Even Bill Gates has given up on Windows Phone

Alan Martin September 26, 2017

Microsoft hasn’t released a Windows Phone since the Lumia 950XL, and while you can still get a handful of third-party handsets pluckily sticking to the platform, one high-profile backer has finally thrown in the towel: Bill Gates.

The Microsoft founder and world’s richest man has made the switch to Android. Gates made the revelation in an interview with Fox News, where he conceded that while he still used Windows-based computers, he had made the switch to Android for his personal phone. Although it does contain “a lot of Microsoft software”.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lvvb4MHXfsk

Of course, Gates didn’t specifically mention Windows Phone in the interview, but given he doesn’t use iPhones, he had to make the switch from something – and it doesn’t seem likely that he’d be using BlackBerry or Palm OS.

Gates didn’t specify which Android phone, either, but if I were a betting man, I’d speculate he’d plump for the Samsung Galaxy S8 Microsoft Edition, which the company actually sells in its stores. A man of Gates’ wealth could easily afford the pricey handset – especially when you’d imagine he gets a hefty staff discount to this day.

Another interesting point here is that Gates still doesn’t seem keen on having iPhones in his house. Back in 2009, Gates’ wife Melinda revealed that Apple products were blacklisted, explaining that: “There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household, but iPods and iPhones are two things we don’t get for our kids.” This, she explained was difficult, saying that “every now and then, I look at my friends and say ‘Ooh, I wouldn’t mind having that iPhone’”.

It’s not clear whether this Apple ban still stands eight years later, but at the very least it seems that the Gates children are now free to join 2017 and look at Android handsets. That tiny sliver of market share reserved for Microsoft just got a little bit smaller.

Image: Sebastian Vital, used under Creative Commons