In an email to Microsoft employees on February 4, his first day as chief executive, Nadella said, "Our job is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world." It's hard to imagine how Microsoft could be "mobile and cloud-first" without mobile. Microsoft's "objective is to get to the point where Windows phones would be able to use Microsoft software and applications for PCs and tablets," Economides said. "If they can get there, that would be a huge win. They could leverage all their applications and be a formidable competitor. But they're not there. Saying that's the objective doesn't mean it will happen." Kirk Materne, an analyst at Evercore Partners who covers Microsoft, agreed that the company had little choice. "It was a fairly low-risk way for Microsoft to dip its toe into the market and try to extend Windows' relevance," he said. "It's not going to be pretty. They're already running uphill. But investors have very low expectations. If Microsoft can regain any momentum, it's all upside for them." With $83 billion in cash on its balance sheet, Microsoft's investment in Nokia is relatively modest. Still, for Microsoft or Lenovo or any other hardware maker trying to grab market share, the trends are ominous: In a global market once dominated by Nokia and BlackBerry, both are struggling for survival. Nokia's market share in 2013 dropped 25%, to 13.8%, and BlackBerry's was just 1.9%, according to the research firm IDC. The marriage of the Microsoft Windows operating system with Nokia's handsets under the Lumia brand has done little to upend the global smartphone market. Although Lumia's fourth-quarter sales doubled to 8.2 million from the year earlier, they still represented a drop from the previous quarter. And Lumia fell even further behind Samsung, which sold 10 times as many that quarter (86 million), and Apple (51 million). It was also behind both Huawei (16.6 million) and Lenovo (13.6 million).