Nadella regrets 6 years later: giving up Windows Phone was the hardest decision for Microsoft.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently brought up the old issue in an interview—abandoning the mobile business was “the hardest decision of his life” and also a “mistake.”

Fact Review

In October 2017, Microsoft officially announced the exit of Windows Phone from the mobile market. It's worth noting that Microsoft spent $7.6 billion to acquire Nokia's mobile business in 2013, only to announce its abandonment less than two years later. The irony lies not in the failure itself, but in how thoroughly it failed: in Q4 2015, only 4.5 million units were sold, while the global mobile phone shipment during the same period was 400 million units.

Nadella's Reflection

The CEO recently stated, “If we could do it all over again, maybe we could turn the situation around by redefining the computing methods between PCs, tablets, and phones.” But that is hindsight – Microsoft later launched the Android phones Surface Duo and Duo 2, yet it still failed to create a stir.

Why Microsoft Lost

This is not just Nadella's regret:

• Gates stated: Missing out on Android is “the biggest mistake in history”
• Ballmer mocked the iPhone back then: “Too expensive, no keyboard, not for business people.” Later, he also admitted that Microsoft was overly focused on Windows in the early 2000s and didn't manage to pivot.
• Industry Reality: iPhone accounts for 85% of global smartphone profits (Q2 2023), with other brands sharing the remaining 15%.

Inspiration

Nokia, BlackBerry, HTC, LG, Motorola… a bunch of former mobile giants have exited. Smartphones have evolved from a “new blue ocean” to a “red ocean of slaughter,” and in the end, only Apple and Samsung can thrive comfortably, while others have no way to survive.

Although Microsoft currently enjoys the heat of AI, Nadella's words of regret indicate, to some extent, that: no amount of money can withstand misreading the trend.