Yeah, Gates was a victim of timing as far as hardware capabilities go, and the overwhelming success of Microsoft's products that locked them into the inertia of the huge installed products base. If only we could have had consumer capacitive touch, SoC integration, and Gorilla Glass 20 years ago....
It would not surprise me if Microsoft was ready to take another leap forward. After all, they squandered their first decade of opportunity in mobile, and a big part of that was because they boxed themselves into a rigid way of thinking. In that way they were a victim of their success, while Apple was the beneficiary of their near collapse.
What I mean was Apple could take bold chances because they had to. Microsoft, by contrast, was always worried that changing direction would damage an existing franchise.
There is one more difference as well, and in that Ballmer could be proven correct, albeit too late to market. That's the concept of a division based on products, which allows Microsoft to control the hardware and the software. In doing so, they don't have to worry as much about backward compatibility. In the corporate market, Microsoft is finally ending support of Windows XP, a 13 year old operating system. In the mobile market, by contrast, the hardware lifecycle is only about 2 years old, with hardware advances supporting new operating system improvements that are extreme enough that buyers are always consuming new devices. If you try to hang on to outdated hardware, the OS upgrades cripple it, and the user base has accepted this upgrade cycle. By purchasing Nokia, Microsoft will own 95% of the productive capacity for WP sales. This will give them much greater control over hardware choices and allow them to leverage their balance sheet to outproduce other smartphone manufacturers who don't have their own ecosystems, while continuing to make WP a increasingly compelling alternative to android.
Of course, a lot can go wrong before that happens. Time will tell, but more Bill Gates is exactly what Microsoft needs at the moment.
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