> Microsoft has never been a consumer tech company.
The Zune wasn't consumer tech?
Windows 95 was definitely consumer tech.
Windows XP was about making the Windows NT line accessible for home users going forward.
Weirdly, Windows Phone was aimed at consumers at a time when they really could have leveraged integrations with products like Exchange and Office to stand out.
> Weirdly, Windows Phone was aimed at consumers at a time when they really could have leveraged integrations with products like Exchange and Office to stand out.
This is because a completely under-appreciated apsect of the iPhone revolution was that it basically created the consumer smartphone market. Until then the only smartphone market that existed was the enterprise smartphone market, which was already locked up by BlackBerry and to a significant extent, Windows Mobile (with all the corporate integrations you mention), the predecessor to Windows Phone.
But that market was constrained to the phones that corporations would buy for specific employees, typically execs or senior employees, because the average consumer could not afford those at all. That's a tiny number.
And then the iPhone was originally released at the same price point.
This is why Ballmer was actually right to laugh at the iPhone at the time. The revolutionary UI could not overcome its fundamental unaffordability. I know because I had one through my employer, and I was the object of envy because none of my well-paid, tech-savvy peers in a relatively cosmopolitan major city could afford one.
What happened then was Apple or AT&T figured out that dropping the upfront price to $200 and amortizing the rest of the cost in the data plan suddenly made it accessible to the consumer market. If you look at smartphone sales, that is the point the hockeystick starts curving updwards.
Before Andy Ruben created Android, he created the T-Mobile Sidekick, which was a Java based consumer smartphone before iOS or Android.
Microsoft acquired Rubin's company for a Billion dollars and then spent so long rewriting everything from Java into .Net (before releasing it as the Microsoft Kin Phone) that it was dead on arrival.
> The Kin ONE and TWO went on the market on May 14, 2010. Within two months, Verizon stopped selling the phones because of poor sales.
Zune belongs with Bob and Encarta. I said Microsoft has had side areas.
But Win 95 and XP were were absolutely built for corporations.
Sure, XP came in separate "Home" and "Professional" editions. But the important thing is that it was the Home version that was missing features to make it cheaper -- not that the Professional edition was primarily a consumer product with some business functionality bolted on.
Obviously Windows has always been used by both home users and corporate users. But the bulk of Microsoft's revenue has always been from corporations. There is no sense in which Win 95 was designed primarily for individual consumers, and then business sales were somehow secondary.
You weren’t around at the Windows 95 introduction were you? There were a long line of consumers buying it and Gates went on the Tonight Show with Leno to promote it.
They already had Windows CE and ActiveSync, the bane of many an IT support worker. It might be they expected phones to remain consumer-only, and the business world to keep using PDAs.
Indeed. Previously, every Patch Tuesday we used to pray that nothing would break in that patch cycle. Now we expect that things _will_ break, but hope that that whatever Microsoft breaks won't affect us, or is something minor, or gets patched quickly.
Also, thelast few months have been a nightmare for or us as we were doing our migrations to Windows 11 and found how much of a steaming pile of poo it was - I mean, we already had an inclination, but it was even worse than the rumours. Never seen a shittier OS in my life, and that's even after considering Windows ME.
At least in terms of Windows/Office, Microsoft has never been a consumer tech company. They've always been focused on corporate sales.
There have always been consumer-focused side areas, from Bob to Encarta to MSN to Xbox.
But Microsoft's bread and butter has always been corporations. I don't understand how the author thinks it was different at any time in the past.