Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged mistakes with Windows Phone and the company’s departure from smartphone competition. He’s not the first manager to think they could have done things better.

In the headquarters in Redmond, the fiasco of its mobile platform and the world’s largest software manufacturer are still hurting it left the way clear for Google and Apple to be able to share this important market and, by the way, orphan the users we consider necessary, the presence of a third alternative (or more) that would avoid the current duopoly. Nadella, interview with Business Insider After receiving the Axel Springer 2023 prize, he talked about it along with other current topics such as the purchase of the Activision group or the push he is making in generative AI.

Windows Phone, Microsoft’s biggest mistake this century

“Is there a real strategic mistake or just a bad decision that you regret in retrospect?”they asked Nadella. The leader pointed to Windows Phone / Mobile without qualms: “I think the decision that a lot of people are talking about (and one of the hardest decisions I made when I became CEO) was our departure from what I’ll call mobile as it was defined at the time. In retrospect, I think there may have been ways to make this happen reinventing the computing category between computers, tablets and phones«.

Would it be possible or was it too late? When Satya Nadella replaced Steve Ballmer as Microsoft’s CEO in 2014, he found himself in disrepute with the mobile platform, writing off nearly $8 billion related to Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia just a year later. It was the end of the Windows Mobile platform, but the future may have been written years before.

Bill Gates recognized in his time that Windows Phone / Mobile was “the biggest mistake in the history of Microsoft”. He attributed it “distraction” due to an antitrust lawsuit brought against Microsoft by United States regulators in 1998, but the reality is that Apple’s launch of the iPhone took Microsoft by surprise. And other big companies like Nokia itself, which they bought when it was already in bankruptcy. Just like Motorola, HTC or BlackBerry.

The attempt to justify Bill Gates has little support. Others like Google, a small company at the turn of the century compared to Microsoft, saw the revolution coming and prepared for it, first by funding and then by acquiring Android Inc. to develop it into a leader in mobility and crush Windows. in the number of connected devices a few years later.

Simply, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer prioritized other projects and when they wanted to respond the future was written. The Nokia purchase was the beginning of the end. Microsoft became its own company to sell mobile phones, manufacturers took it as a threat, suspended Windows Phone licensing and decided on Android.

Ballmer was also unable to respond. to the iPhone by calling “world’s most expensive phone that can’t respond to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard”. A strategic mistake that was later repeated on Android. The executive admitted in 2013 that he regretted not focusing his attention on mobile phones much earlier: “I regret that there was a period in the early 2000s when we were so focused on what to do with Vista that we couldn’t redeploy talent to these new devices.”.

You know the rest of the story. Microsoft has decided on Android as “its” system for mobility; made its own launcher; created high-profile mobile apps; they signed contracts with giants like Samsung to include their software and services in their terminals; launched its own Surface Duo smartphone and improves the connection (transparent and synchronized) between mobile phones and computers.

But it still doesn’t have its own mobile operating system Many of us find this situation unbelievable considering the potential of Microsoft and the massive presence of Windows in other environments such as the desktop. Will we ever see a new Windows Phone?