Re:Bill Gates on making “one of the greatest mistakes of all...
by toast0 on Saturday June 22, 2019 @11:55PM
(#20253209)
It's not super clear to me if Microsoft made a mistake by not having a compatibility path for WinCE 6 applications on Windows Phone 7; the UI was completely different. Incidentally, you could write native code for WP7 with the WinCE tools.
I think the mistake was in doing the same thing for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Mobile 10. Yes, you could run an app built for the old platform on the new one, but in order to do it right, you had to rewrite everything to the new frameworks, and then maintain two seperate stacks. This fragmented the already small market share into even smaller pieces.
The other big mistakes were a) not allowing other browsers, given IE and later Edge aren't the best, b) focusing Windows Mobile 10 towards flagship phones and ignoring budget phones -- where they were actually doing well with WP 7 and 8, c) not making a good release of Windows Mobile 10 until a year after launch.
I think the mistake was in doing the same thing for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Mobile 10. Yes, you could run an app built for the old platform on the new one, but in order to do it right, you had to rewrite everything to the new frameworks, and then maintain two seperate stacks. This fragmented the already small market share into even smaller pieces.
The other big mistakes were a) not allowing other browsers, given IE and later Edge aren't the best, b) focusing Windows Mobile 10 towards flagship phones and ignoring budget phones -- where they were actually doing well with WP 7 and 8, c) not making a good release of Windows Mobile 10 until a year after launch.