(Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.Manish Swarup/AP)
With 1% of global market share, Microsoft Windows' chances of becoming a major player in the smartphone game are basically dead.
It's time to let Windows Phone go, and move on.
It sounds like Microsoft has: Apart from a cameo on HP's new high-end Elite X3 smartphone, the Windows 10 Mobile operating system didn't rate any kind of appearance at Microsoft's most recent Surface hardware event.
And in an interview with ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley this week, Windows boss Terry Myerson says the major reason that Microsoft is still working on its Windows 10 Mobile operating system is more as an investment in technology than an effort to build a commercially viable product.
By continuing to work on Windows 10 Mobile, Myerson says, Microsoft generally gets better at working with cellular devices and with ARM processors — the same kind of energy-efficient chips for smartphones that Apple has been using in its latest MacBooks, but that Windows for PCs has never fully supported.
"When you stop investing in these things, it's super hard, super, super hard to restart," Myerson tells Foley.
(Microsoft Corporate VP of Windows Terry MyersonScreenshot)
This is a huge blessing in disguise for Microsoft. The slow death of Windows phones is a setback to Microsoft, to be sure. But now that it's done, and the albatross around the company's neck is lifting, a smarter Microsoft is already starting to rise up.
Death spiral
Microsoft spent the lead-up to the launch of Windows 10 boasting that the new operating system would reach one billion active devices within three years, across PCs, phones, tablets, HoloLens holographic goggles, and the Xbox One console.
A big reason for Microsoft's insistence it could get a billion users was to attract developers to the Windows Store, the app market that's available across Windows 10 on all devices. That would be a billion potential customers for app makers, and hopefully enough to woo them away from focusing so much on iPhone and Android.
And then, the idea was, this proliferation of apps would lead to people buying more Windows phones, solving the platform's massive app gap. It was a bold, smart plan to help Microsoft gain some ground on Apple and Google. It's too bad didn't really work out that way at all.
(Microsoft Corporate VP of Devices Panos PanayMatt Weinberger/Business Insider)
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced an indefinite postponement of that goal as the Windows phone business collapsed even further. A little over a year into Windows 10's run, it has over 400 million active devices, with the rate of growth slowing somewhat as Microsoft's free upgrade offer expires.