Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is the third software giant CEO to admit that the company made serious mistakes in its mobile business. Just over a year after Satya Nadella succeeded former CEO Steve Ballmer in 2014, he took a $7.6 billion writedown related to Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business.
In an interview with Business Insider, Nadella admitted that Microsoft's "exit" of the mobile phone business could have been handled better. When asked about strategic missteps or bad decisions he might regret, Nadella responded:
"I think the decision that a lot of people are talking about -- and one of the most difficult decisions I made as CEO -- was that we exited the mobile phone business as it was defined at the time. Looking back now, I think we could have done that by reshaping the computing category between PCs, tablets and phones."
A few years after Nokia's mobile phone business was written off, Microsoft finally confirmed that Windows Phone had ended its mission. However, six months after making this decision, Microsoft launched Surface Duo and Surface Duo 2 mobile phones equipped with Android system. However, due to the lack of follow-up products and lack of software updates, the prospects of Surface Duo are not clear.
Nadella is the third Microsoft CEO to admit that the company has made mistakes in mobile. Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates said his "biggest mistake ever" was Microsoft's loss to Android. Google acquired Android for $50 million in 2005, and former CEO Eric Schmidt admitted in 2012 that Google's initial focus was on beating Microsoft's early Windows Mobile.
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was also slow to respond to threats from Android and the iPhone, focusing the company's efforts on Windows Mobile while deriding the iPhone as "the most expensive phone in the world, and because it doesn't have a keyboard, it's not attractive to business customers."
Ballmer admitted in 2013 that he regretted not focusing on mobile phones earlier. "I regret that there was a period in the early 2000s when we were so focused on Windows [Vista] that we failed to redeploy talent to new devices like phones. That's my biggest regret," he explained.
Over the past decade, Microsoft has focused on developing apps for Android and iOS. The company constantly updates its PhoneLink app to connect Android and even iPhone phones with Windows, and Microsoft also maintains a close partnership with Samsung to ensure that its mobile Office apps come pre-installed on Samsung's Android phones.