Microsoft shareholders question CEO Satya Nadella regarding its vision for mobile

At its annual meeting, Microsoft answered quite a lot of questions from their shareholders. The meeting, which apparently started off with the announcement “Please silence all Windows Phones and other devices,” had quite a lot of Windows Phone fans.

According to GeekWire, a Windows Phone fan who uses his device for “18 hours a day” asked Nadella “Can you calm me down … and tell me what your vision is for mobile?” after hearing that the company is possibly “stepping away from mobile.”

In response to this, Nadella simply stated that the company wants to focus on bringing something new to the market:

“We think about mobility broadly. In other words, we think about the mobility of the human being across all of the devices, not just the mobility of a single device. That said, we’re not stepping away or back from our focus on our mobile devices. What we are going to do is focus that effort on places where we have differentiation. If you take Windows Phone, where we are differentiated on Windows Phone is on manageability. It’s security, it’s Continuum capability — that is, the ability to have a phone that can act like a PC. So we’re going to double-down on those points of differentiation.”

Satya Nadella’s response is very similar to what he had said recently in another interview. The software giant is going to focus on bringing products that are different than what we already have. As we previously reported, it isn’t yet known what exactly Microsoft is working on internally — but if the rumors are true, the company’s “ultimate mobile device” could potentially support x86 apps in Continuum which is a major feature. 

In the meeting, Satya Nadella was also questioned by one of its longtime shareholder and Windows Phone fan, Dana Vance — who was not happy after learning that the Microsoft Pix app is available on Android and iOS, but not on Windows Phone. He asked Nadella regarding the company’s vision for consumer devices. In response to Vance’s question, Satya Nadella stated that the company isn’t stepping away from supporting Windows Phone users — but it’ll continue to recognize other platforms in mobile with “higher share” and make sure that their services are available on the other platforms. Here’s his full response

“We will keep looking at different forms and different functions that we can bring to mobile devices, while also supporting our software across a variety of devices. So that’s the approach you will see us take. We are not stepping away from supporting our Windows Phone users. But at the same time we are recognizing that there are other platforms in mobile that have higher share, and we want to make sure that our software is available to them.”