602
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admits giving up on Windows Phone and mobile was a mistake
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
602 points (96.6% liked)
Technology
59232 readers
4024 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Serves them right for what they did to Nokia.
Maemo and Meego were so good
Yes, they were. These bastards destroyed the biggest European tech company for nothing. And Nokia had all the services required and the technical know-how to rival Google.
All credit to Microsoft, but as an ex Nokian my feeling is that Nokia killed itself unwittingly when it bought NavTeq. Because of that sunk cost, they were unwilling to adopt Android as it would invalidate the acquisition, with the leaders responsible still at the reins. Life with Android would be far from the heyday of the past, but living is living.
I was using the N900 when it came out and at that point Android was in no way superior to whatever Nokia was doing. Their main misstep was choosing Windows Phone and shipping the N9 as a dead-on-arrival product. Nonetheless the UX was pretty ahead of its time and we could have had a real Qt based Linux phone OS
I love my N900 and N9 but by the time they were released Android already had unstoppable momentum. It's all about software developers' uptake of the platform. Maemo didn't have it, WP had barely more, but neither was enough to compete. I think Nokia could have been the peer of Samsung as an Android OEM. Their logistics was arguably better even though they didn't have the vertical integration of Samsung.
Edit: if they'd not had the risk-averse management a few years earlier the N770 could have developed into a competitive smartphone platform... But managers were fixated on candybar phones and endless variations on feature phones instead of reaching for their future.
I mourn that loss whenever I remember about it
Too be fair, it was a big bet and at that point it was Nokia's only chance of remaining at the top. It they had used android at that point in time, they would have started from the bottom in the race for the android domination that was already seeing some large companies fail. Going with Android that late would at best turn them into another Sony Ericsson unless they executed everything perfectly (which wouldn't happen with the large amount of in-fighting the company had). Going with Windows Phone would be all or nothing. Only time showed it ended up being nothing.