In Nokia, Microsoft Bets on Apple-Like Revival

With its purchase of Nokia’s phone business, Microsoft is taking inspiration from Apple’s way of making products, bringing hardware and software under a single roof where they can be more elegantly woven together. But Microsoft already bears a striking resemblance to Apple — the Apple of two decades ago, not the trailblazer of the mobile era.

The $7.2 billion Nokia deal is unlikely to change that and catapult Microsoft up the ranks in the smartphone market. That is because Microsoft, with its Windows phone operating system, is stuck in third place in that market, where all the oxygen has been drained by more established players. Apple and Google have won the hearts and minds of developers, who design the apps that lure consumers to their devices, while Samsung is the dominant maker of mobile phones, most of which run Google’s Android operating system. Even though Microsoft’s and Nokia’s products have won praise for their quality, they have arrived late. Microsoft’s predicament is a flashback to the situation Apple found itself in during the early 1990s. At that time, Apple arguably had a superior computer product, the Macintosh, but it languished as PCs running Microsoft’s Windows operating system engulfed most of the market. One of the biggest problems for Apple then was that Microsoft had succeeded in gaining the allegiance of software developers, who produced a bounty of applications.