Why did Microsoft fail with smartphones?

[JEDI]

1) they should have creamed Google in the smartphone operating system last decade.
they should have beaten Android when smartphones were coming of age.
Microsoft was many times bigger than Google at the time.

2) then They paid BIG $Billions$ to buy Nokia, the dominant smart phone manufacturer at the time of purchase.
Nokia is now worth ~$0.

WHAT HAPPENED?
incompetence?!
lack of Bill Gates leadership?

 

[Artdeco]

If only there were a forum just for smartphones

 

[Greenman]

And the survey says: Windows.

 

[Artdeco]

And the survey says: Ballmer.

Fixed that for you.

 

[shortylickens]

The same reason you fail with posting.

 

[Imp]

Lulz, u loosers wit yous non-Apple bling bling. Loosers. All of yous.

 

[Anubis]

they could not compete with the speed that android was updating itself, both from googles end and from samsung and the like pumping out new phones every other month

too slow on both hardware and software updates

 

[Double Trouble]

MS has sat on their laurels for at least two decades making money from Windows and Office. They didn't see the landscape changing under their feet quick enough, and windows is simply not a very good match for a phone, especially early smart phones that were not as powerful is current ones. Windows isn't lightweight and simple, and is pretty terrible at being controlled on a small touch screen. It took MS waaaaaaaay to long to figure out how to make a workable small device OS.

 

[Artdeco]

RIMM and MS didn't take the iPhone seriously until they'd lost the game, then Android crushed them both

https://youtu.be/eywi0h_Y5_U

 

[shabby]

RIMM and MS didn't take the iPhone seriously until they'd lost the game, then Android crushed them both

https://youtu.be/eywi0h_Y5_U

Is it me or did balmer think the only people that bought phones were people in business?

 

[Crono]

The network effect. You need to have a significantly better platform and many reasons for people to switch once they are locked into or highly invested in a platform. iOS and Android weren't/aren't stagnating, either, so Microsoft would really have needed a lot of momentum, power, and money to spur app development and get users to switch, or come up with some "must have" innovations... which aren't easy to come up with.

 

[OutHouse]

Is it me or did balmer think the only people that bought phones were people in business?

Same with blackberry.

 

[Artdeco]

Is it me or did balmer think the only people that bought phones were people in business?

He was right, consumers weren't buying smartphones yet, to be honest, Jobs really didn't understand what the iPhone would evolve into, he'd just combined an iPod and a phone.

Apple didn't make the App Store available till 2008, a year after the iPhone launched.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Apple has brand cachet. Google has the hardware manufacturers. Microsoft has neither.

 

[Crono]

He was right, consumers weren't buying smartphones yet, to be honest, Jobs really didn't understand what the iPhone would evolve into, he'd just combined an iPod and a phone.

Apple didn't make the App Store available till 2008, a year after the iPhone launched.

The success of the iPhone comes down to Apple being smart and quick on implementing capacitive multitouch in a phone (though it wasn't the first capacitive touch phone - apparently LG's Prada was, and they even claimed Apple copied part of their design). The iPhone wasn't a very good phone in any other respect, except for having an elegant physical design/body. Having premium-quality designs will only get you so far, though (just ask Sony) - it's really shifting phones to a touch-friendly interface that gave birth to the "smartphone". App stores had already existed in one form or another prior to Apple introducing theirs, though I doubt the iPhone would have been successful had not Apple added it to the first iPhone.

Apple having a decent headstart against Android and the other OS' that were born or redesigned after iOS launched is really why they are (still) a huge force in the smartphone market.

 

[Artdeco]

The success of the iPhone comes down to Apple being smart and quick on implementing capacitive multitouch in a phone. The iPhone wasn't a very good in any other respect, except for having an elegant physical design/body.

Android sucked all the oxygen out of the room, covered all the price points, no where for other OS's to hide. Apple had gone/stayed upscale, and carved out a niche, but everyone else was suffocated.

 

[madoka]

There's the attitude and foresight of management at the time:

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance," said Ballmer. "It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."

 

[Red Squirrel]

I always thought it was odd too that they did so poorly. One thing they do have an advantage with on mobile is the ability to put a real operating system, that already has compatibility, instead of everyone having to reinvent the wheel to make an app for each phone. Then again this idea kinda failed as that's what they tried with windows 8 and it ended up being completely unusable on desktop.

 

[Artdeco]

I think MS needs to carefully consider where it's going in the future, I get the distinct impression Alphabet wants to skullf&@k them, they actually played nice with Apple, I think what they want to do to MS is pretty brutal.

 

[Artdeco]

I always thought it was odd too that they did so poorly. One thing they do have an advantage with on mobile is the ability to put a real operating system, that already has compatibility, instead of everyone having to reinvent the wheel to make an app for each phone. Then again this idea kinda failed as that's what they tried with windows 8 and it ended up being completely unusable on desktop.

MS and BB were complacent, and couldn't conceive of the disruption Apple and Google brought to the sector, and they couldn't imagine nearly 100% of adults in developed countries carrying around a wirelessly connected pocket computer

 

[Artdeco]

LOL, now in gadgets, que the "Windows on mobile isn't dead, ir's just taking a nap." apologists...

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

Developers? Hardware OEMs? So, they were just late.
What they did right on desktop, they fuked up on mobile.

 

[sweenish]

LOL, now in gadgets, que the "Windows on mobile isn't dead, ir's just taking a nap." apologists...

While I won't go that far, I do think that WP still has the greatest potential of all 3. If a Surface gets announced, I will pay close attention.

 

[stockwiz]

They were simply late to the game and rather than make a separate operating system for mobile they butchered their windows product and tried to make an all in one solution which to me seemed like a horrible idea right from the start. Now their market share in mobile is basically going down to zero and their windows desktop product is getting criticism as well leading some people to consider linux or try to modify the OS to eliminate all the "app" elements and preserve the old desktop look.

I don't see them ever regaining mobile market share, ever. Apple and android have the market. They simply screwed up and didn't anticipate... time will tell if they can make something of what they have left.

 

[WelshBloke]

The network effect. You need to have a significantly better platform and many reasons for people to switch once they are locked into or highly invested in a platform. iOS and Android weren't/aren't stagnating, either, so Microsoft would really have needed a lot of momentum, power, and money to spur app development and get users to switch, or come up with some "must have" innovations... which aren't easy to come up with.

You have to remember that Windows mobile (at one point long, long ago) was the number one mobile os in the US with 40% of the market.

They were just way too complacent about their competitors, then suffered from the inertia to change that MS always suffers. Microsoft has never been the most nimble of companies. They get there in the end but it takes them ages. This doesn't matter so much in a mature market where you're a big player but it can be fatal in a rapidly changing market. It just takes one disruptive force to make you have to reconsider all your plans, and the mobile market has been a succession of disruptive forces.