14 DAY TRIAL // We’ve known for a while that Microsoft has more or less given up on plans to release new Lumia devices, deciding instead to focus on supporting the Windows 10 Mobile ecosystem and work on its very own high-end product that could hit the market as the Surface Phone.
And while no confirmation has ever been provided as far as this new super premium phone is concerned, there’s new evidence that the company is indeed preparing something very exciting for the Windows 10 Mobile world.
Microsoft Corporate VP of Windows Kevin Gallo said during the Build Tour in London this month that Redmond continues to fully support Windows Phone and provided some new information regarding the company’s long-term strategy for the platform.
"Windows Phone is fully supported. We’re fully behind it. We’re not abandoning the phone," he was quoted as saying. "There’s really no change in what our direction or strategy is with respect to releasing the Windows Phone software."
“We’ll lead with high end”
And while we’ve heard this before, here’s the more interesting part:
"We’re really aligned to what we’ve done on the Windows desktop," he continued, "which is we’ll lead with some high end and category innovation like we’ve done with Surface, and OEMs will go and build the breadth of the catalog."
So there you go, there’s a high-end Windows 10 Mobile device coming from Microsoft, and it’s very clear that the company wants to follow the same approach as to the Surface tablet. This means that all those rumors regarding the Surface Phone could actually be true, as people close to the matter previously hinted that Microsoft might want to adopt the same strategy as for the Surface lineup and build a high-end phone, leaving partners in charge of the rest of the ecosystem.
The Surface team, with Panos Panay at the helm of the push, will be responsible for building the Surface Phone, and rumor has it that the unveiling could take place in the spring of 2017, alongside new Surface Pro and Surface Book models.
Certainly, this can only be good news for Windows phones, especially given how many people claim it’s dead, but there’s no doubt that waiting that long for a high-end and possibly very expensive device will be a tough challenge.