Why Microsoft's Mobile Efforts Failed

juliusaugustus

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I must start off by saying that Windows Mobile (Not to be confused with Windows Phone or Windows 10 mobile), Windows CE, Windows Embedded and PocketPC (which are basically the same thing) achieved considerable success. Windows Mobile achieved 42% smartphone market share at its peak and a non trivial PDA market share, Windows Ce achieved significant market share for transaction devices like barcode scanners and rugged handhelds and is still in use by many businesses today. The Windows CE Family of Products was by far a major success and is found in thousands of products, some still used by businesses today. For the sake of simplicity I will put Windows Embedded, Windows Mobile, Pocket Pc and Windows CE under Windows CE Family, as they can run the same applications and are basically the same platform.

What went wrong? First they abandoned the Windows CE Family and replaced it with Windows Phone 7 Series. The problem with Windows Phone 7 Series is that none of the hardware available at the time could run it and its hardware requirements were very high. Plus due to changes to application development, none of the thousands of Windows Ce apps could run, despite Windows Phone 7 being CE based. It also lacked various features and was comparable to an early iPhone in terms of how crippled it was. There was also no naative code. Part of the coolness of Windows Mobile and Windows Mobile devices was their versatility. Plus thousands of applications down the drain and thousands of devices that will never run it. Essentially Microsoft burned many software developers, businesses and OEMs, which caused many of them to jump ship. What Micrpsoft should have done instead was take Windows Movile and update its user interface.

Then Came Windows Phone 8. This once again repeated the same mistake, they broke backwards compatibility with applications and Windows Phone 8 couldn't run on Windows Phone 7 software. Windows 10 Mobile repeated the same mistake as well.

Microsoft also has a long list of platforms that they created and then quickly abandoned.

Zune
Playsforsure
Portable Media Center
Windows RT
Microsoft Kin
Windows Tablet Edition/s
UMPC/MID
Netbook

The bottom line is Microsoft created platforms and stopped supporting them. Windows on the desktop and to a lesser degree on server succeeded because it has decades of backwards compatibilitt and continual support as well as a robust hardware ecosystem. If you want to succeed in Mobile create one platform, stick to it, support it, and get it on as much hardware as possible.

Maybe it was all for better. Without all this stuff Microsoft created, there would probably be less innovation, however Microsoft could have innovated without destroying backwards compatibility and screwng over their customers. Microsoft is to mobile what atari is to consoles, they achieved great initial success and then screwed it up by continually crapping out platforms and not supporting. Personally I enjoy PDAs and now that no one wants them they are cheap to collect to think about what could have been.
 

Drael646464

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Actually windows 95 was the same thing on desktop. They killed dos compatibility and shifted the market to win32. And then to win64. The only real difference was marketshare - developers were forced to adapt. As such windows compatibility doesn't stretch back decades, it only stretches back about two.

And they are attempting the same thing with UWP, which came out of zune, windows RT, and windows mobile. UWP is intended, like win32, to fully replace it's predecessor. In a more competitive market however, they are forced to do this more transitionally, over time (which is perhaps how they should have handled their mobile shifts).

If google where to, want to say, kill off android applications, and replace them with chrome applications, they could do so in a relatively swift period of time, much as msft killed dos. If apple were to attempt something similar it would need to be more like UWP, something transitional.

I don't think I can blame MSFT for failing to predict the rise of mobile computing. In the 90s, nobody else really saw it coming. The iPhone was a glorified feature phone on release. Technology took on a very fad based energy that it didn't really have prior. They managed to transfer the hipness of the Walkman over to the portable computer via the ipod. Music and social media is what did it. The functionality only really came after that. I mean eventually, sure. But in the timing it did? Smartphones are one of the fastest adopted technologies in the history of silicon. I think it taught everyone valuable lessons, microsoft included, about the swift and mercurial nature of technology change. Lessons that bare remembering IMO when declaring winners and losers, in what could easily be shifting ground - I personally seriously doubt either android, or ios will be dominant OSes in 40 years time, or at least if they exist, they will be absolutely nothing like their present form. I give something resembling present day windows 10, better odds, in the way it's designed, and every changing, it seems to approach something we might use in AR, or via AI with more evolved input methods than mere touch.

