Giving up on Windows Phone was a mistake, says Microsoft CEO
Microsoft chief executive officer (CEO) Satya Nadella regrets that Microsoft completely exited the mobile phone operating system industry a year after he took the reigns at the tech giant.
Nadella’s comments came in a recent interview with Business Insider, where he spoke about some of the biggest decisions he had to make since being appointed CEO in 2014.
A year after his appointment, Microsoft wrote off $7.6 billion related to its acquisition of Nokia’s phone business.
That came after Microsoft’s Windows Phone and Windows Mobile operating systems failed to put up a fight against Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, which had both already staked their claims in the mobile industry during the early days of the touchscreen smartphone.
Nadella said this was one of the most difficult decisions he had made when he became CEO — and that he somewhat regretted it.
“In retrospect, I think there could have been ways we could have made it work by perhaps reinventing the category of computing between PCs, tablets, and phones,” Nadella said.
At the time, Nadella said Microsoft was moving from a standalone phone business to grow and create a “vibrant Windows ecosystem”, including its first-party device family.
“In the near-term, we’ll run a more effective and focused phone portfolio while retaining capability for long-term reinvention in mobility,” he said.
Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft Photographer: Shelby Knowles/Bloomberg
Although Microsoft would only officially confirm the demise of its Windows Phone brand several years later, most analysts regarded the Nokia write-off as the curtain call for the operating system.
Nadella is not the first Microsoft leader to acknowledge the demise of the company’s stake in the mobile industry was a major setback.
Former CEO and co-founder Bill Gates regards Microsoft losing to Android as his biggest mistake.
Former CEO Steve Balmer also admitted that he lamented not focusing on the mobile phone business earlier.
Although Microsoft has launched two Surface Duo phones since the demise of Windows Phone, both run on Android.
They also received lacklustre to poor reviews, and there is no certainty about a third model being released anytime soon.
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