Rethinking Windows Phone

There's probably no more contentious topic for Microsoft fans than the failure of Windows phone. But as the successor to this platform, Windows 10 Mobile is still a key part of Microsoft's strategy for what it calls "more personal computing."

So far, it's been a bit of a mess. Its initial release, called version 1511 for November 2015, didn't even ship until March 2016, and then only to some devices, and that pretty much says it all. But against all odds and common sense, Microsoft has continued to update this most unknown of mobile platforms. And when Windows 10 version 1607 start shipping this week, so too will Windows 10 Mobile version 1607.

This is actually kind of a big deal, for Microsoft, its hardware partners, and the declining audience of fans of the Windows phone platform. With market share now hovering well under .5 percent---that's point five percent, or less than one half of one percent---Windows phone seems to have reached an obvious nadir. So why would Microsoft even bother to keep developing Windows 10 Mobile?

Simple: Because doing so costs the firm virtually nothing in every sense of the word. The hard development work and investment is already done, and keeping Windows 10 Mobile going is fairly easy now that it's just part of the Windows 10 platform, which has a broader strategic value to Microsoft.

And while the end game here will never be a come-from-behind surprise resurgence in the mobile market that brings Android or iOS to their virtual knees, Microsoft doesn't need that level of success. As a standalone platform, Windows phone failed. As part of Windows, Windows 10 Mobile can ... succeed.

When I've written about the HP Elite x3 or, more vaguely, the supposed Surface phone, one valid justification emerges for this new generation of Windows 10 Mobile-based handsets: By eschewing the retail consumer market and focusing almost exclusively on businesses, Microsoft can position Windows 10 Mobile as just another product version, or SKU, of Windows 10, one that runs on PC-like mobile devices with very small screens.

This realignment may seem like a subtle distinction, but it's not. In the retail smartphone market, leaders like Samsung and Apple sell many tens of millions of handsets every single quarter. By refocusing Windows 10 Mobile, Microsoft is abandoning its ill-fated dream of competing with those behemoths. And it is positioning Windows 10 Mobile, finally, for success.

In the "mobile first, cloud first" era, Microsoft success often means different things than it did 10 or 20 years ago, when the software giant would proudly tout Windows and Office license sales. Today, Microsoft is more concerned with putting its software and services in front of users wherever they are. And yes, that often means that we see mobile apps, in particular, appear on rival platforms like Android and iOS first.

But Windows 10 Mobile advances what I think of as the secret sauce of Microsoft's in-house client computin...