Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:
Just back from three weeks in the Country of Good Sin’s heartland, I see Microsoft’s fresh and well-received Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2017 Results. The numbers acknowledge what was already notorious: Windows Phone is dead.
Country of Good Sin? That’s France, though I’d love to know the origin of that particular nickname. Hopefully, some kind reader will enlighten me.
UPDATE: From Jean-Louis:
I just made it up. Delight in refinement of various forms of sin, quality over quantity.
— Jean-Louis Gassée (@gassee) July 25, 2017
Moving on:
The gross failure of what once was the most powerful and richest tech company on the planet led to a search for a platform killer. Detectives didn’t think they had to go far to nab a suspect: Android. Microsoft’s Windows Phone was murdered by Google’s smartphone OS. How could Redmond’s money-making software licensing business model survive against a free and open source platform? Case closed.
No so fast.
And:
Microsoft’s smartphone troubles started well before the birth of Android. In a reversal of the famous dictum Victory Has Many Fathers But Defeat Is An Orphan, Windows Phone’s collapse seems to have had many progenitors deeply embedded in the company’s decades-old culture.
This is a great read. Jean-Louis engages in some interesting fiction, speculating on what would happen if Microsoft were to give away Windows Phone, à la Android. Still possible!