14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is completely overhauling its mobile business, not only by firing more people but also by making some changes to its own strategy, planning to focus on three different device categories, namely value phones, business models, and flagships.
Redmond already has two flagships running Windows Phone on the market, namely the Lumia 930 and the Lumia 1520, but both have failed to impress for a number of reasons.
Microsoft CE Satya Nadella admits that his company needs to focus more on high-end phones, pointing out that the current models aren’t good enough to compete against similar devices running rival platforms.
“We're going to have great flagship phones for Windows 10. That's actually a segment we don't today have good devices, and we hope to change that with Windows 10,” he said in a conference call following the Q4 2015 financial results meeting.
Full focus on low-end and mid-range
Windows Phone currently has a market share of around 3 percent, and this is mostly thanks to low-end and mid-range devices that have attracted more buyers to the platform. Flagships, on the other hand, have sold in very small numbers, with Microsoft showing a growing interest in more affordable devices.
While the Lumia 1520 was rather well received, not the same thing can be said about the Lumia 930. Although a flagship, the device lacks support for Glance Screen, one of Microsoft’s best Windows Phone features, and is often described as a device that offers rather poor battery life and suffers from overheating.
Value phones, on the other hand, are supposed to help Microsoft gain market share, and Nadella says that Redmond should continue improving in this business.
“And in the value smartphones, that's the place where I want us to be much more efficient. We clearly have some value to add there because of the uniqueness of Office and Skype and our services. But at the same time, I think we want to be smart about how many of these phones do we want to generate, how many, which price points we want to participate. That's where you will see the most significant operational changes from how we operated last year to the coming year,” he explained.
The first Windows 10 Mobile devices are expected to arrive in just a few months with the debut of the new smartphone OS, but Microsoft hasn’t provided any details on timing just yet.