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posted by takyon on Tuesday June 25 2019, @06:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the latest-mistake dept.

Bill Gates calls losing the smartphone market to Android his "greatest mistake"

It is rare to see a company owning up to their mistakes but in a Techcrunch interview published yesterday ex-Microsoft CEO and founder Bill Gates just did, calling losing the smartphone market to Google's Android his "greatest mistake."

I am stifling myself with ecto-ironic beams of death, to avoid commenting on the initial sentence. Help me, Soylentils!

He also owes up to mismanagement – it was a war which Microsoft could have won – Windows Mobile preceded Android by nearly 10 years, but Microsoft never understood the importance of mobile, never gave it adequate resources, was distracted by desktop priorities and was constantly changing direction.

[...] The point of this article is not to replay the past, but to counter this view expressed by those who take Microsoft's current share price as proof that losing mobile was actually a happy accident:

$MSFT, in 3yrs, has climbed from $35 to an all time high of $137 w/ positive Q3FY19 gains in generally every business, incl. Windows.
...but please tell me more abt how Microsoft's downfall will be a consequence of its retreat from Windows Phone, Microsoft Band, & Groove Music. pic.twitter.com/4IOb6ptEJb

— kurtsh (@kurtsh) June 22, 2019

Microsoft's future is in bitcoin. You heard it here first!!


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Tuesday June 25 2019, @11:44AM

    by inertnet (4071) on Tuesday June 25 2019, @11:44AM (#859672) Journal

    Looking back at the success of all those billion dollar companies of today, I must conclude that they all got their users hooked on their product first. Just like with drugs. It's the only reason why they grew so big. Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google and all the rest.

    That's why Microsoft lost the mobile market and why Nokia and Blackberry can't come back, because people are already hooked on existing players.

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