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 $137 w/ positive Q3FY19 gains in generally every business, incl. Windows.
...but please tell me more abt how Microsoft's downfall will be a consequence of its retreat from Windows Phone, Microsoft Band, & Groove Music. pic.twitter.com/4IOb6ptEJb— kurtsh (@kurtsh) June 22, 2019
Microsoft's future is in bitcoin. You heard it here first!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Wednesday June 26 2019, @03:36AM
Since we're talking phones, I'll mention Sendo.
The Wikipedia article on Sendo really understates the malice that was observed at the time by M$ against Sendo. The trade press was all over M$ for apparently having gone into negotiations purely for the purpose of stealling trade secrets. M$ had no intention of signing any kind of contract with Sendo and met with them purely to pillage. It was that which put Sendo out of business not the other way around.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.