With today’s Nokia news, it’s a perfect time to highlight this excellent piece by Horace Dediu from last year on the history of mobile tech companies that partner with Microsoft. Spoiler alert: It’s not good. One example:
What happened? LG made a few Windows Mobile devices but with WinMo uncompetitive, they abandoned the platform and moved to Android losing years of market presence and all their profits.
Have a read of the full post. LG, Motorola, Palm, Nortel, Ericsson and more – it’s a Who’s Who list of failure. Partnering with Microsoft appears to be the tech equivalent of mating with a black widow spider.
It’s a well-deserved fate for those who chose to partner with a company that lacks vision and leadership.
