Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Admits Windows Phone Failed

BugMeister said:

- as for Windows phones generally - it's no good asking me - I'm already sold on them..
- I rate my Windows phones as streets ahead of anything Android that I've owned..
- it feels more personal, I guess I like the fact that it meshes so well with the PC, Xbox One, Office and Bing
- a lot of it has to do with the way it all functions seamlessly via a single Microsoft Account..

- it all hangs together so beautifully..

Very well said.

I have a Lumia 925 with Win 8.1. I use Outlook on my desktop and the phone syncs without intervention to my Contacts and Calendar. For making calls, texting and email the phone does the job. Internet Explorer doesn't work well. Android and Apple have far Apps but more difficult to sync with the Windows desktop stuff. Overall the Lumia does the job for me.

larc919 said:

Microsoft arrived on the phone front a day late and a dollar short. They should be more concerned with innovating than doing "me too" entries into fields already handled quite well by others (and better than Microsoft's ultimate efforts in an embarrassing number of cases).

They actually did innovate the smartphone landscape with Windows Phone 7. It was a smartphone that did something android and iOS didn't: Put People First. It was a smartphone that didn't need an app for this or an app for that, it ALREADY did that. Everything was so tightly ingrained with the OS, from social networking to web content, it was genuinely what a smartphone is and should be these days. It brought forth a UI design that didn't focus on bubbly, wobbly icons but large bold text used to navigate through the UI with beautifully done detail that had just the right subtle hints of where to point a user on where to go.

Then Microsoft handed it to a research focus group that uses iOS and android and quickly found out that the masses were turned off by this innovation. The masses wanted and app for this and an app for that and bland and simply iconography and "easy to use" interfaces. So they made that and made it was Windows 10 Mobile. It really is now a "me-too" platform. It doesn't offer much differentiation from iOS nor android because it was designed to be familiar to those who are used to both platforms.

Five years ago, a Windows Phone would have smoked an iPhone and android phones doing all the trivial tasks people use these "smart" devices for, like posting to social media, finding a nice restaurant near by, and just being so well built it did everything quicker, easier, better, Windows Phone style. Today, it's a platform where it can't compete in any category because you need an app for everything to do anything (if they're there), the search experience is heavily depreciated (let alone the Bing Local Scout feature that barely remains today in the Maps app), and EVEN on an octocore processor and three gigs of RAM, Loading... screens are still there along with 0x000 errors of "something went wrong" when you open a first party app...

It's said Microsoft gave up on the mobile front, they haven't. It's just the consumer space gave up on Microsoft's efforts in doing something different and better.

What MS failed to understand and still does to some extent is that the consumer will buy what it feels best suits its needs. Not what some big corporation tells it that it needs.
MS should have learned this lesson when they rolled out W8 and the ensuing backlash. The thing is they are virtually unchallenged in the OS market for PC so they had time to modify their approach and make changes, albeit slowly, but they did come around and we have W10.

In the mobile market you have a vastly different environment. There are major players with major market share already in place. If you don't give the consumer what he wants it really should come as no surprise that your product does not catch on. The sheer volume of choice in the mobile market means you are in a cutthroat environment and bad choices get shown up fast. The only reason MS still has any skin in this game at all is because of their very deep pockets. It's a shame that with those very deep pockets they still don't seem to be able to make a phone that very many people have any interest in.

So many people so many opinions, and mine is no different than just an opinion. I am in Blackberry country, how ironic that a once dominating device is no more than rubble. Too many "analysts" look at the market share and customers are going like: I need to be able to communicate with my kids. The phone as we know it is dead, the device we use today is not very smart either. It always is low on battery power, it never works the way we want it and yet we keep purchasing 700 - 1000 dollar devices every two years and treat them terrible. We stick them in pockets where they cannot breath, we demand to use them as gaming devices, we need to listen to music through them and in the end it is becoming no more than a fragile computing device consuming heaps of data and costing way more than the invested money (cases, screen protectors, apps, chargers and what nots). In the mean time we all suffer from neck pain or worse we walk into traffic staring in the abyss. It is ridiculous how, we as smart human beings, have give up on ourselves.
It really does not matter if you are a "Apple Sheep", "Android Robot", Windows phone or still a black berry user. The real essence is that we are becoming introvert, we refuse to speak with each other (oh dad, just text me) and become addicts to the same device that hears and sees everything. Of course it is immediately communicating that you are moving (GPS tracking) or that you were on a social media site and in the mean time you zip with 70 miles down the road completely unaware that your are moving against traffic. This year Android is the biggest deployment of devices around the globe (sorry Apple you are not) and Windows and Blackberry have maybe 3% together. But what does it really matter? Until we, the inventors of these devices, give up our dependencies to them, we will always have fan boys and people trying to bash or ksh you for not using their products. Who cares that companies go under when they do not meet market share.... until you can no longer afford to pay for the device you so desire.... because you lost your job and now you do wake up... I hope I have given you something to think about before you run off to the next provider demanding a small computer to warm up your pocket for the same price that most families need to live on for a month. Putting my sandals back on and stroking my gray beard I sign off....