Why Did Windows Phone Fail?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
988 words · ~4 min read
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So unless you've gone against the tide and used a Mac or some flavor of Linux, you probably
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have a desktop or laptop running Windows, for better or for worse.
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But how is it that Microsoft managed to be the dominant player on PCs, yet be almost
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invisible on smartphones that were all carrying everywhere?
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Well, believe it or not, it wasn't too long ago that the Windows Mobile OS was actually
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the market leader on smartphones.
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Wait, what?
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Haha, yeah, about that.
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So before the original iPhone was released in 2007, the smartphone market was a mishmash
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of lots of different devices, without any real must-have models among them, and many
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of them ran Windows Mobile.
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So many, in fact, that Microsoft owned nearly half of smartphone OS market share before
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Apple got into the game.
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So what happened?
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Well, even though Microsoft's presence in smartphone land was very significant, it was
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still a company whose brand name was Microsoft.
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Microsoft was bread and butter with software for traditional PCs, and their management
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at the time wanted to be cautious about throwing themselves headfirst into mobile, skeptical
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as to whether it would catch on.
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As a result, Microsoft didn't devote enough resources to Windows Mobile, which quickly
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became dated, while at the same time, Apple's iOS rapidly gained popularity.
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Making matters worse, the Windows Mobile experience felt a little different depending on which
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phone out of that mishmash of devices I mentioned earlier you were using, something that makes
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a software product very different.
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But hold on a minute, Android does this.
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So why did Google succeed where Microsoft didn't?
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Well, by the time Microsoft decided it really should be focusing more attention on the mobile
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market, Android had already become widespread.
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And not only was it technologically superior to Microsoft's outdated offering, but it
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was also free.
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By contrast, Microsoft charged phone manufacturers for Windows Mobile licenses, just like you
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have to pay for a Windows license for your home PC today.
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Now, Microsoft justified this because they thought Android was too bare-bones and would
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cause fragmentation of the market.
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Sound familiar?
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But what actually happened is that it gave the phone industry a freely available base
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that included tons of Google services that people actually wanted to use.
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So in 2010, Microsoft, realizing the PC was losing ground to mobile devices, decided to
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take its mobile competition seriously and replaced Windows Mobile with Windows Phone
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OS.
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But while reviews of the OS were actually pretty good, one of the main reasons for Microsoft's
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failure was that by this point, app developers were already focused on iOS and Android.
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So it became a chicken and egg problem.
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There weren't enough Windows Phone users for app developers, even big ones like Instagram,
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to bother to support the platform.
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And it's hard to attract users without, like, a YouTube app.
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All this came to a head in 2014, when Microsoft bought Nokia's phone division, hoping their
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name and market power would give Windows Phone a boost and show the world, hey look, Windows
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Phone is worth something.
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It's going to be all over Nokia devices.
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But this backfired, catastrophically.
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There was still no incentive for non-Nokia manufacturers to pay for Windows Phone licenses.
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Because now, not only was it not free like Android, but their Windows Phone models would
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also have to compete against Nokia's phone division, which was now owned by the same
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flippin' company, the one they were paying.
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So in 2017, the Windows Phone project was finally put out of its misery.
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And Microsoft is now focusing its mobile efforts on cheaper laptops, the Internet of Things,
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and getting its digital assistant Cortana onto more devices.
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So there may be an important place yet for Microsoft in this new world where it seems
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But don't expect your friends to be impressed by your Windows Phone unless they also love
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