Windows Phone Might Have Succeeded If...

[sapphirescales]

I don't understand Microsoft. They put billions of dollars into developing Windows Phone and they never did what it took to gain market share. If I had been in charge of Microsoft trying to take on Android and iOS, this is what I would have done:

1. Design a cheap $100 - $200 smartphone
2. Strip Windows Phone down to the bare minimum so that it would run smoothly on those cheap phones.
3. Give the phones away (or really cheap, maybe offering a free gift card to the Microsoft Store or something)
4. Market them like crazy.
5. Offer a period (say 5 years), where developers that published an app to the store would get 100% of the proceeds from the sales.

Alternatively, partner with Verizon or another provider and offer REALLY cheap (like at-cost) phone service with the purchase of a Microsoft phone. This is what Xfinity does. I get 5 lines with 10GB of shared data for $60/month.

Basically, make Windows Phone irresistible to both consumers and developers. Developers will want to develop apps for the phone because of its large/growing market share and the fact that they get to keep 100% of the profits. Consumers will want the phones because they're cheap and/or they get cheap phone service with them. Eventually as market share increases, THEN start producing premium phones and partnering with smartphone makers and selling your OS. After 5 years you can start making a profit from app sales as well.

At its peak, Windows Phone had a grand total of 43 million users. That's laughable. Microsoft was sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in cash. By investing just 10% of that into phones, they could have "sold" 300 million phones, or about 20% market share. Investing 20% would have gotten them up to 50% market share.

To help stem the loss they could have developed killer smartphone apps and sold them in their store. Microsoft has succeeded so well because they develop their own software. They wouldn't be where they are right now without Office, Windows Live, MSN Messenger, and yes, even Internet Explorer. Microsoft is more than Windows - it's an entire software ecosystem, and their software plays a critical role in that ecosystem.

And yes, I'm aware that building your business around cheapwads isn't a good long-term strategy. The whole point is to get developers to develop for your platform. The reason Windows Phone failed wasn't because the OS sucked, but because no one wanted to develop for it because so few people owned a Windows Phone. People didn't buy Windows Phone because the marketing sucked and they had no apps. It's a classic chicken and the egg dilemma. You can't overcome this without massive capital investment. If Microsoft wasn't committed to doing this, they never should have tried.

You can't just throw up a website with no marketing and sit back waiting for sales to come in. That's basically what Microsoft did. In this case, "marketing" includes getting your OS into the hands of as many consumers as possible.

 

[britechguy]

Windows Phone was doomed from the start. Android and iOS had already taken the market, the entire market, and there was going to be no successful clawing it from their hands.

It was a stupid attempt to begin with, not unlike AT&T's purchase of NCR way back when and believing that they could enter the computer market as a force to be reckoned with.

History teaches that trying to break into an already well-established "locked" market is pretty much doomed to failure, no matter who tries it, and when.

 

[Computer Bloke]

History teaches that trying to break into an already well-established "locked" market is pretty much doomed to failure, no matter who tries it, and when.

Which is why Facebook never stood a chance against GeoCities and MySpace, and Chrome remains a niche browser used only by crackpots who refuse to bow to the mighty Internet Explorer.

 

[sapphirescales]

Which is why Facebook never stood a chance against GeoCities and MySpace, and Chrome remains a niche browser used only by crackpots who refuse to bow to the mighty Internet Explorer.

This. It's not just about offering a better product/service either. I could design a website far superior to Facebook but if I just let it sit there on the internet collecting dust, no one would use it. Breaking into an established market requires that you have a better product/service, market it effectively, and usually at a better price (at least at first). This requires a ton of money, which Microsoft has, but unfortunately wasn't willing to spend. "Build it and they will come" hasn't been true for decades (if ever, really).

Remember when Microsoft started paying people to make searches on Bing? Talk about desperation. I have no idea if they're still doing that, but it was such a paltry sum not even the poorest person in America would have bothered. Bing has several problems:

1. It sucks
2. Google is far superior and everyone already knows about it
3. Bing doesn't offer anything unique that Google doesn't

Instead of making a decent search engine, Microsoft's answer was to shove it down the throats of everyone that has Windows 10. I personally don't think anyone will ever unseat Google as the #1 search engine (at least in the traditional search engine sense). Niche search engines like DuckDuckGo offer (supposedly) a trackless search, but they'll never be #1. If technologies change (i.e. voice search or similar technologies) and Google doesn't adapt to them, then I'm sure they'll lose market share, but with the current technology, nobody can offer anything better than Google and since Google is free, the only way to compete with them is to offer something better.

