The platform might be refreshed before its support lifetime ends

Mar 19, 2013 09:31 GMT  ·  By

Windows Phone 8, the latest flavor of Microsoft’s mobile operating system, will see the end of its support life in July next year, but Microsoft reassures users that they have nothing to fear of.

In fact, the company did say before that the platform would be upgradeable to the next major Windows Phone release, and has now reaffirmed this.

“As we’ve said, one benefit of moving to the Windows core is that Windows Phone 8 is upgradeable,” a recent tweet from the company reads.

The fact that both Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7.8 will enjoy only 18 months of support lifetime won’t change, but at least some users can rest assured that their devices won’t become obsolete when the platform currently loaded on them does.

Unfortunately, Windows Phone 7.x might not suffer the same fortunate fate, and devices running under this platform could see their end in late 2014, provided that Microsoft doesn’t push out a new platform release for them in the meantime (some sort of Windows Phone 7.9).

Having Windows Phone 8 upgradeable and supported for only 18 months could also suggest that future Windows Phone platform versions might arrive at a faster pace.

Microsoft might choose to support each new OS release for only one year and a half, and could come up with a new one before that time runs out.

Basically, this should be good news for users, as they will enjoy refreshed software more often than before, though it remains to be seen for how long devices will be provided with new upgrades.

The next major flavor of Windows Phone 8 is expected to become available at the end of this year or in early 2014, and is currently referred to as Windows Phone Blue, as Mary Jo Foley notes.

Following that, Microsoft is expected to release Windows Phone 9 sometime next year, and is said to be already testing the platform. However, it might take a while before more info on this OS release starts to emerge.