I don't know, taking a familiar UI, and replacing it with something that the majority of your users hate and don't use* all of a sudden seems pretty high up on stupid things to have done.
That old risk matrix stuff~ You know; risk of something going wrong vs. cost of failure if it does.
Let's see, risk: we're screwed. Probability people will hate it... I dunno, pretty low. Seems like a great strategy! Let's go for it!
By comparison buying Nokia was smart move on the same scale; risk: we're screwed! Probability that nokia will get cold feet and abandon windows phone / go bankrupt; looking not that unlikely.
It's easy to judge things as stupid in hindsight, but to class them as truly 'world class stupid', you really have to imagine what sort of things they were thinking about at the time the decisions were made.
That old risk matrix stuff~ You know; risk of something going wrong vs. cost of failure if it does.
Let's see, risk: we're screwed. Probability people will hate it... I dunno, pretty low. Seems like a great strategy! Let's go for it!
By comparison buying Nokia was smart move on the same scale; risk: we're screwed! Probability that nokia will get cold feet and abandon windows phone / go bankrupt; looking not that unlikely.
It's easy to judge things as stupid in hindsight, but to class them as truly 'world class stupid', you really have to imagine what sort of things they were thinking about at the time the decisions were made.
Metro <--- Was pretty stupid.
(* see https://www.soluto.com/reports; people argue over what the data means, but the raw numbers are pretty compelling)