Microsoft’s Mobile Muddle
Microsoft’s Mobile Muddle
Saying “Microsoft missed mobile” is a bit unfair; Windows Mobile came out way back in 2000, and the whole reason Google bought Android was the fear that Microsoft would dominate mobile the way they dominated the PC era. It turned out, though, that mobile devices, with their focus on touch, simplified interfaces, and ARM foundation, were nothing like PCs. Everyone had to start from scratch, and if starting from scratch, by definition Microsoft didn’t have any sort of built-in advantage. They were simply out-executed.
Not that that should make Satya Nadella sleep any better at night. The power of mobile is that it is always with you; it is impossible for your mobile device to not dominate your computing time. At first, said time was accretive: on the bus, in the waiting room, the seams in your life. Increasingly, though, mobile is stealing time formerly devoted to PCs, making mobile not just a threat to Microsoft’s growth, but also to their cash cows.
To appreciate the extent of Microsoft’s problems, and the possible solution, I’ve broken things down in five categories:
- Business Models
- Devices
- Services
- Patents
- Apps
The realities of mobile
- There are two viable business models: device sales and services. Licensing an operating system for profit is a non-viable business model. Android killed it.
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