“There is no question” about that, Satya Nadella says

Oct 25, 2016 08:19 GMT  ·  By

It’s no secret that Microsoft got it all wrong in mobile and now it’s CEO Satya Nadella the one admitting it, despite the company’s long-term commitment to Windows 10 Mobile as a platform.

Speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive 2016 global technology conference, Satya Nadella talked only briefly about mobile phones, but acknowledged the company’s wrong strategy in this side of the market.

“We clearly missed mobile,” he said. “There is no question,” he added without giving any hints of what’s to come for Microsoft customers as far as the mobile vision goes.

Nadella, however, quickly pointed to where the Surface business is these days, explaining that the 2-in-1 device was also a product category that nobody believed in and which everyone seems to be adopting these days.

New product categories

The same strategy is being adopted for HoloLens, Nadella explained, as the company is always investing in new technologies that could become more widely adopted after they show what they're capable of.

“Think of what we did. Back then, people asked ‘What is a 2-in-1?’ Now, it’s a growing category. Whether it be HoloLens, mixed reality, or Surface, our goal is to invent new computers and new computing,” he continued.

So what’s going to change for Microsoft now that phones are officially a fiasco? Not much, as people close to the matter only suggest that Redmond is planning to step away from this business even more by phasing out the Lumia brand this December.

The company could instead focus all of its efforts on just one model called Surface Phone, which might see daylight sometime next year or in 2018, and based on a strategy that’s very similar to the one used for the Surface.

This way, Microsoft could build a premium phone that would come with the best the Windows market has to offer, allowing partners to expand the category with their own phones tackling various categories, including mid-range and low-end.