> While it may be true that the OS itself isn't really a cash cow anymore (if it ever was), I still think Microsoft's greatest failure of the previous decade was exiting the smartphone OS space and ceding it to Google and Apple.
I mean, Microsoft was too early and too late on smartphones. I never cared to look into the pre WP7 history.
But the more recent Windows Phone died with WM10, which I don't think is fair to blame on Balmer. WM10 came out in public beta in Feburary 2015, and Balmer was replaced in February 2014. Microsoft eliminated their legendary testing program in August 2014, and the WM10 betas and release in November 2015 had very poor quality. On my phones, I had to choose between annoying bugs in notifications in WP8 or WM10 with a subpar, laggy experience with mobile Edge that managed to be worse than mobile IE. They did manage to get a decent final release together in 2020, although mobile Edge was still crap. You can blame Balmer for not letting Firefox on their app store, I think; a browser that didn't suck would have helped me stay on WP longer anyway.
Still, I think Continuum with an x86 phone could have gotten market share, but Intel cancelled atom for phones in April 2016.
I tried various "weird phones" on my way to standard Android, among them a high-end WinCE phone (Xperia X1a) and a WP8 one (Lumia 520). Make no mistake about it, WP8 was a good mobile OS, even if they did stick the dreaded "Windows" name in there. Smooth, reliable, battery efficient, well-thought-out UI. But alas, too late. By then Android had captured the "not iOS" market and it would have taken a miracle to bring a third OS to the mainstream.
I very briefly tried WP10, and it actually seemed a step backwards; in their desperate attempt to somehow unify the desktop and phone thing, be it in code base or user experience or whatever, they tried too hard.
Yeah, the idea that Nadella killed Windows Phone only makes sense in the context of Windows Phone already having failed under Ballmer.
I was a Windows Phone user during 8 and 8.1. There was a short period where I felt like some traction was taking place. My bank even had a Windows Phone app, until they didn’t.
Windows 8.1 was the most competitive version against contemporaries, but then the delays and issues surrounding 10 really took the wind out of those sails.
My perspective as a consumer is that Microsoft buying Nokia seemed to have made Nokia worse and delayed their phone development process. I found myself without any upgrade path, while Apple and Samsung users could get a pretty significant upgrade in capability every year at that time.
Nokia was also better at making low-end phones and had very few flagship products that were iPhone and Galaxy competitors.
On the business side Microsoft didn’t focus on having their entire lineup available on all four US carriers. They had all these weird carrier exclusives where getting a new Windows Phone would mean switching carriers.
I have to think that the break in compatibility between Windows 7 and 8 really screwed over developer relations as well. On the Apple side they were delivering an experience very familiar to Mac developers, and on the Android side the experience was an open source free-for-all playground.
That's exactly it. There were a bunch of hardcore Windows dev shops getting ready to support Windows Phone who jumped on WP7, ready to dig down, but who felt betrayed when WP8 was a clean break. You lose that hardcore bunch, then you are just evaluated on the generics and Windows Phone had no edge.
WP8 was compatible with Silverlight (ie. WP7) apps. The problem was splitting app model into half-abandoned Silverlight and new WinRT, and not providing WP8 upgrade to any WP7 phones.
I mean, Microsoft was too early and too late on smartphones. I never cared to look into the pre WP7 history.
But the more recent Windows Phone died with WM10, which I don't think is fair to blame on Balmer. WM10 came out in public beta in Feburary 2015, and Balmer was replaced in February 2014. Microsoft eliminated their legendary testing program in August 2014, and the WM10 betas and release in November 2015 had very poor quality. On my phones, I had to choose between annoying bugs in notifications in WP8 or WM10 with a subpar, laggy experience with mobile Edge that managed to be worse than mobile IE. They did manage to get a decent final release together in 2020, although mobile Edge was still crap. You can blame Balmer for not letting Firefox on their app store, I think; a browser that didn't suck would have helped me stay on WP longer anyway.
Still, I think Continuum with an x86 phone could have gotten market share, but Intel cancelled atom for phones in April 2016.