According to The Verge, it looks like Microsoft is going to pull a Blackberry. And what I mean by that, is they are looking to support Android apps on Windows Phone. Which Blackberry did just recently. The Verge’s Tom Warren, reports from unnamed sources that Microsoft is “seriously considering” bringing support for Android apps to their Windows and Windows Phone platforms. Right now discussions are said to be ongoing within Microsoft, and the opinion within the company is divided, the move could be a possible way for Microsoft to gain more of the popular apps on their phones, while still running their own OS.
Obviously this would only be like a “band-aid” for Windows Phone. As it wouldn’t be as smooth as running Windows Phone apps. But it could definitely help out Microsoft in gaining a bit more market share and getting more developers on-board. As of right now, they’ve had no such luck with courting developers to develop for Windows Phone. They’ve even gone out and paid developers to make apps, and that didn’t work. As of Q4 2013, Microsoft owned just 3% of the smartphone market worldwide, while Android is around 74%.
You may have heard of Bluestacks before. They actually got Android and Windows to play nicely already. Then there are manufacturers like ASUS who are putting out dual-OS devices like the new Transformer that they showed off at CES, which runs Android 4.3 and Windows 8.1. As far as Microsoft is concerned, they even reached out to HTC to have them install Windows Phone on their Android devices and have them dual-boot the two OS’. Although that was just a rumor, and didn’t actually happen.
It would be interesting to see how well Microsoft could get Android apps to work on Windows Phone and how seamless it would be. If it’s nice and smooth, it might be a great idea. Hopefully we’ll hear more about this relatively soon.
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