Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's Biggest Regret Is Ditching Windows Phone

25.10.2023 - 17:39 / pcmag.com

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently sat down for an interview with Bloomberg Insider, where he covered topics from family to leadership to AI. But in one of his more surprising admissions, he admitted regret to "exiting mobile phones."

"The decision I think a lot of people talk about—and one of the most difficult decisions I made when I became CEO—was our exit of what I'll call the mobile phone as defined then," Nadella said when asked about his a strategic mistake or decision he regrets. "In retrospect, I think there could have been ways we could have made it work by perhaps reinventing the category of computing between PCs, tablets, and phones."

Unfortunately, that's the beginning and end of the conversation, so we can only imagine what he has in mind for reinventing the category of Windows Phone. Microsoft does have some experience in the matter through its Surface line. Until the Surface, the 2-in-1 laptop/tablet category didn't exist, and now most manufacturers (even Apple) have some entry like it.

But while Microsoft did re-enter the mobile phone world to some extent in recent years, it has yet to truly re-invent the category. The Surface Duo is a dual-display Android device masquerading as a foldable, but it hasn't performed well due to a bundle of compromises. Microsoft said recently that it will no longer support the original Surface Duo; it will do the same for the Surface Duo 2 effective Oct. 21, 2024. There's no telling if there will ever be a Surface Duo 3.

It may be hard to remember now, but Microsoft really put effort into Windows Phone, and it had a lasting effect on smartphones as we know them. Both Android and iOS would go on to borrow concepts from Redmond's mobile OS. Material Design and iOS, starting in version 7, are both inspired by Windows Phone OS's flat look and departure from skeuomorphism.

Both iOS and Android now have notification shades that more closely resemble what Windows Phone offered, and Apple's take on widgets bears some resemblance to Windows Phone's Live Tiles. And while 40+ megapixel cameras with optical image stabilization (OIS) are becoming the norm today, the Lumia 1020 debuted with those features 10 years ago, one of the last phones Nokia launched before Microsoft acquired the company.

But for everything Windows Phone did well, it never really took off in part because of one of its most significant deficiencies: apps. From the beginning, Microsoft dealt with a chicken and egg issue: developers didn't want to create apps until Windows Phones had more users, and people didn't want to buy Windows Phones until the OS had more apps. Microsoft tried playing developers to create apps and even coding the apps for those developers, but at best, that led to an