Satya Nadella is the third Microsoft CEO within the company to admit in the last 10 years that leaving the smartphone market was a mistake.

Since Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella succeeded the eccentric Steve Ballmer in 2014, he has never publicly commented on Microsoft’s failure to conquer the mobile market. He does this for the first time in an interview with Business Insider.

“The decision that I think a lot of people are talking about – one of the most difficult decisions I had to make as CEO – was our exit from the mobile segment. Looking back, we should have found other ways to bridge the gap between PCs, tablets and phones.”

Ultimately, it took until 2017, two years after the mobile division was killed, for Windows Phone to be officially declared dead. Since this decision, Microsoft has made an attempt with the Surface Duo (2020) and the Surface Duo 2 (2021), but for now it remains quiet about a possible successor.

For the third time it was my fault

Nadella is the third Microsoft CEO to admit the company made mistakes in conquering the mobile market. Bill Gates said in 2019 that losing the battle against Android was his biggest mistake ever.

Steve Ballmer said in 2013 that he regretted not focusing on the mobile segment sooner. During the iPhone launch, the eccentric CEO joked that Apple was the most expensive phone on the market and wasn’t focused on business customers because it didn’t have a physical keyboard. The salient fragment, which he would later deeply regret, can be seen here.

Today, Microsoft is focusing on apps for Android and iOS. The company regularly updates Phone Link to link smartphones to Windows and has a close relationship with Samsung to pre-install Office apps on their Android devices.