Press F to pay respects: Microsoft to complete Windows Phone wind-down by June

Trixanity · May 3, 2017

8 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

Are you referring to the post I made or the Previewers thread?

Neither. My post was deliberately vague although not very well written in hindsight.

It was a statement on the fact that while we frequently see threads that discuss Windows Mobile negatively, there are just as many doing the opposite.

So is it fair to exclude one and not the other?

For the record though: I wasn't thinking of you when I wrote that comment.

Commodus · May 3, 2017

8 hours ago, mr moose said:

MS was the leader in smartphones from inception to 2007, when apple and android hit the shelves there was really nothing left to implement (Business being their target demographic). The only thing left to do was improve the hardware, something MS had no control of. Android is free so phone makers went with that. Apple was never going to release a windows phone. The only thing MS could have realistically done to maintain phone OS market would be to give it away. Why do that when they don't even need it as an income stream. I really don't think a complete over haul would have changed the outcome.

It absolutely would have.

You're making the same mistake that Microsoft, BlackBerry, Palm and Nokia made: the assumption that they'd somehow reached an end point, that there wasn't much more they could do. The iPhone revolutionized the market because it had a fundamentally superior interface, and took the mobile internet seriously (remember the days when you were happy just to have a WAP browser?). It showed that smartphones didn't have to just be for business, and that you didn't have to settle for awkward controls. Those concepts aren't mutually incompatible with business devices.

Imagine if Windows Phone 7 had shown up in mid-2009, or even late 2008. It would have preempted Android's big moment (the Motorola Droid) and lured in some of those vendors that wanted something competitive with the iPhone. It wouldn't necessarily have prevented Android from hitting the big time, but it might have given Microsoft a foothold that it absolutely needed. Instead, the company showed up in late 2010, when the market had already consolidated around Apple and Google.

And when you say "don't even need it as an income stream," I think that illustrates part of the problem. Microsoft under Ballmer was extremely short-sighted -- he could only envision a world where PCs dominated the tech landscape for all eternity. Because Microsoft didn't "need" phones, it ended up missing out on the most important technological shift in the past 10 years, if not since the invention of the PC. It went from controlling a large chunk of the industry's direction to just some of it (albeit some important parts). Ballmer recently said that missing out on mobile was one of his biggest mistakes as Microsoft CEO, and I believe him.

mr moose · May 3, 2017

6 hours ago, Commodus said:

It absolutely would have.

You're making the same mistake that Microsoft, BlackBerry, Palm and Nokia made: the assumption that they'd somehow reached an end point, that there wasn't much more they could do. The iPhone revolutionized the market because it had a fundamentally superior interface, and took the mobile internet seriously (remember the days when you were happy just to have a WAP browser?). It showed that smartphones didn't have to just be for business, and that you didn't have to settle for awkward controls. Those concepts aren't mutually incompatible with business devices.

Imagine if Windows Phone 7 had shown up in mid-2009, or even late 2008. It would have preempted Android's big moment (the Motorola Droid) and lured in some of those vendors that wanted something competitive with the iPhone. It wouldn't necessarily have prevented Android from hitting the big time, but it might have given Microsoft a foothold that it absolutely needed. Instead, the company showed up in late 2010, when the market had already consolidated around Apple and Google.

And when you say "don't even need it as an income stream," I think that illustrates part of the problem. Microsoft under Ballmer was extremely short-sighted -- he could only envision a world where PCs dominated the tech landscape for all eternity. Because Microsoft didn't "need" phones, it ended up missing out on the most important technological shift in the past 10 years, if not since the invention of the PC. It went from controlling a large chunk of the industry's direction to just some of it (albeit some important parts). Ballmer recently said that missing out on mobile was one of his biggest mistakes as Microsoft CEO, and I believe him.