathway.

Net-based pundits have been buzzing that MS personnel are joining various net communities all over the place anonymously,  scoping out FOSS possibilities for MS to rip off.

Open Source Android and Open Source Chrome OS projects have been tapped before by rip-off companies.   Amazon is notorious for having forked Open Source Android in to a locked down commercial enterprise by taking the open source Android project as a chunk and then modifying to lock it up totally.

Amazon would be in violation of the GNU free software license agreement because they have not returned all the modified code back to the community.   However, Android is licensed under the Apache 2.0 Software license which allows you to modify and then NOT SHARE your modifications.

Still, this lack of FOSS good citizenship has been pretty much ignored up to this point because Amazon really doesn't do much evil except in playing favorites with their own Kindle tablets and Amazon prime free movies -- but they do actually offer support to I-Pads, so they can claim they are not acting monopolistically in what they are doing.

Actually, they also claim that a lack of standards in Android hardware makes it too hard for them to include Android.  
This is unfortunately true, and it is very very true for the Chinese Android tablets.

Microsoft, should they do the same sort of thing, will be ripping off and locking down an entire functional world of Android -- which will not be able to be ignored, but unfortunately would be allowed by the Apache 2.0 license.  

Some old school ex-Netscape folks and some old school IBM OS 2 folks are signaling that there is a real danger to Android right now, because when MS grabs onto something and then claims it belongs to them now it is very hard to dislodge them.    

Windows 1.0 originated in the IBM/Microsoft fracas over OS 2,  when Microsoft took what they wanted and wrapped their arms around it and said "MINE !!!".

By the time Windows 3.1 rolled around MS was out there suing people over the use of the "re-sizable windows" idea although Bell Palto Alto Labs invented windows originally (yep, even before Apple had it)  and IBM owned various patents on moveable/resizeable OS 2 window technology which predated Windows 1.0  ....


=====================


There are many many reasons why Android needs to grow a set of I/O standards and have a standard enforceable FOSS license as well.  

Keeping MS from just grabbing it and making it theirs is another good one.

School systems are going to ChromeBooks and rented over the net softwares for K-12 students as it is MUCH cheaper to do that than the MS "buy everything" business model.
Above copied from post 2...

I could only WISH the schools were using PC/Windows... are you kidding me?? No my friend, its $1000 MacBook Air! Bring on the Chromebook... PLEASE!!!  

Bill Gates is and always will be a lawyer. He built MS using the law.. not tech. DOS was bought from DR for $50k.  GUI was stolen from Palo as you stated ( by both MS and Apple).

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/07/satya-nadella-mobile-window...




"The Android Open Source Project offers Microsoft the chance to remake its mobile strategy so that it exploits all the strengths of its most bitter rival – it’s free, widely available – and can grab mobile developer interest.

An all-out war between Microsoft and Google using the Android platform would be absolutely fascinating; both would be pressed on their strengths and weaknesses. For Microsoft, presently a distant third in this race, it could be the answer it needs.

It’s highly likely smarter minds have already considered this – and that Nokia’s “Normandy” phone, said to run Android with Microsoft add-ins is the very first beachhead in this war. (The codename would make sense.)

My only fear is that while Nadella might have the vision and audacity to do this, that one voice in the Microsoft boardroom would resist throwing away years of effort.

But let’s hope if this idea comes up that Bill Gates, in his new role as “technical adviser”, will see the potential in it - and won’t reject it as being “un-Microsoft”.


Me. I feel that if Microsoft isn't a large bulk player six months from now the WHOLE worldwide smart phone market will be 7/8 filled up totally tight by the time they do get in and Microsoft will be dicing for the last crumbs off the plate when the wedding cake has already been eaten.

Microsoft is not set up to do a full set of Google server based set of services right now.   This puts them months and months away from a new Windroid phone OS.

And unless MS stupidly tried to lock down the upcoming Windroid phones hardware-wise so they cannot be changed (see Windows RT for how well that worked out for them last time) most folks would just opt to buy the very least expensive, best feature set that is the BEST phone hardware available and then root it and put whatever OS they wanted on it.

China hates you, MS -- so don't plan on getting much penetration there.



..... and how is it again you plan to charge people lots of money for a free operating system from the Android Open Source Project ???  

Oh, so you plan to lock them into an app store that you own that charges lots of money for all the other free app software ???    

Wow -- that makes a lot of sense now, don't it ????