JOIN USIs MS using Xiaomi to grab market for Windows 10?
A recent announcement by Microsoft allowing power users of the Xiaomi Mi4 handset to flash Windows 10 as a ROM has set the cat among the pigeons.
Tech bloggers are reading many meanings into this, considering that the Windows Phone operating system has a tiny 2.8 per cent market share for smartphones, compared with Anroid (76.6 per cent) and iOS (19.7 per cent), according to IDC stats for Q4 of 2014.
To flash a ROM means to install a modified version of the Android OS on a user smartphone. Google gave users this flexibility because different vendors may not be selling handsets with the latest version of Android (currently lollipop). But over time, this has given users the flexibility to install other custom versions of Android like CyanogenMod, MIUI, etc.
Mi4 is Xiaomi’s flagship smartphone, which is also available in India. Windows 10, the latest operating system from Microsoft which has a scheduled mid-2015 release, intends to serve both desktop and mobile devices.
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced the launch of Windows 10 in its official Windows blog, and innocuously mentioned in passing that “through a new programme with Xiaomi, one of the top smartphone distributors in the world, a select group of Xiaomi Mi 4 power users will be invited to help test Windows 10 and contribute to its future release later this year.
These power users will have the opportunity to download the Windows 10 Technical Preview — installing it and providing their feedback to Microsoft.” According to Techcrunch, this is a toned down version of the original comment which read that “Xiaomi Mi4 users will get the ability to flash their phones with the new Windows 10 OS”.
‘Experimental’
Is this an attempt by Microsoft to grab market share? When contacted by Deccan Herald, Xiaomi’s global vice president Hugo Barra said, “We believe Microsoft’s announcement has led to some confusion in the media. This is an experimental programme entirely led by Microsoft, working directly with select members of our Xiaomi fan community in China.
Microsoft will create a custom build of Windows 10 and provide it to select Mi4 power users who are already familiar with re-flashing their devices with custom ROMs. This is not a commercial partnership announcement and Xiaomi continues to fully embrace the Android ecosystem through our MIUI software platform.”
Amit Misra, chief of DazeInfo, an industry analyst for Fortune 500 companies, said for any mobile OS developer, Xiaomi smartphones are the best devices to test the real capabilities of their own OS. “Here, Mi4 being the flagship device of Xiaomi, Microsoft has tried to target the best. If Windows 10 works on Mi4 without any lags or glitches, it could be the best OS for all Android devices as well as Microsoft devices out in the market,” he said.
Xiomi has sold one million devices in India within a short span of six months ending in mid-December and notched the fifth position in the market.