News & Reviews:   Microsoft Windows Phone

While Windows Phones continue to blaze trails in the smartphone market, most of them continue to be made by Nokia which was recently bought by Microsoft. To get any sort of real expansion for Windows Phones, Microsoft needs other smartphone makers to produce more Windows Phone devices and smartphones. To that end, blogger Eldar Murtazin recently tweeted that Microsoft has offered $1 billion a year to Samsung for it to make more Windows Phone devices. While this seems like a bribe, it is often used for developmental costs and seen as a Research and Development contribution. Before it was bought over by Microsoft, Nokia received $1 billion a year as well but this was marked as "platform support payments". So far, there doesn't seem to be any official word of consent or even denial from Samsung and this is still very much an unconfirmed rumour yet so take this with a good pinch of salt.

Many in the tech industry feel that Windows RT and subsequent Windows RT-based devices lack many of the capabilities and features of more capable Microsoft operating systems and devices. Rumours about the death of Windows RT have circulated for quite some time at practically every chance. But so far, most of the rumours have been from third-parties, this time around, we have a comment from within Microsoft itself that could indicate Microsoft officially killing off Windows RT. The comment comes from Julie Larson-Green, who is Executive Vice President of the Devices and Studios and one of the big movers in Microsoft. Her comment was:

"We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We're not going to have three. We do think there's a world where there is a more mobile operating system that doesn't have the risks to battery life, or the risks to security. But, it also comes at the cost of flexibility. So we believe in that vision and that direction and we're continuing down that path."