Microsoft finally gives up on the mobile OS game
It was certainly prolonged, sometimes awkward and completely foreseeable, but Microsoft has finally accepted it isn’t up to making its mobile operating system work.
With a series of tweets over the weekend, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Windows, Joe Belfiore has seemingly put the final full stop on the obituary for the Windows mobile OS. Windows has not been able to cultivate the same cult-like dedication of Apple, but there might be a few disappointed fans out there. We’ve never come across any of them, but there surely is at least one out there, and it certainly isn’t Belfiore himself.
As you can see from the tweets below, Microsoft was always onto a bit of a loser. Its failed attempt into mobile couldn’t attract the numbers, and its attempt to create an alternative to iOS and Android couldn’t either. Simply put, without the audience there wasn’t really a compelling business case to tempt developers to create apps for the OS.
Telecoms.com first called this back in 2014, prompting much outrage from the fanboys of the Windows community (we knew they were somewhere) in the comments section. As soon as the decision to make products platform-agnostic was made, the foot was planted on the slippery slope to irrelevance. Microsoft won’t be leaving the sulkers high and dry, but they certainly shouldn’t wait for any new bells or whistles.
All is not lost though, as while this has been an expensive mistake, attention can now be paid to the areas where Microsoft is a bit more competent.
(2/2) As an individual end-user, I switched platforms for the app/hw diversity. We will support those users too! Choose what’s best 4 u. https://t.co/LKQBL3w7gA
— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 8, 2017
(1/2) Depends who you are. Many companies still deploy to their employees and we will support them! … https://t.co/LKQBL3w7gA
— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 8, 2017
Of course we’ll continue to support the platform.. bug fixes, security updates, etc. But building new features/hw aren’t the focus.
As a developer for iOS , Android and Windows Phone, the Microsoft Platform was one of the best, and the introduction of the Nokia Lumia was done at the right time.
The major problems were:
1. The hell of the development Portal
2. Asking money to the developers , (the annual membership). Microsoft should instead have offered a fee for each published application to port the Windows Phone apps to the same level as the other 2.