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Wielding Their Windows Phones, Microsoft Shareholders Grill CEO Satya Nadella On Device Strategy (geekwire.com)
At a meeting with shareholders Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was asked numerous times what the company is doing about Windows Phones, and why do they keep hearing that Microsoft is abandoning smartphone manufacturer business. The stakeholders also asked why the company is seemingly focusing more on Android and iOS rival platforms instead of its own. From a report on GeekWire: Microsoft shareholder Dana Vance, owner of a Windows Phone and a Microsoft Band, said he received an email about the Microsoft Pix app but was surprised to learn that it was available for iPhone and Android but not Windows Phone. Ditto for Microsoft Outlook. He also alluded to reports that Microsoft has put the Band on the back burner. Given this, he asked Nadella to explain the company's vision for its consumer devices. As part of his response, Nadella said Microsoft's Windows camera and mail apps will include the same features as in Microsoft's apps for other platforms. "When we control things silicon-up, that's how we will integrate those experiences," Nadella said. The company will "build devices that are unique and differentiated with our software capability on top of it -- whether it's Surface or Surface Studio or HoloLens or the phone -- and also make our software applications available on Android and iOS and other platforms. That's what I think is needed in order for Microsoft to help you as a user get the most out of our innovation." Another shareholder, who says he uses his Windows Phone "18 hours a day," said he has heard Microsoft is "stepping away from mobile." He asked, "Can you calm me down ... and tell me what your vision is for mobile?" Nadella answered, "We think about mobility broadly. In other words, we think about the mobility of the human being across all of the devices, not just the mobility of a single device. That said, we're not stepping away or back from our focus on our mobile devices," Nadella said. "What we are going to do is focus that effort on places where we have differentiation. If you take Windows Phone, where we are differentiated on Windows Phone is on manageability. It's security, it's Continuum capability -- that is, the ability to have a phone that can act like a PC. So we're going to double-down on those points of differentiation."
The problem here is the shareholders are being fanboys first and businessmen a distant distant second.
The evidence is overwhelming that MS Mobile platform just isn't going to happen. They've tried everything they could think of multiple times, and no signs that there is anything more they can realistically do and expect a difference. As such, they need to do what they can to be relevant to the large market that matters rather than staying in denial.
Besides, being in hardware is not that appealing. It's full of low cost competitors and very well known brands with insurmountable brand strength. It can be a decent enough strategy if you don't have any way in on the software front, but if you have strength in the software side, you have a lot more lucrative prospects than the hardware side.
In the desktop era, MS overcame the competition by being able to pit the suppliers of hardware against each other and control the 'good' bits. Apple's success in mobile distracted them from this reality, and Google then out-did microsoft in the 'license to OEMs' game (by being free or near free depending, and banking on ongoing revonue).
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Sounds like Microsoft shareholder Dana Vance is f-ing clueless and needs to move on, get a new phone and let his company focus on something they might make money on, instead of pouring resources into something that has been shown to be a reliable way to lose money.
Besides, the windows phone UI is ugly as hell. You basically have to be a Microsoft fan to actually want to use it.
I disagree. I wasn't a Microsoft fan when I switched to Windows Phone in late 2012 (hated Windows XP, skipped Vista, was forced to use 7). But the somewhat denser UI allowed me to break out of the tap in, tap in, tap in, back, back, back cycle that I was seemingly stuck in on iOS.
Plus I liked the tiles: resizable, repositionable, and they contained information.
I'm with you. Windows Phone is not bad, and the UI is better than iOS and way better than the confusing mess that is Android. Windows 10 that is,Windows 8 phone was a bit spartan.
I do a lot of mobile websites and UI work, so I like to keep track of what the frontiers of design is. Which is why I carry a iOS,Android and Win Phone device with me and sometimes swap out the SIM card to use the other ones as my main phone. I really like Windows phone but as a day to day phone I still use my iPhone. Why? a) Apps. b) Build quality. c) The windows phone always has finger smudges on the screen. It is little details like that that distinguishes Apple from Microsoft.
Before anywone accuses me of being a MS fanboy, I puse a Macbook day to day and an iPad. I very seldomly use Windows, except to test Websites with Edge (which is quite nice). I really do not like Microsoft on the desktop.
But for general handling of a mobile UI?? Microsoft all the way.
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