Microsoft Admits Windows Phone is Basically Dead

Monday October 9, 2017 5:15 AM PDT by Tim Hardwick
Microsoft has publicly admitted for the first time that its Windows Phone is dead. In a series of tweets, Windows 10 chief Joe Belfiore said that the company is no longer developing new features or hardware for Windows 10 Mobile, with only bug fixes and security updates to come for existing users.

Belfiore explained that his team had tried "very hard" to incentivize app developers by paying them and writing apps for them, but the low volume of users meant it was no longer worth the investment in Windows Phone.

Microsoft officially ended support for Windows Phone back in July, but the software giant never owned up to the fact that the move was essentially the final nail in the coffin for its flagship mobile platform. Today's news that the Windows 10 Mobile hardware is no longer a focus for the company now puts that beyond doubt, and makes the possibility of a long-rumored Surface-branded phone seem further away than ever.


Windows Phone was released in 2010 and quickly became the world's third most popular mobile operating system, but the platform couldn't compete with iOS and Android, which accounted for a combined 99.6 percent market share earlier this year.

In another sign of the times, the New York Police Department recently confirmed it will begin transitioning from Windows Phones to iPhones for its 36,000 police officers in the fall.

In Belfiore's series of tweets, the corporate VP also revealed that he had switched away from Windows Phone to a rival mobile operating system, but didn't say which one.

Tags: Microsoft, Windows 10, Windows Phone
153 comments

Top Rated Comments

(View all)
Avatar
jayducharme
28 months ago
As has happened before, Microsoft just couldn’t see the future.

[MEDIA=youtube]eywi0h_Y5_U[/MEDIA]
Rating: 23 Votes
Avatar
Dave245
28 months ago

This is not really good, because we need competition to push the other companies to make better devices.


Windows Phone was never really competition for the iPhone, the two big players are IOS and Android, i think it will be this way for a long time to come.
Rating: 19 Votes
Avatar
djcerla
28 months ago
after being burned by supporting Windows Phone, and after moving to iOS en masse, institutions and companies should really look into adopting the Mac, which would make them save “up to $500 per machine” (source: IBM).

They should, and they will (slowly).
Rating: 12 Votes
Avatar
radus
28 months ago
This is not really good, because we need competition to push the other companies to make better devices.
Rating: 12 Votes
Avatar
iKrivetko
28 months ago
It was never really alive in the first place.
Rating: 12 Votes
Avatar
maflynn
28 months ago
In other news, scientists have discovered that rain is wet.

Seriously, tell us something we already didn't know. The platform had promise, when it was windows CE and they delayed and revamped things so much that they blew it.
Rating: 8 Votes
Avatar
convergent
28 months ago

after being burned by supporting Windows Phone, and after moving to iOS en masse, institutions and companies should really look into adopting the Mac, which would make them save “up to $500 per machine” (source: IBM).

They should, and they will (slowly).


This would be a recommendation by IBM who's consultants for years recommended companies adopt a 'work from home" policy and then recently canceled the policy for their own employees and told them to come work in an office or quit? Apple could care less about the Mac or they'd already have gone after the enterprise business. Their failures with Windows Phone will hopefully cause them to come back with something disruptive to change the playing field, particularly for business use.

This is not really good, because we need competition to push the other companies to make better devices.


So true... and a two-opoly can get just as lazy as a monopoly. And right now the majority of smartphones are sold by Apple and Samsung.

It was never really alive in the first place.


A little history lesson... Microsoft was big in the smartphone business before Apple ever thought about making a smartphone. Poor leadership and lack of market vision allowed Apple and Google to take it from them. The big players were Microsoft (Windows CE -> Pocket PC -> Windows Mobile), Palm, Symbian, and RIM (Blackberry). What killed them was the notion of the App Store, not the iPhone itself. The iPhone brought nothing new, but the prospect of cheap and free apps by the thousands cause the developers to abandon their traditional space and/or get steamrolled by new developers.
Rating: 8 Votes
Avatar
rumormiller
28 months ago
I actually like the live tile based user interface on Windows 10 mobile. It makes sense on mobile devices. It was also the only truly visually accessible interface, you can really scale the text up really large, great for low vision or elderly users. It's a real shame as I found it to be a solid mobile OS, Edge browser is fast, that I'd prefer over Android as the Win 10 phones went for quite cheap that is if I didn't have an iPhone.
Rating: 7 Votes
Avatar
jimothyGator
28 months ago
They should officially commemorate this passing with pallbearers and a coffin.
Rating: 6 Votes
Avatar
maflynn
28 months ago

At least they’ve still got XBox.

And
Windows,
SQL Server
Office
Visio
Exchange
Skype
Visual Studio
One Note
Azure
BackOffice
etc, etc

;)
Rating: 6 Votes
[ Read All Comments ]