How Microsoft's strategy for supporting apps developed for Android and iOS differs from similar plans by BlackBerry and IBM
Android and iOS apps on Windows: What is Microsoft doing—and will it work? — Running a competitor's apps has been done before. It hasn't worked.
Context & Ripple Effects
In April 2015, Microsoft published a long list of its own apps for iOS, signaling it had accepted rival platforms' dominance on mobile even before this piece ran. The question the article tackles is the other half of that acceptance: instead of just shipping Office everywhere, Microsoft proposes letting developers run their existing Android and iOS binaries on Windows, closing its app gap without asking anyone to rewrite code.
That approach has a documented track record of failure: both BlackBerry and IBM tried supporting competitor apps on their platforms and neither gained traction, per the relationships in this coverage. The article's value is testing whether Microsoft's variant differs enough to escape that history.
First-order effects
- Android and iOS developers gain a path onto Windows without maintaining a separate codebase, directly targeting Microsoft's app-store emptiness at zero porting cost to them.
Second-order effects
- If competitor apps run natively on Windows, the economic case for building native Universal Windows Platform apps weakens — Microsoft risks deepening the very gap it is trying to close, because developers get reach without investing in the platform.
- Google controls the Android distribution layer these apps depend on, giving it leverage over how much of this bridge Microsoft can actually operate.
Third-order effects
- The coverage arc confirms the structural risk: Project Astoria was put on hold indefinitely within months, then cancelled outright in early 2016, leaving only iOS-porting tools — and by Build 2017 Microsoft had pivoted to extending Windows experiences out to iOS and Android rather than pulling their apps in.
- When Microsoft revived the idea years later for Windows 11, analysts judged the plan doomed on the same ground — that outside Google Play there is no viable US Android app ecosystem to borrow from — suggesting compatibility bridges are structurally dependent on the incumbent platform owner's cooperation.
The trend: Compatibility layers for running rival platforms' apps keep failing as a fix for mobile app gaps, with each attempt — BlackBerry, IBM, and now Microsoft — constrained by the incumbent ecosystems whose software they borrow.