Image Courtesy: TheVerge.com

Back in June 2016, Satya Nadella announced that he would publish his first book titled ‘Hit Refresh’ and in the book, Nadella writes about his life in India and at Microsoft. It has been just a few years since Nadella became Microsoft’s CEO and in the book, he made some revelations.

Satya Nadella never supported/liked Nokia acquisition, Windows Phone and even the Microsoft’s mobile platform. He, in fact, believes that Windows Phone was not needed, Android and iOS were enough. Nadella writes that there was no need of the third ecosystem in the phones and as a result, after becoming Microsoft’s CEO, Satya slowly killed the beautiful Windows Phone platform.

Whoever used a Windows Phone still loves it, Windows Phone features a user interface based on Microsoft’s “Metro” design and it is unique compared to iOS and Android. The performance and battery life were also some of the reasons behind Windows Phone’s immense popularity among its fans.

In his Hit Refresh book, Nadella writes that Microsoft was too late to the smartphone game. Windows Phone 8 marked the birth of the third ecosystem in phones and at that time, Google and Apple were far ahead with their respective mobile platforms.

“I did not get why the world needed the third ecosystem in phones unless we changed the rules … But it was too late to regain the ground we had lost. We were chasing our competitors’ taillights,” he writes.

Windows Phone was doomed from the start

Windows Phone wasn’t gaining a lot of ground despite being a very good product. Because when Microsoft got its act together, it was too late for the new platform to catch up with the rivals. Windows Phone since the beginning was simple, the OS didn’t even have a File Manager/Explorer whereas Android had it since the beginning.

Windows Phone was never Microsoft’s priority. By the time Microsoft got its act together, it wasn’t possible for the Redmond giant to catch up what it had lost in last few years. As Microsoft realised it was too little too late and Nadella came to the power, Windows Phone started following the path to death.

Microsoft was trying to compete with Android – with the power of Google, Samsung and the whole open source community behind it. Even if Google were selling Android as a proprietary software without other partners, Microsoft would have found it very hard as Google had its powerful range of services [search, maps, mail] to back it up while Microsoft’s comparative services significantly lag those of Google’s,” former Microsoft engineer Balaji Viswanathan writes on Quora.

When Google was giving away Android for free, Microsoft was trying to convince the smartphone makers to pay licensing fees for Windows Phone and launch the phones. While Lumia had a good hardware whereas Windows Phone OS was far behind Android and iOS despite Microsoft is a ‘software giant’.

Satya Nadella has however promised that Microsoft will continue to make phones. What do you think about Satya Nadella’s vision for Windows Phone?

About The Author

Mayank Parmar

Mayank Parmar is an entrepreneur who founded Windows Latest. He is the Editor-in-Chief and has written on various topics in his seven years of career, but he is mostly known for his well-researched work on Microsoft's Windows. His articles and research works have been referred to by CNN, Business Insiders, Forbes, Fortune, CBS Interactive, Microsoft and many others over the years.