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I always felt like Microsoft was in a hard place when it came to Windows Phone. If they tried to market it as a third party alternative to Android, why would m

I always felt like Microsoft was in a hard place when it came to Windows Phone. If they tried to market it as a third party alternative to Android, why would manufactures give up an OS they can customize and not have to pay to license (Do you have to pay of the play store?). Locking down Windows Mobile in the iPhone way is counter to how Microsoft runs Windows right now and would be a major uphill battle. The iPhone kinda lucked out being able to pull this off due to when it came out I think. All of this leads to them needing a healthy enough install base to get developers to make apps. Personally I don't think they gave up too soon, I think they were fighting an uphill battle that they were likely never going to Win. It didn't really matter how many good ideas they had when they were up against 2 very entrenched platforms. The problem was, they were too late. > 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. Why does that quote give me Windows 8 vibes? The idea of a single platform and UI for everything? That worked super well.

rjsw 3y ago
There was an article a couple of days ago on Windows CE going out of maintainence. I worked on building a touchscreen tablet that used it, I don't see why Windows Mobile should have been any less configurable than Windows CE.
microtherion 3y ago
> The problem was, they were too late. Ironically, they were in the phone OS space before Apple and Google, so arguably, they were too early, inasmuch as the experience they acquired blinded them to the possibilities of smartphones just as the category truly took off.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
> Personally I don't think they gave up too soon, I think they were fighting an uphill battle that they were likely never going to Win They did give up, because hardware development and support costs a ton of money, and they preferred the margins from selling Excel licenses. They could have done what Apple did and invested heavily in hardware development for 10 years. They even had Microsoft stores rolled out, with clean Windows computers without malware installed by default. But there was no stomach for lower profit margins and a longer term play.

rjsw 3y ago

There was an article a couple of days ago on Windows CE going out of maintainence. I worked on building a touchscreen tablet that used it, I don't see why Windows Mobile should have been any less configurable than Windows CE.

microtherion 3y ago

> The problem was, they were too late. Ironically, they were in the phone OS space before Apple and Google, so arguably, they were too early, inasmuch as the experience they acquired blinded them to the possibilities of smartphones just as the category truly took off.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

> Personally I don't think they gave up too soon, I think they were fighting an uphill battle that they were likely never going to Win They did give up, because hardware development and support costs a ton of money, and they preferred the margins from selling Excel licenses. They could have done what Apple did and invested heavily in hardware development for 10 years. They even had Microsoft stores rolled out, with clean Windows computers without malware installed by default. But there was no stomach for lower profit margins and a longer term play.