I think the vertical keyboards would have been fine, but not switching to Android definitely lead to their downfall. They had too much arrogance as the smartphone leader and thought everyone would move their apps to their system even though they were the ones playing catchup.
Don’t forget poor Nokia. Maemo/Meego was awesome, but too late. Then Microsoft decided to put the final nail in the coffin, and drop it in the ocean with windows phone.
You hear people say “I really liked Windows Phone, the interface was great” but Microsoft has no game that isn’t “we’ve been the standard on PC for generations.” They have no wherewithal to make a mobile platform happen. They had the Windows CE devices since the 90’s that competed with Palm, but neither penetrated the way cell phones did where EVERYONE has one. Even though they beat both Apple and Google to the portable electronics market by at least a decade, Microsoft were totally followers in the space. Their strategy was “We are also here. You want to use us because we also make your desktop PC OS. It runs a fucked up version of Outlook, Word and Excel.” Which…didn’t work.
I think the vertical keyboards would have been fine, but not switching to Android definitely lead to their downfall. They had too much arrogance as the smartphone leader and thought everyone would move their apps to their system even though they were the ones playing catchup.
Apple played the fashion statement crowd with the iPhone, continuing with their momentum from the iPod and iMac lines.
Google went for the tech savvy crowd with slide out keyboards and their suite of search-based services like Google Maps.
Blackberry and Palm also ran.
Don’t forget poor Nokia. Maemo/Meego was awesome, but too late. Then Microsoft decided to put the final nail in the coffin, and drop it in the ocean with windows phone.
You hear people say “I really liked Windows Phone, the interface was great” but Microsoft has no game that isn’t “we’ve been the standard on PC for generations.” They have no wherewithal to make a mobile platform happen. They had the Windows CE devices since the 90’s that competed with Palm, but neither penetrated the way cell phones did where EVERYONE has one. Even though they beat both Apple and Google to the portable electronics market by at least a decade, Microsoft were totally followers in the space. Their strategy was “We are also here. You want to use us because we also make your desktop PC OS. It runs a fucked up version of Outlook, Word and Excel.” Which…didn’t work.