Sorry, Bill": Android co-founder says Bill Gates is responsible for "the greatest mistake of all time," costing Microsoft $400 billion

[Windows Central]

Bill Gates revealed his greatest mistake of all time made Microsoft miss its opportunity with Android, partly due to mismanagement and antitrust-related issues. However, Android co-founder Rich Miner says Bill Gates is more responsible than he's letting on.

Sorry, Bill": Android co-founder says Bill Gates is responsible for "the greatest mistake of all time," costing Microsoft $400 billion : Read more

 

[MullenWP]

"If you’re there with half as many apps or 90% as many apps, you’re on your way to complete doom."
Exactly. I heard too many comments about how many top apps were on WP, and how "fans" thought all they need are available on WP. The issue is in reality it was barely 90% for top apps (not keep maintained), less than 50% for all apps, and probably less than 10% for games (I understand WP "fans" don't care about mobile games, but if both iOS and Android list games at the top level (same as apps), that means it's extremely important for a successful mobile platform).

 

[Jcmg62]

I remember the excitement with every new hardware launch, the beauty and uniqueness of windows phone 7, the acquisition of Nokia and the development of cortana. There were some phenomenal highlights.

I also remember the unbelievable levels of stupidity, to the point of self sabotage, from windows phone management...

Launching Microsoft apps on iOS and Android, but not WP,

Pushing OS updates that left hardware behind literally a year after launch,

A marked decline in build quality

Windows 10 mobile.... Still a complete WtF moment.

A near constant change in management, with every new leader trying to put a different spin on things and essentially hitting reset every time.

I get the whole app gap issue, and the fact that Microsoft were pushing a rock uphill, but OMG they literally punched themselves in the balls again and again.

It was sad, pathetic, appallingly poor mismanagement, driven by small dick energy within Microsoft that killed Windows phone.

 

[Ron-F]

It was poorly managed from beginning to end. Microsoft just didn’t believe Apple would be able to get it right so fast. They were late to the market and their products weren’t competitive. WP7’s interface was fantastic, but the development platform was a dead end. WP8 was not backwards compatible and required new hardware. Finally the start promising Win10 in the phones, but it was already too late.

 

[JoshRos]

Microsoft Phone is needed today more than ever. Even if they started again today, they would start from the same point they exited but their store is so much more mature and with Game Pass Cloud it would be the top opportunity especially now that Android is tightening its grasp on users and many will be looking for a way out of this lack of privacy nightmare.

But letting Panos go and now other key members of the hardware design team... tough luck.

 

[Chris Lovett1]

Funny story, I was on a task force to think about the future of mobile back in 2003 at Microsoft, back then we saw the Compaq iPaq device and we saw the flip phone and it was easy to conclude these will merge, we went back to the VP of mobile at the time and said so, and his response was "sorry, Bill is only interested in tablets right now"... Doh! We should have pushed harder...

 

[Zen]

Microsoft chose to focus on tablets even harder after they failed in the mobile phone market. I guess Microsoft really regrets not copying the Java language and instead trying to do their own thing. Oh they could have also taken open source software and turned it into a paid product, didn't have to be Java. The judges in the Google vs Java case didn't seem to understand fair use even with Google admitting that they stole code because if they didn't then it wouldn't attract users to their platform.

If taking code and changing variable names is enough to not be copyright infringement, then I guess we all should be taking someone else's work and changing it a little. Its like cheating in school: "Yeah you can copy my homework but change it a little so the teacher thinks its different."

 

[lpasca]

People forget the context.

1) Microsoft had a lot of history with anti-trust. Dominating the smartphone market would have been a clear path to a Microsoft split up, and Gates knew that.

2) Microsoft would not have accepted the government "oversight" that Google and Apple almost certainly have. It would have been too much of a risk to their core business, the enterprise market, where customer data privacy also from government is key. Not so for consumers, particularly with perceived "free" services such as unencrypted cloud backup which allows snooping on practically everyone with a smartphone on the planet.