Nice one. Nadella seems not to give a **** about Mobile.
Sent from mTalk on my Lumia 535.
I agree. He seems to be - being generous here - a little ahead of his times. And I do think he gave up the mobile battle very easily. I do think there was a way out, which may not have given MS a really significant marketshare, but it would have given them a market presence.
Firstly, regionalism. This should have been the MS strategy. What does this mean? Simply that instead of looking at the mobile market in global terms, MS should have looked at it in regional terms (South Asia, Central Europe, etc. etc.) and a more refined approach dictated by country-specific imperatives. So, for example, lets take India (the same would also make sense in a market like say the UK or other EU countries). A greater proportion of MS investment should have been in building a regional and/ or country specific ecosystem. MS should have created a fund and management agency dedicated to assisting app development focused on regional and country-specific markets. MS's strong technology backend (especially in Cloud) would have been the instrument by which these regional and country-specific ecosystems could have been stitched together. And, MS should have invested in localized customer support networks in such markets. The had around 10% market share in the UK. They could have, if they had pursued the matter seriously, had a slightly smaller percentage in a market like India and perhaps larger percentages in South America and in large parts of Europe. In short, MS squandered what they had and are now complaining that they had missed the 'mobile wave". This is sheer nonsense.
Secondly, they had and continue to have significant distinguishing elements with ref to W10 (including mobile). Again, they did not deploy this. Think back to Win 6.5 (especially on a Palm Treo 750 for example). It was an enterprise device and was a healthy competitor - though a distant one in terms of numbers - to the Blackberry. That enterprise capability could have been translated into W10M in regional markets - particularly in the SME sector. They are going on all about enterprise now, but this should have been one of the side narratives of W10M right from the start
And lastly, they really needed a visionary to head MS. Nadella may be technically competent, but he seems a bit biased in favour of capability (which is a good thing) but sells the UX and UI a bit short. But it is precisely the latter which is the vanguard for tech development (at the consumer level if you believe that users drive innovation and evolution). If MS is missing something/ anything, it is this and notice something, their traditional rival (Apple) focuses precisely on this second element while presuming the first as a given and that is what makes them - aside from their somewhat irrational fan following - a significant force in the mobile computing space (which is something that Samsung is desperately trying to aspire to but which - despite impressive sales figures and market share percentages - it has yet to achieve).