Well, I guess you can take the Microsoft executive out of Microsoft but you can’t take the Microsoft out of the executive. In what will prove Nokia’s final strategic blunder, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, a former Microsoft senior executive, announced, with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer grinning over his shoulder, that Nokia would be using Windows Phone 7 (WP7) for its smartphones.
If you looked closely, you could almost say Ballmer’s lips moving as Elop mouthed, “The game has changed from a war of devices to a war of ecosystems. We have an opportunity to disrupt the trajectory in the mobile ecosystem. Together we will deliver great mobile products.”
Yeah. Right. Sure. Once upon a time Nokia delivered great products. In technology years that’s decades ago. Since then, first RIM’s BlackBerries, then Apple’s iPhones, and now a variety of Google’s Android phones have left Nokia eating their dust.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has always been a mobile operating system failure. Unable to squeeze out its enemies on phones with the strong-arm tactics that proved so successful on the desktop, it was forced to compete on features and quality on phones and Microsoft failed, and then failed again, and it’s still failing today with Windows Phone 7.