The question for me is, did MSFT learn it's lesson properly from smartphones? That when the wave begins to crest, you need to take the risk, and paddle like mad. The smartphone wave is winding down. The next one is starting to build. Does MSFT have the vision of the future that it's been preaching? Or is it too risk averse and driven by spineless boards and shareholders.
 

jmshub

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Microsoft didn't exist in a vacuum. WM6.x may have had 42% of the market, but then the iPhone happened. WM and BlackBerry were instantly old fashioned. You have to give Apple credit for basically inventing the consumer market for smartphones. But in particular, large full touchscreen phones. Suddenly, BlackBerry keyboards and WM stylus form factors were not going to cut it.
 

fatclue_98

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The problem with Windows Phone 7 Series is that none of the hardware available at the time could run it and its hardware requirements were very high.
The HD2 ran WP7 as well, if not better, than the HD7 it shipped with. The HTC Leo was WinMo's crowning achievement as it was the only device that ever shipped with a capacitive display. Had AT&T and Verizon picked up this phone I'm sure Microsoft's fortunes would've turned out differently. A 4.3" screen was a monstrous oddity in that time and HTC Sense camouflaged a multitude of sins. The Sense keyboard alone was worth the price of admission and oh the abundance of apps available for WinCE. Alas, it was straddled to T-Mobile when TMO was an utter abortion and with no unified app store you had to hunt down all those wonderful apps.

What I wouldn't give to see an x3 or Idol 4S running WM6.5.3 with today's LTE and an SD820 under the hood.
 

juliusaugustus

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Actually windows 95 was the same thing on desktop. They killed dos compatibility and shifted the market to win32. And then to win64. The only real difference was marketshare - developers were forced to adapt. As such windows compatibility doesn't stretch back decades, it only stretches back about two.

And they are attempting the same thing with UWP, which came out of zune, windows RT, and windows mobile. UWP is intended, like win32, to fully replace it's predecessor. In a more competitive market however, they are forced to do this more transitionally, over time (which is perhaps how they should have handled their mobile shifts).

If google where to, want to say, kill off android applications, and replace them with chrome applications, they could do so in a relatively swift period of time, much as msft killed dos. If apple were to attempt something similar it would need to be more like UWP, something transitional.

I don't think I can blame MSFT for failing to predict the rise of mobile computing. In the 90s, nobody else really saw it coming. The iPhone was a glorified feature phone on release. Technology took on a very fad based energy that it didn't really have prior. They managed to transfer the hipness of the Walkman over to the portable computer via the ipod. Music and social media is what did it. The functionality only really came after that. I mean eventually, sure. But in the timing it did? Smartphones are one of the fastest adopted technologies in the history of silicon. I think it taught everyone valuable lessons, microsoft included, about the swift and mercurial nature of technology change. Lessons that bare remembering IMO when declaring winners and losers, in what could easily be shifting ground - I personally seriously doubt either android, or ios will be dominant OSes in 40 years time, or at least if they exist, they will be absolutely nothing like their present form. I give something resembling present day windows 10, better odds, in the way it's designed, and every changing, it seems to approach something we might use in AR, or via AI with more evolved input methods than mere touch.

The question for me is, did MSFT learn it's lesson properly from smartphones? That when the wave begins to crest, you need to take the risk, and paddle like mad. The smartphone wave is winding down. The next one is starting to build. Does MSFT have the vision of the future that it's been preaching? Or is it too risk averse and driven by spineless boards and shareholders.

Well Modern days Windows is decades old. It retains backwards compatibility all the way back to NT/95. The technology that drives modern day windows, while heavily changed, it is still the same basic 90s technology. This is why I was able to get Office 97 running on Windows 10. The fact that it can run applications from the 90s enables it to run legacy software needed by thousands of organizations. Plus when Windows NT/95 was released it has dos backwards compatibility.
 

juliusaugustus

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Microsoft didn't exist in a vacuum. WM6.x may have had 42% of the market, but then the iPhone happened. WM and BlackBerry were instantly old fashioned. You have to give Apple credit for basically inventing the consumer market for smartphones. But in particular, large full touchscreen phones. Suddenly, BlackBerry keyboards and WM stylus form factors were not going to cut it.

