14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently announced its decision to fire 7,800 people from its phone hardware unit, but the company is still very committed to Windows Phone, and CEO Satya Nadella has said the very same thing in an interview on the sideline of the WPC 2015 conference.
Nadella has told Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley that the free upgrade to Windows 10 is going to significantly help Windows Phone, pointing out that developers who want to create apps for the new operating system will bring their apps on absolutely all platforms thanks to the universal app concept.
New mission: bring everyone on Windows 10
Basically, if more people upgrade to Windows 10 on PCs, the opportunity to reach a bigger audience grows not only for the traditional desktop but for all devices running Windows 10 because of the universal apps. This way, the free upgrade, which is supposed to boost the number of devices running Windows 10, will also help Windows Phone by bringing more apps in the store, Nadella explains.
“The free upgrade for Windows 10 is meant to improve our phone position. That is the reason why I made that decision. If somebody wants to know whether I'm committed to Windows Phone, they should think about what I just did with the free upgrade to Windows, rather than -- hey, I making four more phone models of value smart phones,” he says.
“All of this comes down to how are you going to get developers to come to Windows. If you come to Windows, you are going to be on the phone, too. Even if you want to come to Windows because of HoloLens, you want to come to it because of Xbox, you want to come to the desktop, all those get you to the phone. It's not about let's do head-on competition. That will never work. You have to have a differentiated point of view,” he continues.
Windows 10, which will first launch on PCs later this month, will come with a single store available across all devices, thus making sure that a similar experience is available on all platforms, including PCs, smartphones, tablets, Xbox, and IoT.
Microsoft is one of the pioneers of this transition to universal apps, and some of the programs bundled into Windows 10 are capable of running on all devices, and among them are Office, Microsoft Edge browser, Photos, and a bunch of other apps, all supposed to take advantage of this new feature.
Windows 10 Mobile is projected to hit the market later this year, most likely in September or October.