Former Apple executive wrote an article and analysed why Windows Phone failed. In the detailed analysis, Jean-Louis Gassée, former Apple executive blamed Microsoft for Windows Phone’s death. According to him, Microsoft could have avoided the mistakes but they continued with the same strategy.
In 2010, Jean-Louis Gassée joined Nokia as the company’s adviser. He wanted Nokia to fire CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo and adopt Android on their upcoming phones. However, Nokia didn’t take his advice and decided to go with Stephen Elop. Later Nokia launched the Windows Phone smartphones instead.
Many blame Android for the death of Windows Phone but Gassee believes Microsoft could have avoided the Windows Phone’s death if they had made the OS free for all OEMs. Google did the right thing and Android is now a successful mobile platform.
“While Microsoft treated the emerging mobile devices as a sideshow, Google and Apple forged ahead with modern operating systems that ran circles around Windows Mobile, itself a Windows CE descendant,” he wrote.
Windows Phone’s failure was avoidable if Microsoft had changed its strategy. Windows Phone was already dying back in 2012, the OS, however, became modern but it was too late, he explains.
He also blames Microsoft’s focus on PC. Microsoft has always been ruling the desktop market but as the focus never shifted from PC, Windows Phone couldn’t grow.
“For a long time, Microsoft’s orthodoxy placed the PC at the center of the world. When smartphones took center stage, the company’s propaganda censured talk of a Post-PC world. Smartphones and tablets were mere ‘companion devices,” he writes.
Today, Microsoft has abandoned Windows Phone while Nokia is developing phones for Android. The rumour has it that Microsoft is planning another Windows Phone reboot that could be announced in 2018.
