My colleague Javier Lacort was talking a few hours ago about how much Microsoft needs developers. I think it needs something even more important.

You need your own mobile phone. A new Windows Phone.

The reason is simple. The company seems to have invested its future in artificial intelligence. Their investments in both OpenAI and data centers spread across the planet demonstrate this. But this may not be enough.

It doesn’t matter that co-pilots are everywhere. Whether they inherit Windows 11, Azure or Microsoft 365. Copilot+ with artificial intelligence has now become a striking and disturbing purchasing argument for the new era of computers.

And there’s a simple reason for this; The computer cannot compete with the mobile phone.

And Microsoft is a nobody on mobile.

Is he sad? reality: Google and Apple share that cake With Android and iOS and Microsoft’s role in this area is no longer there. They offer access to their ecosystem, but they do so knowing they are losing the war.

Bing can’t compete with Google, Outlook doesn’t matter much when Gmail or Mail are pre-installed on Android or iOS phones respectively, and the same goes for many other tools in those ecosystems.

Source: Cade Lin.

It doesn’t matter if they are better or worse than Android and iOS: they do not compete on equal terms because there are already other pre-installed natives that provide feedback to Google and Apple platforms. It’s the ecosystem that matters, and on mobile phones Microsoft’s ecosystem is practically irrelevant.

It’s not just scary looking back, it’s scary looking forward too. Microsoft had already lost the mobility war long before it acquired Nokia and threw in the towel.

This has been very costly for Microsoft, but this gap does not stop growing: Every day that passes without its own mobile platform is a day in which Microsoft loses relevance and money.

However, it is still true that the company did not perform badly despite this fiasco in mobile. Microsoft is currently the most important company in the world by market cap, but it could be much more significant.

It has a big draw with its commitment to AI, but the problem is that all its efforts probably aren’t enough to win over mobile users. Google and Apple will take care of it. The first one has already shown his cards with Gemini. We’ll find out next Monday what the latter proposes.

However, in both cases, the future is clear: If artificial intelligence is successful, Google will be the one we will use on our Android phones, and Apple will be the one we will use on our iOS phones. Neither one nor the other will allow a third party to steal their wallet.. Not on such an important issue.

In fact, Microsoft is already worried, and rightly so. A few days ago, when OpenAI introduced its new model GPT-4o, it did so by offering native ChatGPT clients for iOS and macOS. They said Windows would come “later” without specifying.

How is this possible? OpenAI apparently doesn’t care that Microsoft is investing billions of dollars in it: When these native apps were released with flashy options for “talking” to ChatGPT, the company co-founded by Sam Altman simply looked the other way. Their claim was simply that they “prioritize their users’ location.”

Microsoft should make mobile phones again

This is a very bad sign for Microsoft, which has certainly had a lot of gains in the PC world but not in the mobile world. The probably crazy solution is simple.

HE Microsoft is relaunching Windows Phone.

This challenge is undoubtedly huge, especially at this point when it seems difficult to think of competing with Google and Apple. However, things have changed a lot in recent years in both hardware and software.

Source: Neowin.

The only notable thing when it comes to hardware is that Microsoft doesn’t have its own mobile chip. There are already AI chips, but this will depend on manufacturers like Qualcomm in this department, at least in the short to medium term. This is not a big problem: most manufacturers (including Samsung) do this.

In the software department, things are even more interesting: the launch of Copilot+ PCs showed that Microsoft’s Windows 11 is already fully ready for ARM. There’s not even a mention of “Windows 11 ARM” on these computers, and whether the version is x86 or ARM, it’s the only operating system for the company. This seems to make it reasonable to adapt Windows 11 ARM to mobile phones.

The second component will be native applications, and it does not seem too difficult to think that Microsoft’s Edge, Bing Maps, Outlook, Office 365 can be adapted to the screens of our mobile phones.

The third most problematic component will be third-party applications. It’s hard to imagine that millions of developers are now betting on a third platform, but perhaps there’s no need: Windows 11 is compatible with Android apps.

But there may be other options, such as promoting progressive web applications (PWAs). Of course, the performance, quality, and fluidity of the experience may not match that of native apps, but at least the option will be available.

A Microsoft mobile phone with Microsoft AI

This effort would certainly be massive for Microsoft, and this crazy idea isn’t actually new. It has been brought up before and this possibility has been talked about in the past as well. This is proven by some videos and conceptual images, such as the one below, from some designers in recent years.

If Microsoft relaunched Windows Phone, it would have another opportunity in the mobility space. It’s impossible to know whether the app will be notable enough to compete, but what is certain is that with Windows Phone, the company will have an excellent tool to compete with in the future.

Suddenly you can power both your current and future ecosystem. And definitely This is where artificial intelligence will come into play.In the absence of glasses, it looks like they will take over our mobile phones, and it will no longer be Google’s on Android or Apple’s on iOS, but Microsoft on Windows Phone.

However, it should not be forgotten that the company is currently trying to return to the mobile market. It did so with the Surface Duo, but the Android-based foldable dual-screen device was a colossal failure. The approach here needs to be very different and be implemented by Windows Phone with its own operating system, Windows 11 ARM-based.

Considering how much Microsoft has invested in this area, it does not seem attractive to risk being dependent on its competitors. And restart Windows Phone anyway seems like a crazy idea.

Or not?

Image | Cade Lin

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