"Bill G on biggest Microsoft management blunder... Was it Bing, Internet Explorer, Vista, the antitrust cases?"
My, my, ol' Billy Gates is looking a little rough around the edges these days...
Posted on 06/24/2019 8:25:37 AM PDT by dayglored
Nope: it was not giving Android a run for its money...
Bill Gates has said his biggest management miscalculation was failing to position Microsoft's Windows Phone as the primary rival mobile operating system to Apple's iOS.
Speaking at venture capital beanfeast Village Global last week, Gates said that although the company he founded had not missed mobile phones it had gone about things the wrong way. Although Gates stepped down as CEO in 2008, it is fair to say he retained an interest in the company he founded and remained chairman until 2014.
Gates, sporting a natty pink jumper, said: "The greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is – that is the standard phone platform – non-Apple phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win."
The grey-haired 63-year-old said the software world, especially for platforms, is all about winner-takes-all markets. He said a company with half as many apps or even 90 per cent as many apps was on its way to complete doom: "There's room for exactly one non-Apple operating system, and what's that worth? $400bn that would be transferred from company G to company M."
Gates said if Microsoft had got that right, it would be the leading company in the world, not just one of the leaders.
Microsoft's mobile strategy has been rebooted several times. It killed its Windows Mobile and brought in Windows Phone, along the way buying Nokia before finally leaping off the platform and throwing in the towel.
Steve Ballmer was not alone in doubting the chances of the iPhone making serious sales, especially in business, because it lacked a keyboard. But Microsoft moved to gesture and touch interfaces for mobile too slowly to succeed.
Microsoft is killing off support for Windows 10 Mobile on 10 December this year.
Gates has previously admitted not investing enough in Internet Explorer as his major error.
Google bought Android, based on the Linux kernel, to run on its phones in 2005. The core operating system is available via an open source licence, although Google also sells a set of proprietary software apps and services. This approach has made Android the world's largest mobile operating system. Although Microsoft has softened on its approach to open source software, such a strategy would have been a big shift for the company back in 2005.
Whether Gates is right that there is room for only one non-Apple mobile OS is also open to question – American pres Donald Trump's ban on Google and other American firms working with Huawei has seemingly forced the Chinese company, the world's second largest handset maker, to create its own platform. ®
"Bill G on biggest Microsoft management blunder... Was it Bing, Internet Explorer, Vista, the antitrust cases?"
My, my, ol' Billy Gates is looking a little rough around the edges these days...
Microsoft Bob? Clippy?
Clippy....................
That's the first time I have ever heard a sweater called a jumper. I though at first perhaps he was transitioning, as jumpers usually refer to something like this:
or these:
You have to peel the onion a layer deeper...M$ had a real chance to dominate the handheld computing market with CE but they blew it. The first ass-kicking came at the hands of Palm OS. After wasting both personal money and professional reputation betting that Microsoft was the horse to ride, I finally gave up on them before they rebranded and transformed it in to "Mobile". Microsoft's reputation in the early mobile device market was that of a loser with 3rd rate products and poor support. They had zero reputation in embedded (and still don't). They were all about the desktop, Office, and server, and they really had no chance at mobile.
um...OK.
I can guarantee the words "sporting a natty pink jumper" will never be used after my name.
Microsoft has almost always failed in situations like that. Their development strategies revolve around each product concept generating it’s own profit, almost like autonomous businesses.
When apple decided to get into the phone market, they took what they already did well with the iPod and put into their phone, including the ability to play music like iPods did. If it were Microsoft, they’d have locked the music and iTunes out of their phone unless you paid more for it, because that profit belonged to the iPod division. Apple’s philosophy is to make you a customer first, and let the that drive the additional revenue streams after.
Microsoft was never going to have a great device OS because Microsoft was never ready to combine or bundle it with their market strengths, such is into the business real using office for example. Office is too precious. So fail.
CLIPPY MUST DIE!!!!!!!!...................
Their biggest blunder was failing to listen to customers.
They still don’t listen.
USB-C is a mess on Windows 10.
Audio breakup has been a problem since Windows 7.
Modern Security hooks have are only now somewhat arriving.
Apple would be kicking their butt if Corporate didn’t have so much invested in MS.
When I was at Intel, we would come up with a great idea, MS would say...”Yea but we need control over it”
I really liked windows phone. And Nokia was building some great hardware. I was all in.
Then Microsoft completely screwed the pooch.
Had they just delivered new, competitive hardware in a yearly fashion while addressing software issues they would possibly be #2. And still in the race. But they went too long without even throwing a bone to the diehards. And the diehards evaporated
It was Steve Ballmer...
Followed by the guy occupying that spot now.
Reversion to the mean. Happens to everything.
The Windows phone was a great product. It was a nearly perfect phone.
Troof. It was also a different world from the one where Microsoft was king of the desktop and could kneecap their opponents. Nobody trusted Microsoft, because as king of the desktop, they used their position as the gatekeeper of programs to destroy anyone competing with them. They entered into the phone wars without being able to sneak up on anyone.
Windows Phone was getting great. Their user interface (live tiles) is still superior to iOS or Android. Their hardware was far superior and their cameras were way ahead (40 megapixel)
Where they failed was on the apps end. Many popular app providers boycotted Microsoft (Snapchat being one) which rendered the phones inferior to the competition.
This article took me down memory lane. Windows ME was what got me to move to Apple. The one I remember that Gates tried to push through, but wasn't able to pull off, was after they'd wrecked Mozilla, they tried to sneak "smart tags" into Internet Explorer. The backlash was so extreme, they backed off.
For those who don't know, smart tags would be embedded in the browser, and would automatically convert key words to clickable links to Microsoft partners (paid advertisers.) So, if you ran a blog on digital cameras, and Nikon was a Microsoft partner, every time you used the word "camera" in your blog, Internet Explorer would make the word a clickable link to Nikon. Your site would become an advertising platform for Microsoft, and you would not get paid.
I remember Wordperfect and Lotus 1-2-3 would start crashing every time I did a Windows update. Read a few articles that the owners said MS would put out coding guidelines then break the guidelines with their own products, but not notify anyone that they were changing the coding.
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