I admitted that Windows Mobile 6.5 was outdated, but this could be remedied with a modernized UI. Android started out wit a very basic UI and gradually improved upon. Windows on the desktop has also gradually improved its UI. There is no technical reason Windows Mobile 6.5 couldn't have a better UI. It isn't like Blackberry who was running a Basic Java Me OS, Windows Mobile/CE is far more advanced.
 

Drael646464

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Well Modern days Windows is decades old. It retains backwards compatibility all the way back to NT/95. The technology that drives modern day windows, while heavily changed, it is still the same basic 90s technology. This is why I was able to get Office 97 running on Windows 10. The fact that it can run applications from the 90s enables it to run legacy software needed by thousands of organizations. Plus when Windows NT/95 was released it has dos backwards compatibility.

Well yes, but all those things get phased out. Old DOS based programs generally no longer run. Silverlight is on the way out. Eventually win32/64 will be too (for non-power users). My point about DOS was that it was actually dropped very quickly, and there was a lot of tension about the shift to win32, much like their is to UWP. But because Windows was so dominant, and their was a sort of excitement about their products, they were able to get away with a more rapid shift, whereas now they have to more slowly transition.

I think android could get away with a reasonable rapid shift in it's present market. But windows mobile not really so much. It's not so much that windows desktop didn't have rapid shifts, it's more that it only had one, a small degree of transition, and it was big enough to bear it.

Also I think WM did have some similar transition - Silverlight apps have been lingering around for awhile on mobile. Not everything on wm10 was UWP. But there were too many shifts, with too little transition, for a product with less mindshare and dominance.

I think it may have helped if they transitioned more with mobile. But I really don't think they had a product that was exciting enough to consumers in the first place, for a consumer market. They had the right idea with the xbox crossover, and if they'd stuck to that harder, I bet they'd be doing better.

They seemed to gamble more on the continuum side, which is a product that wasn't really ready without arm emulation. Conversely they owned a tonne of software houses and still do, and could have really driven UWP gaming. Mobile gaming is huge, and it's in MSFTs wheelhouse.

I think they underestimated, understandably, the need to pivot.

But now that we have arm emulation, hopefully they can back that UWP software shift, and get the business friendly device with andromeda they wanted with the lumia. Still, seems to me, they are still missing the potential of their gaming fan base. Andromeda's second screen could be an x-box touch pad, and if they could get some lightweight games to re-compile for arm, they could have not just a productivity device, and creatives notepad, but a capable portable gaming device.
 

Pete

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Technically speaking, Windows Phone was and is a great OS.

The basic problem is that Apple turned the smartphone world on its head with the announcement of the iPhone. Nokia had huge management issues at that time and simply couldn't compete. Google was already developing Android, and handsets started selling a year after the iPhone was released.

It took Microsoft another two years to release Windows Phone 7 devices - that's three years after everyone bought their iPhones, and two years after everyone who didn't want an iPhone bought an Android device instead.

Back in 2010, Microsoft was still concentrating it's efforts in corporate sales since that where the majority of their profits were - their analysts just didn't see how profitable smartphones were going to be (or Microsoft just didn't want to listen at that time).

If those three years, everyone who wanted a smartphone in their life had bought one - either iPhones or an Android device. They all loved apps, and developers created those apps.

Microsoft was simply too late. There was nothing different enough about WP7 to force people to swap over to a device that had fewer apps. Creating WP8 didn't change that, Nokia creating countless variants of WP phones didn't change that. App developers wouldn't translate their apps to a new platform where there wasn't enough demand from consumers.

Windows 10 came along and people generally embraced the new desktop OS, but it didn't really lead the established iOS/Android app developers to code for Windows 10 - people generally use their smartphones for smartphone stuff and don't do Instagram/twitter/etc much on their home computers (if they even own one). So, the app market didn't really grow for Windows 10.

Which left W10M largely dead in the water. Microsoft put a fair effort into it, they made it easier for apps to be translated to Windows 10, but with the vast majority of users already using their iPads/iPhones/Android devices, that was never going to end well.

