Microsoft - Late to the party :(

 In the early 2000s, Microsoft was one of the biggest players in the technology industry. Its operating system, Windows, dominated the PC market and the company was at the forefront of innovation. However, when the smartphone revolution began, Microsoft missed the boat and struggled to catch up. In this blog, we'll explore how Microsoft missed the smartphone revolution, and poke a bit of fun at the company while also presenting the facts.

Firstly, it's important to note that Microsoft did make an attempt at creating a smartphone before Apple launched the iPhone. In fact, Microsoft released a mobile operating system called Windows Mobile in 2000, which was designed to run on PDAs (personal digital assistants) and early smartphones. However, despite its early start, Microsoft failed to anticipate the massive changes that would occur in the mobile industry in the coming years.

One of the key ways Microsoft missed the smartphone revolution was by underestimating the importance of touchscreens. In the early days of smartphones, many devices used physical keyboards or keypads, and Microsoft's early Windows Mobile devices were no exception. However, when Apple released the iPhone in 2007 with its revolutionary touchscreen interface, it completely changed the game. Microsoft was slow to respond to this shift and continued to focus on devices with physical keyboards, which put it at a disadvantage in the marketplace.

Another way Microsoft missed the boat was by failing to anticipate the importance of apps. When the iPhone was released, it came with the App Store, which allowed users to download and install a wide variety of third-party apps. This created a huge ecosystem of developers and users, and the App Store quickly became one of the main selling points of the iPhone. Microsoft, on the other hand, was slow to develop its own app store, and when it finally did release the Windows Phone Store, it was too little, too late.

Microsoft also struggled with the issue of fragmentation. Windows Mobile was designed to run on a wide variety of devices, from PDAs to smartphones to tablets. This created a fragmented market, with different devices running different versions of the operating system and different hardware configurations. This made it difficult for developers to create apps that would work seamlessly across all devices, which put Microsoft at a disadvantage compared to Apple's tightly controlled ecosystem.

To add insult to injury, Microsoft's CEO at the time, Steve Ballmer, famously mocked the iPhone when it was first released. In an interview with USA Today in 2007, Ballmer said, "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." This comment now seems incredibly short-sighted in retrospect, especially given the incredible success of the iPhone and the massive impact it had on the mobile industry.

In conclusion, Microsoft missed the smartphone revolution for a variety of reasons, including its focus on physical keyboards, its slow response to the importance of apps, and its struggles with fragmentation. While it's easy to poke fun at Microsoft's missteps in this area, it's also important to remember that the mobile industry was a rapidly evolving and unpredictable market, and many companies struggled to keep up with the pace of change. Nonetheless, the fact remains that Microsoft's failure to anticipate the importance of touchscreens and apps put it at a significant disadvantage in the smartphone market, and it's a lesson that the company has undoubtedly learned as it moves forward into new areas of innovation.