Rival Android could be the cavalry coming to the rescue of Windows Phone, in Microsoft's latest maneuver to advance its smartphone operating system.
The underlying notion is this: Microsoft wants to make it easier to introduce devices that use the Windows Phone software. That was the message delivered this week's announcement of the HTC One M8 for Windows Phone.
Specifically, Microsoft has tweaked its Windows Phone 8.1 software so that hardware makers can lean on the hardware and reference designs they're already using to build devices for Android-based phones in order to build a Windows Phone device.
"We wanted handset makers like HTC to be able to leverage their engineering investment and provide them with a real choice," said Darren Laybourn, vice president of engineering for Microsoft in an interview following the launch of the HTC One M8 for Windows. "We feel the software should be the differentiator and not the hardware."
For four years Microsoft's Windows Phone smartphone operating system has limped along, trying to gain traction against the much more popular Apple iOS and Google Android devices. But Windows Phone handsets remain niche products. In fact, they only garnered about 2.5 percent of the worldwide smartphone market in the second quarter of 2014, according to IDC.
Microsoft has struggled to convince hardware partners to make phones running the Windows Phone operating system in what has turned into a chicken-and-egg scenario. Device makers don't want to dedicate resources to building a Windows Phone because there are so few customers. But without the devices -- especially iconic ones that offer cutting edge components and technology -- the operating system will never gain popularity among customers.
Management knows that Microsoft's mobile ambitions are doomed if it can't break that pattern. The solution depends on finding a way to get device makers other than Nokia, whose handset operations Microsoft acquired earlier this year for more than $7 billion, to build high-end smartphones using Windows Phone.
With the release of the latest software, Windows Phone 8.1, and now the launch of the HTC One M8 for Windows, Microsoft has come up with a new approach that could point the way past this dilemma.
"Ideally, I'm sure that Microsoft wants HTC, Samsung and others to produce exclusive designs for their software," said Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research. "But I think they recognize the market reality now. And they're willing to let dedicated hardware go to get more high-end Windows Phone smartphones on the market."
HTC One M8 for Windows product photos See full gallery
