Microsoft Thinks the Smartphone Is Over. It’s Totally Wrong

Today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that the company would expand down its mobile phone hardware business. Nadella called dramatic course change the company use phrases such as "effective and focused" and But "restructuring" mistake. "Reinventing and long-term mobility." Today's announcement (7800 layoffs and amortization $ 7.6 billion, mostly related to business phone and Microsoft's purchase of Nokia last year) is a resignation letter.

The battle for smartphone supremacy is over. Actually, it has been for a while. It should not surprise anyone that the smartphone market is almost set in stone. Nadella give some credit for seeing the writing on the wall, although to be fair, it was basically written in large letters and illuminated by spotlights.

And give even more credit for working quickly to bring the most essential services of the company, such as Outlook and Word, to the devices people already use devices like the iPhone, which now stands virtually alone at the top of the stack smartphone . As Samsung, HTC and others have found that compete with the iPhone on their own ground does not make sense; even if you make such a good phone, it will not sell. Most people who want that kind of phone you just bought iPhones. You can go as big as the Galaxy Note 4 or you can go different as the Galaxy S6 Edge, but the default answer to the question, "What phone should I buy?" Is the iPhone. Just keep winning.

The rest of the world and the most dramatic market has been completely overtaken by Android phones, which have managed somehow to get cheaper and better, and simultaneously ridiculous speeds. Moto E is phenomenal, and $ 129 unlocked. Business Most people have never heard of, such as Alcatel, and Blu OnePlus, making excellent phones almost everyone would like. 

Microsoft makes some phones that are even cheaper, like the Lumia 520, which Microsoft has said before the Windows product was selling on the planet, period. But all you have to do is look at the table of price and quality of Android devices, and you can not help but think that we are weeks or months away from a $ 50 kickass Android phone that can hang with any Lumia.

• Future of Surface

To be fair, Microsoft is not totally out of the game from the phone. Microsoft probably make a phone surface, or something. Nadella even mocks the idea in his memo, referring to "Windows fans flagship devices that will love." And surface, by all accounts, it remains important to Microsoft. But whatever the flagship device comes from Redmond is almost certainly going to be something like the Google Nexus program, did not sell in any volume, but to give developers build something.

And, hopefully, enough to inspire envy in its hardware partners to build something impressive. Do not expect big marketing campaigns or giant global carrier deployments. Microsoft wants its partners to build the hardware that runs the software. That's what I've always wanted.

Now it's different, however, than it was with the PC in the 90s Android is free to use, it is an excellent technical and aesthetic operating system, and has unstoppable momentum worldwide. They need Microsoft partners HTC, Sony, Samsung and LG have so far shown almost no interest in the platform, and this announcement is not exactly make it sound like there have been advances in camera.

Even with all the strength of the resources of Microsoft behind making a dent in the market as thoroughly sewn by Android and iOS, Windows only achieved the market share of smartphones low single digits. Now that has been ruthlessly stripped and completely away from those resources, how can you even pretend to compete?

It can, and soon, it will not. That's a big problem for Microsoft, which any case for Windows 10 depends on its ability to be a single platform across many devices including, critically, the devices that fit in your pocket. If anyone builds Windows phones, and now it seems safe to say that nobody is going to, then the whole idea falls apart.

What Nadella note implies is that the smartphone war may be over, but Microsoft sees many more, equally disturbing about us revolutions. The company also focuses on the Internet of things, augmented reality, cloud processing and virtual assistants. Those things are the future after phones, and Microsoft is positioning itself well in all those places.

Unless, of course, the phone is not about to disappear, but is about to become the centerpiece of all the remote control for the lights and the coffee, the engine of your virtual reality experience, and Microphone in a pocket that is used to talk to his assistant. That looks more and more like the future that is just around the corner. And that is a future without much room for Microsoft.