Windows Phone 8 to Appeal More to PC Vendors

Later this year, Microsoft is expected to bring to the market the next version of its mobile operating system, namely Windows Phone 8 (codenamed Apollo).

The platform is expected to bring along a wide range of improvements when compared to the current flavor of the OS, such as support for multi-core application processors, microSD memory cards and for NFC connectivity, among others.

However, even if the platform will be offering capabilities similar to those included in Google’s Android operating system, mobile phone makers might not flock to launch devices powered by it.

Instead, PC makers around the world are expected to make such devices available, a recent article on DigiTimes notes.

Nokia will bring to the market handsets running under Windows Phone 8, as part of the agreement it signed with Microsoft last year. However, other vendors are not likely to commit to spending too much on the development of such smartphones, the news site suggests.

Instead, PC vendors such as Acer, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell are expected to start developing handsets running under the mobile OS, industry sources confirmed.

The poor performance that the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango platform has seen so far is the main reason for which handset vendors such as HTC, Samsung, or LG are moving away from Microsoft’s mobile OS, it seems.

Nokia was expected to help the platform gain some more market share, but the company’s first devices running under it, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, haven’t benefitted from great performance on shelves so far.

Of course, Windows Phone 8 will bring along a nice set of enhancements over the existing OS flavors, even if the latter will be improved as well.

Helped by Nokia and the upcoming changes, Windows Phone is expected to become the second mobile OS in the world in the coming years, some of the latest analyst reports suggested.