Former Microsoft Windows Phone exec says wireless carrier salespeople hurt its prospects

For a mobile phone platform that's been shut down for a few years, Microsoft's Windows Phone has been getting a lot of media attention lately. Earlier this this month it was revealed you could use a Windows Phone web user agent to get around YouTube ad blocker warnings.

More recently, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated in an interview that one of the most difficult decisions he has made since leading the company "was our exit of what I'll call the mobile phone". He added that there "could have been ways we could have made it work."

That interview generated a response from former Microsoft executive Brandon Watson on his X (formerly Twitter) account a few days ago. Watson served as the head of Microsoft's Windows Phone Developer Experience until he left the company in 2012.

In his post, Watson put the blame on the wireless carriers in general, and their salespeople in particular, for at least part of the demise of Windows Phone. One of the issues that was always brought up was the idea that Windows Phone lacked the app support that iOS and Android phones had. Watson stated:

Unfortunately, the sales people in the carrier stores would default to that answer, and then that's game over. We had a lot of the major apps, but if you're missing that one core app that a salesperson used in the top 50, that ripple effect from that one salesperson was a really rough go. The combinatorial math got out of control when you consider the number of salespeople and likelihood of one of their required top 50 apps not being on the Windows Phone platform.

While Microsoft tried to return to the mobile phone market with the Android-based Surface Duo folding smartphones, it doesn't look like we will get a new smartphone from the company anytime soon.