And it didn't. For a while, I was a Windows 10 Mobile MVP and I witnessed at first hand Microsoft edging away from Mobile. Great people were made redundant, people moved into different teams, information and meetings got fewer and further apart. It just wasn't economically feasible to keep whacking the dead horse with the shareholder's dollar stick.
 
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Drael646464

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Just as a side note, a lot of people regarded the first iPhone as a failure. It wasn't until the app store was introduced with the second revision that the iPhone took off. The first iPhone wasn't the first all touchscreen smartphone either. It wasn't so much a breakthrough product, so much as great marketing, and a combination of technologies that came together (app store, iTunes, improved touch screen interface etc).

Current mobile tech is in a market lull, which will deepen as saturation really kicks in. Long term not only will this mean thinner profit margins, but I think the mobile only strategy will be rejected for a hybridized, cross-platform, web-centric approach. I really feel like apple is lagging here, especially with its focus on wall-garden, proprietary approached and it's refusal to merge ios and osx. I'm more optimistic about googles seeming long term game-plan with its focus on PWA, and chromeOS.


In this, I think MSFT essentially has a "second chance". If it's up to the risk and bluster of such technological waves, this time around.
 

anon(50597)

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Just as a side note, a lot of people regarded the first iPhone as a failure. It wasn't until the app store was introduced with the second revision that the iPhone took off. The first iPhone wasn't the first all touchscreen smartphone either. It wasn't so much a breakthrough product, so much as great marketing, and a combination of technologies that came together (app store, iTunes, improved touch screen interface etc).

Current mobile tech is in a market lull, which will deepen as saturation really kicks in. Long term not only will this mean thinner profit margins, but I think the mobile only strategy will be rejected for a hybridized, cross-platform, web-centric approach. I really feel like apple is lagging here, especially with its focus on wall-garden, proprietary approached and it's refusal to merge ios and osx. I'm more optimistic about googles seeming long term game-plan with its focus on PWA, and chromeOS.


In this, I think MSFT essentially has a "second chance". If it's up to the risk and bluster of such technological waves, this time around.

I agree that it wasn’t just the iPhone alone, it was the entire ecosystem they built around it. Without the App Store, iTunes, etc. it wouldn’t have been the success it has been.
 

Ryujingt3

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I agree that it wasn’t just the iPhone alone, it was the entire ecosystem they built around it. Without the App Store, iTunes, etc. it wouldn’t have been the success it has been.

People don't seem to remember how limited the first iPhone was. No apps, no copy and paste, it was very limited. As mentioned, the App Store and Apple's marketing team going into overdrive, helped plaster over the cracks and then the rest, as they say, is history.
 

Scienceguy Labs

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People don't seem to remember how limited the first iPhone was. No apps, no copy and paste, it was very limited. As mentioned, the App Store and Apple's marketing team going into overdrive, helped plaster over the cracks and then the rest, as they say, is history.
But, you have to remember that when the iPhone came out, there was nothing really to compare to it, other than the non-smartphones of the time. Nobody really knew it had faults because it was a brand new thing. Imagine if roles were reversed, and Microsoft was the first smartphone maker that used apps and onscreen keyboards. Then, 5 years later, after tons of Microsoft marketing and consumer adoption, Apple comes along with a phone that hardly had any of the features people had grown accustomed to using. Apple would have left the mobile market too, I think.
 

Ryujingt3

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But, you have to remember that when the iPhone came out, there was nothing really to compare to it, other than the non-smartphones of the time. Nobody really knew it had faults because it was a brand new thing. Imagine if roles were reversed, and Microsoft was the first smartphone maker that used apps and onscreen keyboards. Then, 5 years later, after tons of Microsoft marketing and consumer adoption, Apple comes along with a phone that hardly had any of the features people had grown accustomed to using. Apple would have left the mobile market too, I think.

That's an interesting thought. What if MS had come first? Chances are they'd have either failed or just decided to pull the plug later on. There's an interesting documentary on the rise and fall of Nokia. It showed an unknown competitor who designed a phone with a touch screen and full internet access whilst Nokia, at the time, still failed to use these technologies, and that was back in 2002.

