Windows Phone users give Microsoft CEO an earful

Another shareholder, who says he uses his Windows Phone "18 hours a day", said he has heard Microsoft is "stepping away from mobile".

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella listens to a shareholder question. Already he was cross that Vole had put the Band on the back burner.

Speaking at Microsoft's annual shareholders meeting, Nadella pointed out highlights of Microsoft's 2016 - including the launch of well-received Surface devices - and said that the Azure platform has "grown triple digits" for the last seven consecutive quarters.

"When we control things silicon-up, that's how we will integrate those experiences". The company will "build devices that are unique and differentiated with our software capability on top of it - whether it's Surface or Surface Studio or HoloLens or the phone - and also make our software applications available on Android and iOS and other platforms". Nadella responded by saying Microsoft's Windows camera and mail apps will include the same features as in Microsoft's apps for other platforms. That said, we're not stepping away or back from our focus on our mobile devices. He asked, "Can you calm me down ... and tell me what your vision is for mobile?"

"But at the core of our cloud momentum is growth in Azure as the true hybrid cloud platform because we don't think of our services as legacy, in fact we think of them as the edge of our cloud, whether it's Windows Server or to our SQL Server. That's what I think is needed for Microsoft to help you as a user get the most out of our innovation". "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".

"What we are going to do is focus that effort on places where we have differentiation", he said. The point of differentiation for the company's Windows Phone would be its manageability, security and Continuum capability, which together would allow the smartphone to act as a personal computer. While on the one hand the concept of "the phone as the PC" continues to inspire people-and may be an area that Microsoft can offer considerable value-it doesn't do much for Redmond's platform right now, and it has little obvious appeal to the all-important consumer market. Hence, Microsoft wants to double-down on these points of differentiation regarding its upcoming smartphone devices.

Nadella cited the HP Elite x3 phone, which is quite powerful and well-reviewed, as an example of a Windows 10 phone that follows this strategy. We will keep looking at different forms, different functions that we can bring to mobile devices, while also supporting our software across a variety of devices.

"If you look at it, we are not building one cloud service". We are not stepping away from supporting our Windows Phone users.

Source: Windows Phone users give Microsoft CEO an earful