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Comment by draugadrotten | Hacker News Reader

>* Doesn't that pretty much cover all potential customers?*

That may make more sense in comparison with the 2014 strategy, which didn't include all potential customers and specifically avoided the high end and business markets in order to focus on the value-phone buyers in "emerging markets" so as to "connect the next billion people".

[2014 - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-23/microsoft-... ]

Focusing on business and flagship phone customers is a change in strategy which puts Microsoft into direct competition with Apple and Samsung.

Good luck with that, now.

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I reckon business + value customers are their best bet right now. To compete for high-end customers, they need to plug the app-gap. But yes it does seem odd, they seem to be reducing their work-force but they're being more ambitious.

I'm actually a high-end Windows Phone owner - I love it, but there are a few annoying gaps in apps, not so much the big apps, just the niche apps. Having Win10 universal apps could help if Win10 takes off; if you're going to make a Win10 app, you may as well make it work on mobile too...

And HTC, which, despite making very good flagship-competitive phones, is losing money.

Have they really come up with such a great one after the M8? The M9 seems to be pretty weak.

That's my point, though. It's very hard to compete year after year in the flagship space. One company that is doing arguably the second best job of making flagship Android phones is HTC, and even they can't make money at it. If the 2nd place flagship maker of the top platform can't make money, how will even the first tier flagship maker of the distant 3rd platform have any room for profit?

Well, OK. But I think that they're not really making a top tier flagship anymore, compared to other more recent competitors. And it looks like maybe they don't want to stay in this business. Still, your point is taken.

I understand the Apple/iOS part but is there any reason why Samsung couldn't make a deal with MS to make Windows phones ?

Microsoft tried. Samsung didn't really bite (never making more than 1 WP a year or so, basically seeing "we'll make a WP" as a bargaining chip in their real concern: negotiating over patent licensing for their Android devices) because they knew what everyone knew and Nokia's leadership refused to admit: there's just not much demand for Windows Phones, and if you base your entire mobile phone company on Windows Phone, your company will fail.

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