“For several years, before Apple introduced an iPhone, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software system was a dominant product in what was then a niche category, back when smartphones were still luxury devices for businesspeople who wanted a portable computing device that doubled as a phone,” Brian X. Chen writes for The New York Times.
“‘Microsoft was a natural company to step up and provide that service, and as a result it achieved significant market share, at least in the U.S.,’ said Jan Dawson, a telecom analyst for Ovum. Microsoft’s market share peaked at about 60 percent in 2007, the year the iPhone was released,” Chen writes. “Microsoft, like Nokia and BlackBerry, was slow to react to the new expectations created by the iPhone.”
Chen writes, “Unlike previous smartphones, the iPhone catered to everyday consumers. Its touch screen made it easy to use for both work and play, and eventually users could add apps and games to customize its capabilities however they wanted. That was a stark alternative to earlier smartphones with keyboards and styluses running Windows software.”
“The first phones with Windows Phone 7 hit the market in late 2010, but by then Apple’s iOS software and Google’s Android completely dominated the mobile market, giving little room for a relevant third player,” Chen writes. “[Today], Windows Phone software runs on a mere 3.7 percent of smartphones worldwide… As Mr. Ballmer looks toward the exit, he may regret his infamous words during a television interview with CNBC in January 2007, in reaction to Apple’s introduction of the iPhone. ‘That is the most expensive phone in the world, and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good e-mail machine,’ Mr. Ballmer said. ‘I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: For old times’ sake, a video of which we never tire, especially since (when all of this is distilled to its basic essence) the reason for the ouster of Steve Ballmer is Steve Jobs’ iPhone.
That’s right: Steve Ballmer is high profile iPhone roadkill.
Enjoy this fine example of “hubris before the karma”:
