Gates: Microsoft's smartphone strategy was a "mistake"

2. AnTuTu (Posts: 1580; Member since: 14 Oct 2012)

I believe what Gates has said is right.

5. _Bone_ (Posts: 2155; Member since: 29 Oct 2012)

The numbers show (or rather the lack of) that Gates was right. He's not saying it was bad to enter the cellphone business, but when and how was a mistake, probably referring to the lack of fluidity, app support and mass appeal compared to iOS and Android. He's hardly criticizing the CURRENT crop of Windows phones because W8 got it right, but it's a long road ahead to catch-up on the rivals.

13. rusticguy (Posts: 2828; Member since: 11 Aug 2012)

If they have the cash to fund 24 billion deal for Dell why couldn't hey have spent some 5 billion on APPS? Money talks but they thought WINDOWS Talks and failed in that process ... now trying to find excuses :)

WP did not fail ... it's brand WINDOWS that failed and that's what hurting everyone's ego at TOP. They failed to realise that generation that grew up playing Solitaire on WINDOWS is reaching retirment age :)

33. cretinick (Posts: 148; Member since: 25 Jan 2011)

"lack of fluidity"???

15. papss (unregistered)

Mr Jerry = troll

19. MrJerry (Posts: 403; Member since: 05 Oct 2012)

Don't stalk me babe

48. Johnnokia (Posts: 1144; Member since: 27 May 2012)

Windows phone is having the sight of success because of Nokia and its great reputation

56. Nathan_ingx (Posts: 4321; Member since: 07 Mar 2012)

"Gates admitted that the way Microsoft ENTERED the cellphone business did not allow the company to take a leadership role. According to the executive, this means that Microsoft's strategy was 'clearly a mistake.'"
Read the first capped word...you'll get it.
I think what Gates says is not related with WP8 or WP7...or the OS. He's talking about how the company launched themself into the smartphone business. Nothing to do with Nokia...

61. jsdechavez (Posts: 758; Member since: 20 Jul 2012)

you know how some people get really shallow here...

69. MrJerry (Posts: 403; Member since: 05 Oct 2012)

We are only guessing

He couldnt just say "Nokia is failure" could he?

65. jroc74 (Posts: 6019; Member since: 30 Dec 2010)

You know some ppl actually do consider WP as them entering the cellphone business...lol. Trying to rationalize the long road ahead for WP n all.

But...when they came in the cellphone business....them, BB, Palm were the top dogs. With BB and Win Mo being 1 and 2 at one point. I think Win Mo made it to #1 at one point.

I dont think they way they came is was the problem....what they did after getting in was the bigger problem. They waited too late to do things. Saw what was going on around them with other companies....and reacted too late.

70. MrJerry (Posts: 403; Member since: 05 Oct 2012)

Nothing to do with Nokia???

Are you serious?

yoy basicaly think he meant it is all MS's fault and Nokia is just great???
And you have 5 thumbs up
You guys are sick do u know that? lol

71. Nathan_ingx (Posts: 4321; Member since: 07 Mar 2012)

So you're bothered about my 5 thumbs upwards and you're not about your 19 and 14 down?

64. shikroi (Posts: 187; Member since: 24 Sep 2012)

You mean the only mistake they didn't make was choosing nokia. With nokia controlling the lions share of wp and being the primary mover of wp, whithout them I doubt wp would even have even 1 percent market share.

If there is any mistake here its nokia going only with wp and microsoft continuously failing to be ahead of the curve in os tech. I mean how could the not see the 1080p and 4k push and include support for it? Why is their no file system in wp? I still can't port a pdf to my wp and read it unless I download it directly on the phone and some files are to big to download on a phone. Why is microsoft lagging behind in support for their own platform by not aggressively pushing xbox games? Why is it that I still cant choose the exact colors I want my tiles and background in because ms still feels they should dictate the colors I use? Wouldn't and rgb color slider have sufficed? Where is my notification center? Wp8, rt, and pro are supposed to be connected and similar, yet I still don't feel that. In fact if wp8 was anything like rt minus the desktop, recovery partition, other desktop stuff etc; it would be a whole lot better and its not like that is impossible to achieve. Microsoft even missed the flash support boat for their phones. Though html5 is supposed to be the future, in the present all the sites I visit on my 920 have content I cant view because their is no flash support. I cant even watch anime without using an app.

17. MrJerry (Posts: 403; Member since: 05 Oct 2012)

He is talking about "Smartphone Strategy"

He mentioned;
"We didn’t miss cell phones, but the way that we went about it didn’t allow us to get the leadership"

So the strategy to pick Nokia as main device for their OS is the "Mistake"

41. Izoe (Posts: 142; Member since: 02 Sep 2010)

Doesn't necessarily mean choosing Nokia was a mistake, might be referring to the fact that it took so long for them to revamp the windows mobile platform. I mean it was practically dead (in a far worse position than blackberry) before they finally came up with the windows phone 7 operating system. If they had done it two years earlier, WP would have been a much stronger contender than it is now. We are seeing the same thing with apple at the moment. they are too content/comfortable with the way the ios is even though it is now quite stale. This is because they currently have a large market share. However this can change anytime (the demand for their products) if they fail to evolve ios to match the increasing demands and needs of users. Complacency has been the downfall of many top businesses, just ask Nokia and Blackberry.

44. jroc74 (Posts: 6019; Member since: 30 Dec 2010)

"Doesn't necessarily mean choosing Nokia was a mistake, might be referring to the fact that it took so long for them to revamp the windows mobile platform."

Bingo.

21. 14545 (Posts: 1676; Member since: 22 Nov 2011)

WinMo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>WinPhone

By a long margin. They should have freshened WinMo instead of going in a completely different direction and alienating those of us that are/were windows mobile users. I would consider going to back to a new version of WinMo, but WinPhone is ugly, terrible, and basically useless compared to iOS and Android.

42. -box- (Posts: 3991; Member since: 04 Jan 2012)

It would have required a revamp from the ground up, which is essentially what WP7.5 was (both based off Windows CE) and 8 even more so, and it was a horrid UI for the time (I tried using an acquaintance's Samsung Blackjack to see how it compared a few weeks ago) and utterly pathetic now. Technically WP is more capable than ios, looks and moves better, and actually has a future over the next few years.

57. darac (Posts: 2156; Member since: 17 Oct 2011)

Have to agree here.
Windows mobile was far and away better than Android was, in the moment they dropped it.

60. darac (Posts: 2156; Member since: 17 Oct 2011)

Just check out HTC HD 2 in depth reviews.

The thing is, geniuses at Microsoft were in awe by the iPhone' success and they rightfully concluded it's because of the relative simplicity, smoothnes, and ease of use compared to WM and Android. But that was extremely partial understanding of the phenomenon.
So they went to extreme there, starting completely from scratch and killing off the ecosystem and market share that was already there.
They also killed off every feature they could think off, resulting in a completely impotent OS that had the abilities of iOS, but no apps.
In the meantime, Android was improving at a rapid pace and, fueled by its open nature, started to spread like a wildfire..and that process is still underway

68. Aeires (unregistered)

And lumped the PC side into that same move, thereby making W8 a terrible UI compared to the previous versions. While I understand cross platform uniformity, I'm not interested in upgrading to W8 at all. On a phone it's not my cup of tea but it works well enough, just don't want that on my computer desktop.

14. rusticguy (Posts: 2828; Member since: 11 Aug 2012)

Dell to follow and is in QUEUE

34. babyk (Posts: 323; Member since: 03 Nov 2011)

LOL very true