Former Microsoft exec hits out at carriers and OEMs for Windows Phone failure

Brandon Watson, who was a senior director for Windows Phone at Microsoft from 2010 to 2012, decided to hit back on a tech analyst’s observations about the Windows Phone platform.

Alan Mendelevich, who leads a cross-promotion network for Windows Phone apps called AdDuplex, tweeted a point about Microsoft as the company is expected to be valued at above $1 trillion relatively soon.

So, even though many believed (like me) that it was strategically important even if never gaining huge market share, it had to go for the sake of short-term “shareholder value.” I guess what happened to @tmyerson / Windows yesterday is the logical next step toward that $1B. 2/2

— Alan Mendelevich (@ailon) March 30, 2018

Watson bit back on the characterization of the company’s mission with this tweet.

Windows Phone died because it would have been almost impossible to beat Google or Apple without carriers and handset manufacturers embracing it. We got second string devices and almost no support at the carriers. They couldn’t keep burning money to please Sisyfus.

— Brandon Watson (@BrandonWatson) March 30, 2018

Watson claims in a further tweet down a very long thread that Microsoft was able to get third-party developers on board at the start. But was it really the manufacturers and carriers that killed a third-run OS before its time? Neowin editor Rich Woods pointed out that Windows Phone 8 hamstrung those OEMs to the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor — a move justified by the thought that the software could run smoothly on any silicon — as the Android space moved onto the Snapdragon 800-series. And while the flaw was rectified with later updates through Windows Phone 8.1, it was already too late. The product was already out.

For HTC’s part, global press relations lead Jeff Gordon had this to say:

I loved my HTC Titan on AT&T, HTC Windows Phone 8X (in flame red!) on Verizon, and HTC One M8 for Windows (with dual cameras!) on Verizon. True flagships, all of them.

Now what’s this about second-string devices and almost no carrier support? https://t.co/0ftku3GYxO

— Jeff Gordon (@urbanstrata) April 1, 2018

Samsung also had its occasional ATIV-series devices which got decent reviews across the board.

Is this whole exercise beating a dead horse? Maybe. Clearly, this is just one reminder of how dead Windows 10 Mobile is.