Bill Gates: Windows Phone could have defeated Android

[Karlston]

Bill Gates: Windows Phone could have defeated Android

Microsoft founder laments missed opportunity due to antitrust investigation

(Image credit: Microsoft)

 

Microsoft founder Bill Gates believes the company would have dominated the smartphone world had it not been for an antitrust investigation it faced in the early 2000s.

 

Speaking at the New York Times’ DealBook conference, Gates said he was too distracted by the case and missed a deadline to put Windows Mobile on a Motorola device by a matter of months.

 

Microsoft dominated smartphones in the first part of the decade with Windows Mobile, but this first mover advantage was limited by the fact the market for such devices was so small.

 

Motorola was a major device manufacturer during the period, meaning Windows Mobile could have gained significant traction in the market and would have limited the opportunity that Google seized with Android.

Microsoft Mobile

“There’s no doubt that the antitrust lawsuit was bad for Microsoft, and we would have been more focused on creating the phone operating system and so instead of using Android today you would be using Windows Mobile,” Gates is quoted as saying. “If it hadn’t been for the antitrust case... we were so close, I was just too distracted. I screwed that up because of the distraction.”

 

The first Android devices were launched in the latter part of the decade and filled the vacuum left by Microsoft for a non-Apple mobile operating system. Android has effectively become to smartphones what Windows is to PCs.

Windows Phone was critically acclaimed but released far too late to gain the consumer, vendor and developer support required to successfully challenge for the top spot. Not even the acquisition of former market leader Nokia could help arrest the decline.

 

Gates has previously described Microsoft’s inability to capture the market as his biggest mistake, one worth hundreds of billions of pounds, but the company has at least made peace with its failure. A final low-key attempt to win share with a mobile version of Windows 10 has run out of steam, and Microsoft even plans to use Android in its upcoming Surface Duo device.

 

Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s strategy is to get its services, such as Microsoft Office 365, onto as many devices as possible and drive subscription revenue.

 

 

Source: Bill Gates: Windows Phone could have defeated Android (TechRadar)

[zanderthunder]

After all, the main failure of Windows Phone is just one thing: lack of continuous support from all parties.

[Chancer]

It was lack of apps that killed it for me. Loved the phone!

[zanderthunder]

1 hour ago, Chancer said:

It was lack of apps that killed it for me. Loved the phone!

And also Windows Phone apps are not user friendly tho.

[Arachnoid]

Quote

 

Speaking at the New York Times’ DealBook conference, Gates said he was too distracted by the case and missed a deadline to put Windows Mobile on a Motorola device by a matter of months.

Quote

 

 

 

 

Its a poor excuse hes not just a one man company, there would have been a whole development department just to produce this software alone.

[Jogs]

I could have been the World's richest person. 😁

[flash48]

Bill Gates has a short memory.  If IBM did not go to Microsoft to license DOS to put on their PC's, where would he be now on the scale of rich people?  As I recall MS was IBM's second choice.  The first company insulted the IBM executives at the meeting since they all came dressed up in business suits.  I bet these guys must be kicking themselves, since they could of  been Microsoft.