Consumer Electronics

The Windows Phone Obituary Has Been Tweeted

Paul Ausick

Published: October 9, 2017 10:15 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 7:23 am

While most of us have long figured that Microsoft Corp.’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Phone was defunct, the official word seems to have appeared in a tweet Monday morning from the company’s vice president for Windows Experience.

Development on the Windows 10 Mobile operating system will end, as will any further hardware development.

Microsoft vice president Joe Belfiore delivered the news:

Of course we'll continue to support the platform.. bug fixes, security updates, etc. But building new features/hw aren't the focus. 😟 https://t.co/0CH9TZdIFu

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 8, 2017

We have tried VERY HARD to incent app devs. Paid money.. wrote apps 4 them.. but volume of users is too low for most companies to invest. ☹️ https://t.co/ePsySxR3LB

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 8, 2017

That second tweet pretty much says it all.

Microsoft dropped support for Windows Phone 8.1 in July, and HP said last week that it would no longer build its Elite X3 handset for Windows 10 Mobiles.

It is widely acknowledged that Microsoft missed the transition to mobile devices that followed the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007. It was not until 2014 that Microsoft paid a total of around $7.9 billion for Nokia’s smartphone business. Two years later Microsoft wrote off $7.6 billion related to the purchase.

The company’s latest approach to the mobile market is not a direct port of the Edge browser’s HTML engine. Last week Microsoft kicked off a “Continue on PC” feature built on the app development kits for Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iOS and Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Android mobile operating systems.

The idea is to give users of Windows on the desktop who own iOS and Android phones the look and feel of the Edge browser in new apps built specifically for the dominant mobile operating systems.

Belfiore has already made the switch:

(2/2) As an individual end-user, I switched platforms for the app/hw diversity. We will support those users too! Choose what's best 4 u. https://t.co/LKQBL3w7gA

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 8, 2017

Microsoft stock traded up fractionally early Monday at $76.38, a new 52-week high. The 52-week low is $56.32, and the 12-month consensus price target is $81.03.