Noted in Passing: Microsoft Smartphone OS Platform Passed Away

So it comes as no surprise to readers of this blog. But it's now official. Microsoft has announced that it has stopped the development of the smartphone OS platform that once was known as Windows Mobile, at another time Windows Phone and most recently Windows 10 Mobile. The existing product is not yet ended but all development has ended. You say tomato, I say potato. Same difference. Windows on smartphones is dead. Good riddance too!

Very briefly, I was chronicling the rise of Windows onto smartphones and chaired the world's first smartphone conference. I kept tabs on the role of Windows which briefly was the world's second-bestselling smartphone OS a decade ago. I warned of the mistakes Microsoft was making that started the death-spiral - very importantly from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone, the bizarre arrogant decision by Steve Ballmer to not have a migration path to Windows Phone OS (this was still before the Nokia related end to the platform). I was proven right and Windows lost half its share and fell to fifth ranking in smartphone OS wars just as the 'Bloodbath' was heating up (which we followed intensely on this blog).

Then came the end. The unholy alliance of Nokia and Windows, orchestrated by the worst CEO in corporate history, Stephen Elop (aka E-Flop as he's often called in Finland). Nokia's inept CEO messed up what chances the partnership would have had. I predicted that Nokia sales would collapse (as they did) and Nokia's handset unit which had never one in Nokia's history produced a loss - would start to produce losses (which it did) and that Nokia would never return to profits in smartphones (which it didn't) and that Nokia would have to sell its handset business (as it did) and that would be to Microsoft (as it occurred). Not bad predicting, eh.

And a few months after the Nokia deal, Steve Ballmer then put the final nail into the coffin of Windows smartphone hopes - when Microsoft purchased Skype. Once again, as with the previous forecasts, when I explained why Skype was the death-nail to the smartphone OS platform, numerous readers came and loudly protested in the comments, claiming I was a fool. Yet in a matter of weeks, all other major Windows Phone handset makers instantly quit the platform (like SonyEricsson, LG, Motorola, Dell) or dramatically cut down the Windows Phone product portfolio (like Samsung and HTC) and Windows share collapsed from 5% the year before to half that by the time the first Nokia branded phones started to ship on the platform. It was not the Nokia deal that killed Windows, it was Ballmer's purchase of Skype - as I explained and as turned out to be true. The carrier community put Windows smartphones into a sales boycott and Microsoft never recovered. This all happened before Nokia started selling Lumia phones on Windows, but later, when Nokia CEO was asked about a sales boycott, he admitted one existed and that it was hurting all Windows phone makers, including the then-brand-new Nokia Lumia sales. Various other Nokia and Microsoft execs admitted the boycott or in some synonyms like 'carrier reluctance' to sell the Windows OS phones (not just Nokia Lumia but from other Windows vendors too that remained, like Samsung and HTC).

Nokia Lumia edition 1 failed as I predicted. It was replaced by edition 2 on a new version of Windows Phone OS which failed, as I predicted, and then the third edition failed, by which time Elop was demoted and Nokia sold the whole handset business to Microsoft, tossing Elop in the package back to his former employer too. I predicted that Nokia would recover with the telecoms infrastructure business which is at Nokia's core telecoms competence (as it did). I predicted that the ex-Nokia handset business would continue to be a failure at Microsoft, exactly as it did fail too.

Of the Nokia handset business sale to Microsoft, again, I made a series of predictions, that now every single one of my predictions came true. I said that the first recourse at Microsoft to the failing handset business would to fire the incompetent Elop from running the handset business (as it did). I said Microsoft would give their handset unit to another exec to run (which it did) and that exec would have two years until the business unit would be shut (as it happened). I even postulated a fantasy 'Hollywood ending' scenario by which Nokia's handset business would be sold back to Nokia, after it had failed at Microsoft. While that technically did not 'exactly' happen, gosh, it is close, considering how the sale happened to HMD. I then said that the OS platform itself, was obviously doomed because HMD aka 'New Nokia' would release Android phones, not Windows phones - as it happened - and now we see the end of Windows smartphone OS itself. Incidentally about the timing? I said Windows OS at Microsoft had a rough life span as a doomed 'dead man walking' division of never producing profits, of about two cycles of two years ie four years. Look at the calendar? Its autumn 2017. Four years on the dot.

There is nobody else in the industry who gave all this in predictions before they happened. And nobody else who explained each of these events WHEN they happened (no migration path Windows Mobile to Windows Phone, Skype Purchase, Nokia Partnership, Nokia Purchase, ex-Nokia Sale to HMD) and how that would impact Windows smartphone OS platform. Every single step in Windows fall was predicted correctly here on this blog and nobody else saw all that happening. This is now the final part. Yeah. It makes me happy to see Microsoft suffer, I hated Microsoft long before they got involved with Nokia. But regardless of my feelings about the company, the actual events - every single one I predicted, came true, and nothing I ever predicted did NOT come true. I even pointed out the silly forecasts of famous industry analysts who promised Windows would be bigger than the iPhone today in 2017 haha and have something above 20% market share of smartphones today. I was here,  when it happened, and told you exactly what would happen. As it all happened.

