14 DAY TRIAL // At first glance, Microsoft isn’t really pushing for Windows 10 Mobile this year, and many users are criticizing the company for leaving the platform behind with its increased focus on PCs, but Redmond isn’t actually giving up on phones by any means.
Living proof is a recent tutorial posted by the company on MSDN blogs, which provides instructions on how to upgrade a complete Windows Phone 8.1 device fleet to Windows 10 Mobile with Microsoft Intune and perform the process faster than by doing it for each phone individually.
While these steps are only available for those with access to Microsoft Intune, they certainly come in handy when IT admins need to upgrade entire fleets of devices to Windows 10 Mobile. The biggest question is, however, how many companies actually still have fleets of Windows Phone devices.
Windows Phone share keeps dropping
It’s not a secret that Windows Phone is not doing very well right now, and the most recent statistics put the platform at less than 1 percent market share, with Microsoft believed to be focusing exclusively on a potential Surface Phone flagship device, letting the rest of the ecosystem in the hands of partners.
But this doesn’t mean that Microsoft is giving up on Windows 10 Mobile, and the company has reiterated this on every occasion, explaining that it still wants to work together with partners to launch new phones.
“We always take care of our customers, Windows phones are no exception. We will continue to update and support our current Lumia and OEM partner phones, and develop great new devices,” Terry Myerson, head of the Windows OSG at Microsoft, said earlier this year.
The Surface Phone is expected to launch in the spring of 2017, most likely together with the Redstone 2 wave of Windows 10 update, but until now, neither the phone nor the release date has been confirmed by Microsoft.