Microsoft → Balmer regrets ignoring the phone

Good ole Steve, reminding everyone what an horrible CEO he was and how he missed an entrance into a booming marketplace, the smart phone.

This time, they're not going to be able to dominate the market, it's already to entrenched with IOS and Android.»www.theglobeandmail.com/ ··· 4432035/

Microsoft is great at the missing the boat. Bill Gates didn't think much of the Internet either; too bad he still managed to saddle us with IE

My interpretation of the browser wars was that Microsoft had an immediate fear that browsers would somehow circumvent or replace a typical OS. So they put up a fight and we have IE. Netscape navigator sleeps with the fish.

Microsoft didn't see the danger of small cheap ARM devices until it was already eating away at PC sales, impeding the PC market and creating a lucrative market of its own. Once Microsoft became aware there was still an issue of development and time before they could make a viable offering in the mobile market.

The Microsoft Kin One, Kin two and Zune line ultimately culminated / amounted to a half-measure or a false start,....IMO. After such examples its a lot to ask the buying public to even consider investing in such products from Microsoft especially in the face of such stiff competition from iOS and Android.

This happened under Balmer and was surely a big mistake that just seems to be getting bigger and messier for Microsoft. The whole thing may be untenable but I honestly don't know that it would have been much different under someone else's guidance,....

SomeboSomebody who (and I don't know who)is more visionary?
Honestly it's too late, the Windows/Office platforms are to entrenched to go anywhere, but it's market will keep shrinking as people move towards more mobile devices.

They're like a the titanic, they're too big to turn (Apple is like that too,not sure about google) quickly, so either you get in on the ground floorm, smart phones and tablets or you stay home. That's the reason Nokia and RIM are dying they didn't see , or refused to see the market changing.

I will say this, Windows Phone 8 is a winner, and Microsoft "can" win the battle with Apple and Google, but they MUST STICK TO METRO ON PHONES!

Metro on WP8 is "bar none" the best User interface out there on the smart phone market..I have owned 3 Android phones, and used every Iphone that has come out. I got a Windows Phone about 6 months ago, Lumina 920, and I will NEVER go back to Android or Apple/IOS....WP8 is smooth as butter.

I haven't had a single app crash, force close, or any type of issues with the phone whatsoever. The phone also hasn't "slowed down" like the Android and Iphones do after having them for awhile.

Microsoft has a good product with WP8...they need to stick with it...when more people find out how good it is..you will see an exodus from the other two platforms.

right now Windows Phone 8 growth is outpacing Android...people are finding out how good it actually is....

»www.techradar.com/us/new ··· -1156276

Microsoft hasn't missed the boat....they are late, but the market is up for grabs, especially with Steve Jobs gone...have you see IOS7? its looks dreadful...flat looking icons and all the white...its something you would have expected to see in the win98/2000 days...that UI is dreadful.

Metro and its live tiles are "new" Win Phone has its own unique interface...MS actually "innovated" and came out with something completely new...and WP8 UI is easier to use then the others...you can get to the settings. etc with 2 swipes instead of the 3 swipes and 2 touches on icons you need with Android or IOS....

by the time Windows Phone 8.1 has been out for 18 months...i bet you will see a significant uptake in WP8 market share overall

Microsoft next needs to make some exclusive deals with carriers like ATT and Verizon and actually "pay" Verizon to put these handsets into peoples hands...spend a little money to undercut the competition...they done it with Windows, and they need to do it here....if they offer the carriers "x amount of cash for each WP8 sold" then these carriers will push these devices and once users see how good it is, they will wonder why they ever used the others.

Not to mention WP8 was designed with security in mind and im almost positive it supports DEP, ASLR(Address Space Layout Randomization, and App Containers) all of which neither Android or IOS support...not to mention WP8 is a much better multitakser and comes with Microsoft Office already installed.

I work on documents with my phone, add contacts, ect...all i ahve to do is go home, turn on my Windows 8 PC, login and everything i have done is automatically backed up and synced to my PC without having to plug in a darn thing or use some godawful software like Itunes...it doesn't get any easier then that...and the next Xbox can be controlled with your WP8 via Glass....its just a great product.....

