Microsoft Mobile Arm Flailing

Microsoft Mobile Arm Flailing

Both Android and iOS has been making some big waves lately. Android has announced huge innovative changes to its upcoming Android N and iOS is ramping up for a big update as well. But, people seem to forget about the awkward third brother. Microsoft still has their Windows phones with their own spin on a

Both Android and iOS has been making some big waves lately. Android has announced huge innovative changes to its upcoming Android N and iOS is ramping up for a big update as well. But, people seem to forget about the awkward third brother. Microsoft still has their Windows phones with their own spin on a mobile OS. But it seems especially bad in the last few years. There have been no big innovations and sales have been dropping. It seems like it’s finally about time Microsoft steps up or steps out of the mobile ring.

Microsoft plans to cut 1,850 jobs, 1,350 of those jobs coming out of the Finnish operations. The huge shift will also cost about $950 million dollars in restructuring charges, $200 million of which will go to severance packages. This news comes just days after Microsoft confirmed they sold off their feature phone business for $350 million dollars. The problem has always been that most smartphone users have been entrenched in either iOS or Android from the start and swaying any of them to join a third party OS was always a herculean task. In fact, only about 2.7% of all smartphone users are Windows users compared to Android’s 52.8% and Apple’s 43.6%.

Microsoft has tried to create a viable ecosystem to justify their mobile arm much like Google has. Their latest attempt at revamping their system with Windows 10 but it failed to draw in new users like they had hoped. The problem is, they are still severely limited in the apps they offer both in Windows 10 as well as the mobile version. A Microsoft spokesperson said that they will continue to offer support for Windows phones as well as Lumia phones but they have no new news about future products.

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