The Windows Phone: an $8 Billion fiasco

this video was brought to you by slide bean founders edition get help from our team in your pitch take your financial models and your fundraising sign up with the link in the description microsoft is back at it with phones a foldable phone this time it's been more than two years since windows phones were discontinued that's 2017 and they have now released the surface duo it's their take on the dual screen devices trend that has been building up for a while but this one is different from microsoft first it's more of a mini tablet type of device than just a phone most importantly though it runs android instead of windows so in light of this supposed second round for microsoft making phones let's remember the og windows phone and the epic failure it was welcome to company forensics microsoft did it again the zune skype mixer and now the windows phone are some of the most emblematic microsoft flops that we've covered in this show a foldable phone with android may sound pretty normal and easy to say but it took microsoft about a decade to come to terms with the google os and put it on one of their phones before this they poured development and billions of dollars into getting windows on phones it made sense and if things had gone right for them microsoft or windows would have been the third contender in the mobile operating system duopoly of android and ios windows phone was the successor to windows mobile the handheld and pocket pc operating system back in the early 2000s those products were more focused on the enterprise and business market while windows phone was for consumers same as we have said about the zune windows phones weren't bad microsoft's operating system came up as a refreshment in a two-sided panorama that already started to look stale and it did bring some novelties in a similar fashion to the widgets you may use on your phone today about 10 years ago the windows phone displayed a series of interactive tiles on the home screen that offered content from different apps at a glance they also worked to differentiate the hardware you may remember those vibrant colors on the lumia series probably the first flagship lineup of phones that made such a design choice even the great cameras that some of them had but the phones tended to be chunky compared to other android phones and not as fancy as iphones microsoft had ambitions of controlling the operating system and user experience in all of its devices just as streamlined as apple did but apple had about three years more experience putting premium smartphones together with a certainly more mature operating system so after many iterations from different manufacturers microsoft ended up acquiring nokia the former king of cell phones hoping that their merger could help them figure it out we also have an episode about nokia but long story short microsoft poured around 8 billion into the nokia affair but wasn't successful in managing the licensing mess to align all devices into a streamlined os and don't get it wrong it's no easy task apple does this masterfully with the operating system in all of its devices because it has managed to keep full control of its hardware and software world garden but even android still struggles to provide regular software support and updates to the vast amount of devices that operate in the different versions of the os by going all in with nokia microsoft neglected other key manufacturers like samsung or htc who had no problem going with android and it appeared that people wouldn't bother to jump into windows phones either which was inevitably confirmed by their low sales that never caught up with those of the competitors manufacturers and consumers weren't digging the windows phones so app developers weren't interested in it either that's the big problem that left windows handicapped to compete with the play store and the app store youtube versus windows phone not having your essential and beloved apps at hand in your phone is unthinkable in the area of smartphones and the windows phone lacked most of them yeah so windows phones didn't have youtube so what else can we say google and microsoft weren't exactly best friends by then and youtube became a central battlefield for them around the year 2013. windows had managed to work around youtube's api to create a native app for its operating system but google didn't like it that first version of youtube presented a couple of fundamental problems to google's interests it had no advertising and allowed things like downloading videos google of course stepped in and demanded microsoft to make their app compliant with their api terms of use they did but just partially so google removed the app and the two engaged in a corporate exchange where the windows phone ended up losing google required them to develop the app in html5 which made it difficult for microsoft to control playback and overlay controls on videos but it also felt like a disadvantage with android and ios who had their own native youtube apps so in a nutshell bad luck for windows phone users who wanted to use youtube fast forward to 2020 and microsoft is now harnessing a better relationship with google putting android on their new foldable phone and doing things like the your phone feature of pcs that allows running android apps side by side with windows applications on the computer microsoft is more about collaboration and corporate alliances under satya nadella than it was under steve ballmer during the windows phone era the microsoft of nadella seems to be harvesting important relationships in the corporate world instead of wars talk about finally making peace with android or rejoining with samsung in favor of their cloud gaming efforts putting xbox games on samsung flagship phones after all it's evident that if you have any interest or business in the mobile tech space you better be in good terms with android windows 10 x a new promise the windows phone was laid to the smartphone party when it showed up in 2010. by then the iphone had already thrived for three years and android was virtually on every phone other than iphones so they seem to have been getting into the foldable devices party early like it or not this trend of two screen devices has been around for a while and it appears to be there to stay it's all about redefining the borders that separate smartphones tablets and laptops windows 10x promises a powerful and fresh windows experience optimized for these all-screen devices that can be folded into a smartphone size and are powerful enough to outdo a laptop for some time now microsoft has been teasing the new surface devices and they finally released the surface duo to the market for 13.99 recently in december but is this good reviews on the internet are mixed and at first glance it somehow looks like a fresh yet dated device it looks slick but those big black bezels on the screen take you back to the aesthetic of any other android tablet and that's a key factor in the surface duo the first microsoft device that runs on android instead of windows that's the good old if you can't beat them join them but microsoft's phone plans may not be beaten yet they have also presented the surface neo apparently the more premium foldable device and the one that is supposed to showcase windows 10x in all of its glory the previous and pre-production models that they have presented looked pretty neat but surprised the covet pandemic got in the way and the world would have to wait until 2021 for windows 10x maybe even until 2022 for the surface neo so for now we can say that windows for phones remains pretty much dead and it is yet to be seen if microsoft can pull off something relevant from this reinvention of mobile devices or if it'll end just giving us the story for another product let us know what you think in the comments and we'll see you next week you

Channel: Slidebean

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Keywords: slidebean, caya slidebean, company forensics, caya, startups, startups 101, windows phone, windows mobile, windows 10 mobile, windows 10, windows phone 10, microsoft phone, windows for smartphone, windows mobile 2020, startups silicon valley, startups 2020, windows 10x, windows 10x phone, microsoft, microsoft failed products

Id: 9dYxTn73Htc

Length: 8min 0sec (480 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020