 

[britechguy]

The key is better product, if you're even going to attempt to break in to a very well established market.

I'd argue that the Facebook to GeoCities/MySpace comparison is an example of multiple players fighting for turf in a developing market upon which none had a real lock.

That was not in any way comparable to AT&T trying to enter the computer hardware business or Microsoft trying to enter the smartphone business when each did, respectively. The markets they were entering into had been cemented for years by the time they decided to take the plunge.

The company that really completely lost its chance, and that could have dominated the smartphone market, was Palm. Had they recognized that PDAs were fading, and fast, and adapted PalmOS much earlier than their lame and very late attempt to the smartphone market I suspect things would look very different than the iOS/Android markets do now.

 

[sapphirescales]

The company that really completely lost its chance, and that could have dominated the smartphone market, was Palm. Had they recognized that PDAs were fading, and fast, and adapted PalmOS much earlier than their lame and very late attempt to the smartphone market I suspect things would look very different than the iOS/Android markets do now.

The reason why so many players were so late to the smartphone market is no one realized that the general populace was stupid enough to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a smartphone. Phones back then were cheap, and palm pilots were basically expensive digital appointment calendars. Combining the two seemed like a novel concept, but not something that would take off like it did. It was Apple that realized they could turn the smartphone into a recurring revenue stream through an app store, but their devices were expensive. Android devices filled the cheaper niche. By the time companies realized how lucrative the smartphone market could be, iOS and Android were already dominant.

I still believe it's possible to break into this market, though the new player would need to run it at a loss for quite some time in order to become a real competitor. The only company I can think of that could have done it is Microsoft, but they were far too timid and didn't invest the money needed to get their business off the ground. I still think it's possible that we'll see a competitor to iOS/Android, but it obviously won't be Microsoft. It will probably be some Chinese company, though with the current climate between the US and China, that's probably going to be a ways off.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Which is why Facebook never stood a chance against GeoCities and MySpace, and Chrome remains a niche browser used only by crackpots who refuse to bow to the mighty Internet Explorer.

Except that Facebook and Chrome offered a significantly better experience. Windows Phone wasn't any better than Android or iPhone and didn't have the app share to make it better than what already had taken hold. Had they been first to market a cheap phone they could have been where Android is now. But Google was there 6 years before them.

 

[lan101]

I had a Nokia Lumia back in like 2013. I actually really liked the phone and the features etc. By 2015 it was pretty clear windows phone was dying off quickly. I kept it until 2016 and then I went with Android. I would have definitely gotten another windows phone if they hadn't given up on it.

 

[Computer Bloke]

Except that Facebook and Chrome offered a significantly better experience.

That was exactly my point. (We have irony in my country and I sometimes forget that other people don't.)

There was nothing technically wrong with Microsoft phones, and a great deal to like. They were easy to learn, ran familiar software, and looked gosh-darned beautiful. It's true that they didn't have a hundred variations of Angry Birds (or any other game where the suicide bombers were the good guys) but as a straightforward business tool a Microsoft phone was hard to beat. Unfortunately Microsoft was pushing Betamax in a VHS world, and I believe that @sapphirescales is perfectly correct in saying that their lack of success was a direct result of lack of investment and marketing.

 

[Paul Rodgers]

Windows Phone died because of lack of developer support and Microsoft not putting their full weight behind it. The interface was beautiful, Nokia was making great hardware, there were great plans forward, but Microsoft put too little into the push and gave up too soon. There was the promise of plugging one into a dock and being able to use it as a computer. Imagine how things would be now if that was pushed.

 

[Sky-Knight]

The Alpha version of Windows 10 is getting traction now, we might see them again... but only once the desktop OS condenses into a super phone that can simple run Windows.

 

[DRPCNZ]

I had a Nokia Lumia back in like 2013. I actually really liked the phone and the features etc. By 2015 it was pretty clear windows phone was dying off quickly. I kept it until 2016 and then I went with Android. I would have definitely gotten another windows phone if they hadn't given up on it.

I had all the Nokia/Microsoft Lumias I hung on to my Microsoft phone right up until Aug 2019

 

[DRPCNZ]

We also have to remember that Microsoft have always made expensive products (e.g. Surface Pro) and then said to the third parties "Right there it is go make it cheaper"

 

[johnrobert]

The short answer is, it had the Mirosoft name on it.

 

[Computer Bloke]

The short answer is, it had the Mirosoft name on it.

Isn't Mirosoft the company that makes Bolex watches and Pravda handbags?

Either way, that's what you get for buying a smartphone in a Kowloon night market.