Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Acknowledges the Mistake of Abandoning Windows Phone and Mobile

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is the third chief executive of the software giant to acknowledge significant mobile missteps. Satya Nadella assumed the role from former CEO Steve Ballmer in 2014 and only a year later, wrote off $7.6 billion tied to Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s phone business.

In an interview with Business Insider, Nadella openly admitted that Microsoft’s withdrawal from the mobile phone industry could have been handled more effectively. When asked about a strategic mistake or wrong decision that he might regret, Nadella responds:

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. 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.

Nadella now joins the list of Microsoft CEOs admitting to the company’s mobile mistakes. Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates stated that his “greatest mistake ever” was Microsoft’s loss to Android. Google acquired Android in 2005 for $50 million, and former CEO Eric Schmidt admitted in 2012 that Google’s initial focus was surpassing Microsoft’s early Windows Mobile efforts.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also took time to respond to the threat of Android and the iPhone, focusing on Windows Mobile and mocking the iPhone as the “most expensive phone in the world” without appeal to business customers due to the absence of a physical keyboard.

Ballmer admitted in 2013 that he regrets not prioritizing the phone earlier, explaining, “I regret there was a period in the early 2000s when we were so focused on what we had to do around Windows [Vista] that we weren’t able to redeploy talent to the new device called the phone. That is [the] thing I regret the most.”

Over the past decade, Microsoft has directed its focus towards developing apps for Android and iOS. The company consistently updates its Phone Link app, which connects Android and even iPhone devices to Windows. Microsoft has also established a close partnership with Samsung to ensure its mobile Office apps are preinstalled on Samsung’s Android devices.