Ironically that same company went bust and Apple bought the technology and then the iPhone came along with the same technology.
 

nate0

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That's an interesting thought. What if MS had come first? Chances are they'd have either failed or just decided to pull the plug later on. There's an interesting documentary on the rise and fall of Nokia. It showed an unknown competitor who designed a phone with a touch screen and full internet access whilst Nokia, at the time, still failed to use these technologies, and that was back in 2002.

Ironically that same company went bust and Apple bought the technology and then the iPhone came along with the same technology.
It's funny how stuff like what you described above happens. It happens quite a bit actually.
 

anon(50597)

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There’s no doubt luck and timing have a lot to do with these technological advances. Not taking anything away from Apple of course. I remember people mocking the first iPhone and calling it a failure because of its lack of features. I think that’s why companies like MS and BlackBerry didn’t feel threatened. By the time Jobs had his plan more in place, it was too late.
 

Scienceguy Labs

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That's an interesting thought. What if MS had come first? Chances are they'd have either failed or just decided to pull the plug later on. There's an interesting documentary on the rise and fall of Nokia. It showed an unknown competitor who designed a phone with a touch screen and full internet access whilst Nokia, at the time, still failed to use these technologies, and that was back in 2002.

Ironically that same company went bust and Apple bought the technology and then the iPhone came along with the same technology.
Wow. I never knew about that. Talk about hindsight being 20/20. I'll have to try to find it.
But, you're correct. Even if MS had produced the first game changing phone, they would have most likely overlooked the consumer market and watched Google come along and take over.
 

Scienceguy Labs

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There’s no doubt luck and timing have a lot to do with these technological advances. Not taking anything away from Apple of course. I remember people mocking the first iPhone and calling it a failure because of its lack of features. I think that’s why companies like MS and BlackBerry didn’t feel threatened. By the time Jobs had his plan more in place, it was too late.
Yep. I remember that too.
I also remember people, me included, making fun of the "iPad" name. I just knew it was never going to take off.
How very wrong I was.
 

fatclue_98

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But, you have to remember that when the iPhone came out, there was nothing really to compare to it, other than the non-smartphones of the time. Nobody really knew it had faults because it was a brand new thing. Imagine if roles were reversed, and Microsoft was the first smartphone maker that used apps and onscreen keyboards. Then, 5 years later, after tons of Microsoft marketing and consumer adoption, Apple comes along with a phone that hardly had any of the features people had grown accustomed to using. Apple would have left the mobile market too, I think.

I have to disagree on some of your points. There were smartphones with apps and onscreen keyboards long before the iPhone. I had a horrible example of one in the iPaq H6315. It had a 3-1/2" touchscreen and loads of comms. It's biggest drawback was it relied on GSM only, not even 2G (EDGE). This was in '04 and it's what lead me to get my first Treo (650). I gave up the screen real estate in favor of that wonderful keyboard and better apps.

The ONLY thing the 1st gen iPhone brought to the masses was a capacitive display. You couldn't even do MMS for Pete's sake. Considering it was an AT&T exclusive, Steve Jobs did an amazing "job" at convincing the world this was the only phone you'd ever need. The marketing of the iPhone was legendary and it did indeed change the mobile landscape, but it didn't create it. There were, arguably, better phones before and after.
 

anon(50597)

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I have to disagree on some of your points. There were smartphones with apps and onscreen keyboards long before the iPhone. I had a horrible example of one in the iPaq H6315. It had a 3-1/2" touchscreen and loads of comms. It's biggest drawback was it relied on GSM only, not even 2G (EDGE). This was in '04 and it's what lead me to get my first Treo (650). I gave up the screen real estate in favor of that wonderful keyboard and better apps.

The ONLY thing the 1st gen iPhone brought to the masses was a capacitive display. You couldn't even do MMS for Pete's sake. Considering it was an AT&T exclusive, Steve Jobs did an amazing "job" at convincing the world this was the only phone you'd ever need. The marketing of the iPhone was legendary and it did indeed change the mobile landscape, but it didn't create it. There were, arguably, better phones before and after.

The iPhone was different than all the previous attempts, though bare bones in the beginning. It wasn’t the iPhone that changed things, it was the entire planned ecosystem. The App Store (though it took some time to build). iTunes. All the “stuff” that eventually came with the iPhone.
The difference between Apple and MS is Apple sold an idea and then followed through on it.
 

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