This could be the eagerly-awaited Surface Phone due in 2017

Dec 24, 2016 06:13 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has been mostly quiet in the smartphone hardware business this year, but everyone now expects the company to launch a super-flagship next year that would bring Windows Phone as a platform back in the spotlight.

And while CEO Satya Nadella himself said Microsoft wanted to build “the ultimate mobile device,” Chris Capossela, Chief Marketing Officer at the company, provides us with a few more details about these plans.

What Microsoft is trying to do with the next phone is the same thing it did with the Surface: to invent a new product category.

This pretty much means that the Surface Phone could be more than just a phone, and information that got leaked in the past indicated that Redmond was aiming to tackle both the phone and the PC worlds with the same device. Continuum would obviously play an essential role here, but Capossela hints that there could be something more in the works right now.

“We want to do something new”

In the interview during the Windows Weekly podcast, Capossela reiterates Satya Nadella’s words, explaining that Microsoft wants to work together with partners on building new great devices, while at the same time improving Windows 10 Mobile to support new features that these devices could have.

As far as first-party devices are concerned, Microsoft just wants to come up with something new, and not build just another high-end phone that competes against the iPhone and flagship Android phones.

“For us when we want to do first-party hardware, when we want to do something like the Studio, or Book, or Pro, the number one goal we have is to essentially try and create a new category of device that hasn’t been done before and can expand the market for the Windows ecosystem. We want to do something that hasn’t been done before. We want to create a brand new category,” he said.

Of course, no specifics were provided, but Microsoft seems to be dropping more and more hints that something big is coming on the smartphone front. Unfortunately, there are no timing details, so the wait is going to be super painful for hardcore fans.