The arrival of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft was marked by, as he confesses, one of the “most difficult decisions” he had to make: abandoning the Windows Phone project, the line of smartphones of the technology corporation specialized in software. As time passed, the company’s top executive acknowledged that it was a “mistake.”
In an interview for Business Insider, Nadella admitted that Microsoft has made serious mistakes in the mobile sector, especially giving up the development of its own phone: “Looking back, I think there were ways to make it work, perhaps reinventing the computing category. between PCs, tablets and phones.”
Microsoft confirmed a long time ago that the Windows Phone project was dead in 2017, although two years later it launched its foldable devices from the Surface range with the aim of carving out a niche in the market. It was a failure.
Nadella thus joins Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt on the list of Microsoft CEOs who have criticized the company’s performance in the mobile telephone sector. All of them have admitted to always betting on losing ideas in the smartphone market.
Steve Ballmer, during his time as head of Microsoft, also went down in history for his infamous phrase about the iPhone when it was presented and described as “the most expensive phone in the world that does not attract business customers because it does not have a keyboard.”
At the moment, Microsoft’s main presence in the mobile market continues to be applications for Android and iOS such as its Phone Link, as well as the link with Samsung so that Office applications are pre-installed on its terminals.