Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Haven't they spied on Windows 10 users? Do they not engage in patents racketeering? Have they not killed Nokia or ruined Skype? I don't think one can say they killed Nokia. Nokia's phone business was basically doomed after Android gained traction, and Microsoft just helped the company to pivot by overpaying for that part of the business, while leaving Nokia with everything that actually was making money.
Nokia had Maemo/Meego which wasn't on par with Android at that time wrt the software ecosystem, but with some investment in development could have killed it pretty easily: thanks to native code a device could offer the same performance using slower CPUs and less RAM, or be a lot snappier with the same hardware. Given due time, manufacturers and users would have noticed. As probably did Microsoft. You can have a full…
Windows Phone was native and extremely performant on even low end hardware. Microsoft dumped millions into development and couldn’t get traction. No way Maemo was going to displace Android.
Manufacturers literally do not care about anything except selling devices and are uninterested in performance except as it relates to bigger numbers that they can advertise with. Users consistently chose Android over Windows Phone demonstrating that their priorities did not align with picking the phone that would still be snappy in two years.
Nokia’s phone business was doomed. Even if they’d pivoted to Android devices they’d probably have still failed because that’s such a tough market with so much competition willing to sell phones with no margin.
Disclosure: Microsoft employee