Microsoft CEO thinks they could have made Windows Phone work

During the early smartphone days, the landscape was a lot more vibrant with different platforms to choose from, including iOS, Android, BlackBerry OS, and Windows Phone. Ultimately, a lot of companies ended up exiting the market, leaving behind just iOS and Android.

During a recent interview with Business Insider, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella expressed his regret at the company’s decision to give up on its Windows Phone platform. According to Nadella, he believes that it could have been salvaged by maybe approaching it from a different perspective.

“The decision I think a lot of people talk about – and one of the most difficult decisions I made when I became CEO —was our exit of what I’ll call the mobile phone as defined then. 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.”

Windows Phone was beloved by many users back in the day. It was fast, responsive, and had a clean and unique UI, at least compared to what Apple and Google were putting out back then. The main problem that plagued the platform was the fact that it was hard to get developers to come on board to help develop a robust ecosystem.

It was a vicious cycle because the lack of apps meant users were less likely to use the platform, but the lack of users meant that developers had little to no incentive to invest their resources into creating apps for it. This eventually led to Microsoft calling it quits. It would have been interesting to see what the smartphone landscape could be like today had Windows Phone been given the opportunity to grow and improve, but we guess we’ll never know.

Source: Business Insider