14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone currently has a market share of approximately 0.5 percent, according to third-party research firms, but Microsoft remains tight-lipped on everything related to its mobile vision most of the time.
Coupled with many other highly-criticized decisions, this approach contributed to the decline of Windows Phone, and now a French bank blames Microsoft for abandoning support for the platform.
After many developers decided to leave Windows phones and focus exclusively on Android and iOS, HSBC France is doing the same thing, blaming Microsoft for giving up on the mobile operating system.
Starting with February 2017, the official HSBC France app will no longer be available in the Windows Store, and customers are recommended to turn to their browsers in order to access accounts (via thewindowse).
“The services offered by Microsoft are evolving and their decision to abandon support of […] mobile phones leads us to review the availability of our mobile application,” the bank said. “If you change the mobile platform, you can download the application on Android and iOS.”
Is Microsoft the one to blame for the demise of Windows Phone?
While losing another mobile app is clearly an important hint for Windows Phone, HSBC raises another question that makes Microsoft the target of all these accusations regarding the demise of the platform.
There are users out there who are confident that Microsoft would still invest in mobile devices, and most of them hope the rumored Surface Phone to be the model reigniting interest in Windows Phone. But at the same time, there are also plenty of users who decided to switch to Android or iOS because of what they claim to be lack of interest from Microsoft.
Microsoft is also developing Windows 10 on ARM, a new project that would bring the full version of the operating system on ARM chips. Windows phones are already using ARM processors, and it’s believed that this way, the company could boost customer appeal of Windows phones.
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