Microsoft seems ready to give up on Windows phones, if not Windows 10 Mobile - mullerlottly

The future of Windows phones…might non be phones?

Rumors and hopes for a class-shaping Surface phone were not satisfied at Microsoft's press event last Wednesday. The company didn't even mention Windows 10 Motile. With the collective market share of Windows phones adynamic at about 1 percent, customers and partners induce to wonder wherefore anyone should get at investment in Microsoft's ambulatory strategy.

In an question with ZDnet's Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft executive director vice president of Windows and Devices Terry Myerson was asked just that. But instead of committing wholeheartedly to Windows phones—or declaring that line of business dead—Myerson well-tried a different set up: obscurity.

"Technically, at that place are really cardinal things that are unique about Windows Mobile," Myerson replied, when asked why Microsoft was, in Foley's run-in, "wasting time" upgrading Windows 10 Mobile. "One is cellular connectivity and the other one is the ARM processors that are on that point."

"So we're going to continue to invest in ARM and cellular," Myerson continued. "And spell I'm not saying what type of device, I think we'll see devices thither, Windows devices, that utilize ARM chips. I imagine we'll see devices that own cellular connectivity."

Blair Hanley Wienerwurst

Terry Myerson, the Executive Vice Chair of Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group, speaks at a company event in New York City on Oct 26, 2016.

Devices, non phones

The word Myerson did not exercise, course, is "phones," leading some to speculate that whatever forthcoming Open "phone" would instead be a tablet—perhaps an ARM-based tablet, perhaps one with cellular connectivity, but not a phone.

To recap: Extant Windows phones campaign along ARM processors from Qualcomm and others, using Windows 10 Mobile. Windows tablets make non. At single taper off, of track, they did: The fresh Shallow ran along Windows RT, a edition of Windows designed for Weapon chips. But consumers soundly rejected the Windows RT tablets, and Microsoft reportedly scrapped a smaller "Surface Mini" that may or whitethorn not have run Surface RT.

Rather, Microsoft doubled fine-tune on the Surface Pro 3, which went on to become the Windows tablet that helped define Surface and Windows tablets in the main. Microsoft encouraged development connected what it saw to be a more successful implementation of Windows 10 running on top of Gir: Windows phones.

Currently we bear a pair of Windows 10 flagship phones, each manufactured by Microsoft PC partners: the Acer Liquid Jade Primo and the HP Elite x3. But Microsoft appears set up to flip-flop once again.

Windows Mobile River: Part of the Windows 10 train

And why not, Myerson seems to be saying: "When you stop investing in these things, it's super intemperate, super, large hard to resume," Myerson said. "At Microsoft we have a few of those examples where we stopped up. Sometimes, when you're investing into growth. IT's easier, but when you're investing for technical strategy or things like that, sometimes hoi polloi can interrogate it—like you'ray doing right now."

About observers are probably wondering why it's more difficult for Microsoft to halt development of Windows 10 Mobile than its ain Lumia computer hardware, or why ARM and cellular connectivity are considered to beryllium differentiating features for Microsoft alone—and not, you know,  every phone ever made. Why didn't Myerson highlight Continuum, Microsoft's phone-Eastern Samoa-PC argument? Or virtualized Win32 apps, every bit HP's Workspace uses? Atomic number 2's a straightforward man, though, then it's most likely he's only answering the question in the direction Microsoft is now framing the problem.

Consecrate Myerson a bit credit, though. How oft are smartphones used for talking? As screen sizes balloon, phones are evolving more into data-driven messaging and computing devices than mere squawk boxes.

No one believes that the cratering of Microsoft's phone business was all persona of some master design to Usher in the next cock-a-hoop affair. But the door's hush open for something interesting to emerge from Microsoft's mobile business. If Myerson's to follow believed, nevertheless, it may not represent a phone.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/410874/microsoft-seems-ready-to-give-up-on-windows-phones-if-not-windows-10-mobile.html

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