Steve Ballmer Regrets That Vista Distracted Microsoft From Mobile Sector

At Microsoft’s Q&A session for financial analysts and shareholders Steve Ballmer answered a lot of questions about the past and some of his regrets from his time at Microsoft. High on that list was Windows Vista and Ballmer said he regretted that the failed OS had drawn Microsoft’s attention away from Windows mobile.

“If there’s one thing I guess you would say I regret, I regret that there was a period in the early 2000s when we were so focused on what we had to do around Windows, that we weren’t able to redeploy talent to the new device form factor called the phone…That would probably the thing I would tell you I regret the most, because the time we missed was about the time we were working away on what became Vista, and I wish we’d probably had our resources slightly differently deployed, let me say, during the early 2000s. It would have been better for Windows and probably better for our success in other form factors.”

Ballmer refused to comment on the success of Windows 8 despite it mirroring Windows Vista in terms of sales numbers, naturally he wouldn’t want to jeopardise any current products with any stupid statements. Whoever succeeds Ballmer will undoubtedly have to correct Microsoft’s mediocre start in the mobile market if the company is to turn its fortunes around and become the true giant it once was.

Image courtesy of Microsoft