Well if I had gone back 10 years in time..
I would have bought apple shares when they were worth jack, invested in google and picked every 80 Lotto winning combo... 20-20 hindsight is just that ..hindsight!
This was the week when MtGox finally admitted that it had probably lost all its Bitcoin investors' money, although it refused to give any definitive statements. The one-time top digital currency exchange said on its website: At the start of February 2014, illegal access through the abuse of a bug in the bitcoin system …
See, you could say that, but really, Ballmer just messed it all, and even at the time it was obvious.
In reference to Windows Mobile Devices:
Windows phones for the longest time were just Windows CE devices with a cellular radio, and the only usable ones were HTC devices with Sense. They stuck with resistive touchscreens for ages, they had terrible UI by default (small buttons in the corner, list boxes), and were basically absolutely half-assed.
You cannot for a moment say there was nothing better, as there was: dumbphones and featurephones. The regular, everyday phones people used had better UIs designed for one handed and quick use that didn't require poking at tiny buttons or heaven forbid, whipping out a stylus.
They could have designed a better mobile by looking at the convenient UIs of featurephones, and adding on the 'strengths' of their Windows platform, that it had a lot of random software available for it, and written up UI guidelines and overhauled the platform. Long, long ago that was hyper-obvious. As mentioned before, HTC Sense was basically the only way to make those things decent to use, but Microsoft themselves just kind of ignored that until way, way too late.
In Reference to Windows Vista:
They should never have agreed to let any Vista machines ship with a Vista sticker without DirectX 9 capable hardware and at least 2GiB RAM. Full stop. The godawful experience of Vista without acceleration and even down to 512MiB RAM as some machines shipped was always going to be unusable.
In Reference to Windows 8/8.1:
I don't even know where to start.
As to why the Modern WinPho (Mobe) jobs fail.... See TIFKAM. It doesn't work (or look in anyway attractive with its 1/3 Clipped Iconography, on said Devices. (e.g. a its a real fecking EYESORE!), and the PC will hopefully retain it Keyboard & Mouse neigh-on indefinitely. Upshot on how I'd fix this would be to standardize my GUI to be a better match for both Android & iOS.
Note I said "match" not clone. Fact is both Android, and iOS are just plain better looking, and this is why both outsell Microsofts Products, in this Market!
Having been in PC development for over 30 years, I've been telling parents for the last 10 that the one thing they need to teach their children about computers is that there is no Undo button on real life. With more and more children spending more and more time in the virtual world at earlier and earlier ages it's going to be a big problem at some point. It seems Ballmer missed that lesson also.
If MS had just stuck with the XP interface (maybe shinied up a little) and concentrated on making it more solid and secure they'd own the universe by now. With maybe a touchscreen interface as an optional, user-selectable, extra.
Winphone - doesn't appeal. YMMV.
Xbox One - Complete fuckup right from the first press announcement.
All of these things are obvious to anyone who has been paying the slightest amount of attention. If Microsoft had listened to their fucking customers they wouldn't be in the state they are in now.
"It was almost magical the way the PC came about with an operating system from us and hardware from IBM.
What does he mean - "almost magical" ? It WAS magical because, although IBM developed the hardware, Microsoft did not develop the OS. Bill just paid money and bought it.
Almost magical -- NOT
The basic functionality of older devices did what many of us need provided today. Today, there is so much bloat and eye candy; minimalism has lost out to nonessential features, cluttering up a device and bogging it down. The typical consumer does not have the technical eye to discern between good and bad UI/UX design, which is why some of us balk at what we see released. On an Android device, you can install other open source operating systems on it, whereas with Windows Phone, the user is stuck with what MS says you get.
What if MS releases a good version of WP, then adds some good features in a subsequent version, yet it has new nasty privacy-busting features, or a worse UI mixed with essential updates? Where does the user run to, on the locked down WP? Android? And even if MS were to open up the source, what would be the point when it's a fish dead in the water?