Oh. One more bit. I was the first to also tell you that Google won the battle of the century for the OS of all high tech - when Android was passing Windows (all devices, not just smartphones, but PCs included). Nobody else told you that either. It is now becoming apparent to many experts that Google owns the tech world via Android. Who told you first? The dude who saw how Windows was truly collapsing and that iOS was never a threat to Google's world domination plans. Yeah, we'll return to those issues in coming years no doubt. Goodbye Windows smartphones and by darn it, good riddance too! Ballmer gone. Elop gone. Lumia gone. Windows smartphone OS gone. Now when can we see Microsoft the company gone too, please, next?

Comments

[Jim Glue]

Re the "Apple Metal idiocy". Every strategy has pro's and cons.

Controlling hardware, software the way Apple does allows Apple to provide the best experience opportunity for their customer base.

A common important layer shared by multiple platforms helps developers proved a least-common-denominator experience to all platforms. Reduces the cost of multi-platform support. I can see why from THIS perspective, Apple's strategy is lunacy.

BUT - Apple doing things Apple's way allows them to provide a differentiated and superior experience. This has garnered Apple the absolute best customer base in existence. That is the balancing tradeoff for developers. Put more work into supporting multiple platforms balanced by access to Apple's very lucrative customer base.

And it's working. It allows Apple to move it's platform ahead on all levels (cpu, gpu, other supporting chips, OS, graphics system, developer tools) without waiting for any other company.

It also gives developers a huge customer base with similar phones that actually reduce the cost of development on Apple's platform.

Rich and large customer base, simplified development and support....is why even gamers still target iOS first.

Keep in mind that high end games don't run worth crap on low end hardware. Addressable market among iOS is on par and probably larger than that of "Android".

[Tester]

"Metal" is idiotic, as long as it remains Apple's sole interface to modern 3D graphics. Period.

This is a strategy that will uncouple Apple from the rest of 3D software development.
I can only speak from a hobbyist game developer's perspective but with the current market share this effectively means that many hobbyist projects will only support macOS via legacy OpenGL support because that's still needed anyway for those laggard users which are stuck with 10+ year old hardware and refuse to upgrade.

But one day this will be a thing of the past, too, and then for many of these projects it will mean "goodbye Apple". From the numbers I have seen among users of such software Apple's market share is even less than Linux!
And as this goes on it will mean less entertainment software for Macs than there already is, which will mean less young users, which will make the system uncool, effectively relegating it to business-only hardware, which will ultimately hurt Apple's bottom line, if private users jump off the platform.

Well, naybe that's what Tim Cook ultimately wants because making business-only hardware means you can skip the more expensive parts without lowering the price...

[Jim Glue]

Hi Tester,

I agree with you with respect to the Mac. Not supporting video standards makes development more difficult since the Mac is clearly an after thought for game makers.

And we can see that with the paucity of games for the Mac vs. games for the PC.

iOS is in a different position. Just like every PC is not a "gaming PC" for those serious high end games...every smartphone is not able to run high end games. Comparing the size of the "high end capable gaming smartphones"....Apple's numbers are a LOT closer if not better than Android's.

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Jim:

But iOS too will suffer the same fate. However you cut it, being a minority platform and doing "your own thing" is a liability, not a strength.

Metal will slowly die and be supplanted by Vulkan, since Vulkan will work on Android, Windows and Linux.

[Jim Glue]

Hi Per,

You want to put a time frame on that and we can reconvene? We've had Apple's Metal for about 4 years and counting. How much longer?

While we are at it. Shall we predict developers will stop using ARKit as well?

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Jim:

It's difficult to give exact numbers.

You've just been told you are in the early stages of Alzheimer. The doctors can tell you that you have months to years to live. Probably years.

Same thing here. It will happen, this is inevitable. It's just a question of how much money Apple is willing to burn on it first.

[Tester]

This all depends on how much extra effort developers are willing to put into Apple support.
And that mostly depends on how much return in investment Apple provides.

The problem here is very clearly that you get >90% of platform support in the desktop segment with one API, that is Vulkan.
To get to 100% you have to double your investment in low level development and deal with incompatibilities. Is it worth that much?

Well, obviously for most major game developers it's not worth supporting macOS at all so Apple needs to care about the ones that are actually willing to support their platform. And that's NOT being done by forcing a complete rewrite of a low level subsystem. In fact, this was one of the aspects that killed Windows Phone right out of the gate: The platform had no chance to get games support because all mobile games developers had to use OpenGL to get the remaining 90+% of existing hardware.

On iOS Apple can (still) afford to stand alone because the US market is large enough to justify the double investment for most developers.
But on desktop this clearly is not the case. Mac market share in private households is approx. 5% (most Macs are business machines) and most developers doing their math quickly realize that they might get more out of Linux support because far less double development has to be done.

One hobby project I am working on is seriously considering axing Mac support because we want to transition from OpenGL to Vulkan - but nobody feels any urge to redo all the stuff in Metal yet again, just because Apple cannot be bothered to come along or open up their platform for direct driver support for Vulkan, like it happens on Windows.

[Jim Glue]

We agree that it's far harder to justify Mac support. It's one of the things vastly different between the Windows/Mac battle vs Android/iPhone