Microsoft has attracted impressive acclaim for recently launched hardware products including its Surface Book and Surface Pro tablet line. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Redmond company will soon be directly taking on the iPhone again, CEO Satya Nadella has hinted.
Speaking to The Australian Financial Review, Nadella insisted that Microsoft, which he took over in February 2014, would not enter a device category unless it could offer something different. He added that the company’s focus was on how devices were being used, rather than the devices themselves.
He said that, with the mobile assets Microsoft had, under former boss Steve Ballmer, agreed to acquire from Nokia, “we stopped doing things that were me-too and started doing things, even if they are today very sub-scale, to be very focused on a specific set of customers who need a specific set of capabilities that are differentiated and that we can do a good job of.”
Earlier this month, figures released by Strategy Analytics revealed that, in 2016’s third quarter, only 0.3% of smartphones shipped with an operating system other than iOS or Android. This apparently vindicates Microsoft’s cautious attitude to its own latest smartphone OS, Windows 10 Mobile.