I want WP8 to succeed, because its bar none the best mobile OS around..and the apps keep growing every month....its still new but its such a great mobile OS...I couldn't imagine going back to the other two now...comparing the UI on WP8 to Android/IOS is like comparing the Chevy Corvette(WP8) to the Pinto(IOS/Android)..WP8 UI is just beautiful....thats all i have to say

can you tell i love my WP8! ":)

I have to admit that if I weren't already heavily into the iOS ecosystem and from what I've seen so far with WP8's UI, I'd be tempted to try one out.

I like "live" tiles (I loved it when jailbreaking would give me live temps on the weather icon, for example) and I think I'd like the overall UI of WP8.

The stats mean nothing, sure Windows is growing faster,when you start from nothing, it's easy to see bigger growth.

IOS and Android are well placed and now the growth is much slower then when it started out.

Apple had 100% of the smart phone market once.

Given that Blackberry came out about 6 years before the first iPhone, how do you figure that one... Palm, WindowsMobile, and others were all out before IOS, as well.

I'd buy "Apple dominated the smart phone market once" - but they never were alone in the space, and therefore never had 100%...

Ok fair enough

Hindsight is 20/20,......

Everyone is a visionary in hindsight. I'll certainly entertain the notion and acknowledge it as a possibility but it's an unknown either way.

What someone else (whom ever) would have done years ago differently,......just seems kind of pointless IMO and yields no definitive answers now. It stands to reason that if someone else could have done better then some else also could have done worse. The devil you know as it were,.....

Reality is what we know has already happened, everything else under should of, would of, could of,....is fantasy.

The problem with smart phones is, a particular model or brand doesn't really have staying power in this market. Microsoft owned it once, Apple owned it and now Google owns it, and soon someone else will own it (maybe even Microsoft again as the Windows Phone does truly rock). The devices are really almost luxury items that you replace every other year or sooner, so market share can churn like crazy. Frankly the market is such that a company you have never heard of could be the market leader four years from now.

Blake

Too focused on Windows, lol. Did he say anything in there about his "will they or won't they" drama with acquiring Yahoo? How about aQuantive? If anything it was Ballmer's obsession with "me too" products that were years late to the party that has hurt Microsoft.

New technology is very cyclical. Apple was close to bankruptcy in the late 1990s and there is no Jobs to invent new products. Their product line is mature and being commoditized, and unlike MS, Apple has no presence in the gaming or enterprise markets.

It's true that Windows phone will not overtake Android due to the latter's many manufacturers, but it will overtake Apple's market share globally within 10 years at the present rate of growth, due mostly to Apple's unwillingness to build a cheap smartphone.

»www.phonearena.com/phone ··· 983,7471

The Lumia 920 and the Apple 5C are competitive spec wise, the but 5C, at $100 is twice as much on the same 2 year plan.

Microsoft did not ignore, they just did not innovate.

If only he regretted ignoring the desktop with Windows 8...

I don't think it's hindsight.

Apple pops up with the Iphone , nothing by Microsoft, then the 3g, 3Gs.. oh look the KIN... oops, another "BOB". Lets try again, same can be said for the Tablet market, not just Apple but a host of Asian competitors are in the marketplace, where's Microsoft again?

It's not hindsight per se, but a systematic failure to a) Recognize a market and b) develop a product that can actually be competitive.

I agree with that, however for some reason Apple thinks they can command a premium for their product, and for the most part get it.

Apple would still make more money than Microsoft. It's the premium phone market where Apple makes big profits.

If you look at it that way I see your point but I wasn't exactly looking at it from that perspective. Microsoft didn't necessarily know that a poor presence in the mobile market would or could adversely affect other markets that they are heavily invested in.

Even if you know that you have to accomplish something specific with the threat of dire consequences doesn't mean you know how or have the tools to accomplish it.

Sadly you're probably right... despite the fact that device convergence was the big new thing long before 2007.