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.