Microsoft Australia who will shortly compete head on with carriers in Australia when they open their first store in Sydney is set to launch a new range of smartphones tomorrow.
But don’t bank on their latest models being a success as consumers turn off their Windows OS machines for Macs and tens of thousands take up Google Docs and Android based smartphones.
At a media event tomorrow in New York, Microsoft plans to announce at least two high-end Lumia smartphones powered by Windows 10 software.
After five years of failing to get traction in the smartphone market and after losing billions buying up struggling smartphone Company Nokia, Microsoft no longer is gunning for the mass market, but grabbing for niches such as businesses, where the company hopes its smartphones will have a competitive advantage.
They are betting on business moving to Office 365 which is why the Company is spruiking collaboration tools.
What Microsoft is set to pitch is that if you buy the Windows eco system and a Windows smartphone your personal computers and mobile devices will operate in a seamless system.
What they fail to tell consumers is that they won’t have access to tens of thousands of apps now available for Android and Apple OS smartphones.
They claim that Windows users who crunch Excel spreadsheets or make Skype calls on their PCs, the thinking goes, will find it compelling to have the same experience on their mobile devices.
This is despite the fact that users of an Android smartphone can already do this with an array of Android devices.
The Wall Street Journal said that Microsoft’s decision to narrow its focus reflects hard facts: Windows smartphones have sold poorly and bled money. Two years ago, when Microsoft plunged into the smartphone-handset business with an agreement to buy Nokia’s mobile-phone operation, Microsoft said it would own a 15% smartphone market share by 2018.
The company has dropped that ambition. This year, about three out of every 100 smartphones sold will run Windows, research firm IDC estimates. Apple iPhones and smartphones powered by Android software together comprise the other 97%.
Microsoft’s phone operation lost 12 cents for each smartphone sold in the three months ended June 30, on average.
In July, Microsoft effectively conceded failure by wiping away about 80% of the value of the $9.4 billion Nokia deal and announcing plans to cut nearly 8,000 workers, mostly in its mobile-phone operation.
