Fresh Indication of New Microsoft-branded Surface Smartphone
Fresh Indication of New Microsoft-branded Surface Smartphone by UCStrategies Staff
Reports have once again surfaced indicating that Microsoft may be launching its own Surface smartphone next year.
In this recent round of speculation (which began last week), it was reported in the China Times that Microsoft, under the Surface brand, will launch its own smartphone during the first half of 2013.
Furthermore, it has been indicated by a trusted source cited by BGR, that in the coming months Microsoft plans to release its own Windows 8 smartphone.
Officials at Microsoft have falsified claims that the company has been working on a Microsoft-branded smartphone in the past six months. Even as the company came under attack for developing its own Surface-branded tablets, which were in direct competition with Microsoft's third-party manufacturing partners building Windows 8 Tablets, the denials for the Microsoft-built smartphone were persistent.
Windows Phone 8 smartphones have been announced by Samsung, HTC and Nokia, for release this fall.
Microsoft may be concerned that its smartphone partners cannot build a Windows Phone successful enough to compete well with Android devices or the iPhone, particularly when taking into account the friction a Microsoft-branded smartphone might cause.
An analyst at J. Gold Associates, Jack Gold, stated that it may appear to be the case that Microsoft is simply attempting to “kick-start the market” for Windows Phone devices. Research firm IDC suggests that, based on sales of Windows Phone 7, 7.5 and earlier phones on Windows Mobile, the Windows Phone has about 5% of the global market for smartphones.
Gold stated that it “makes no sense” that Microsoft should build and sell a Surface smartphone. “If the relationship with Nokia is that troubled that Microsoft needs to do its own phone, it says that Windows Phone 8 is in trouble even before it launches.”
Gold pointed out that Microsoft's sales of the KIN had been a “disaster,” and continued, “I can't see Microsoft in the phone business being successful. If these stories are true, it may also say that Microsoft has no confidence. Nokia, Samsung or HTC can make the Windows Phone successful on their own.”
Even if it materializes that Microsoft is simply trying to restart the dwindling market with a Surface phone, Gold states that it “still sends out the wrong message to the market... I'd be shocked to see Microsoft get into the phone business, given all the negative ramifications of doing so. But Microsoft has made missteps before.” (CY) Link