Developers at Microsoft are working on Windows Phone Blue update which is going to be next major update for the OS. According to Larry Lieberman who is the product manager at Windows Phone expressed the company’s views on the progress of Windows Phone 8 OS. Microsoft is happy to hold on to the third spot in the mobile platform ecosystem.
After Android and iOS, BlackBerry was holding one to the third spot but in the month of May, Microsoft managed to steal that spot from BlackBerry. Also, Liberman feels that BlackBerry is not a serious competition. He said that BlackBerry will not be able to offer things that are currently being offered by Windows Phone. He said the Windows Phone devices are available across different price points which allow them to attract larger audience.
Nokia and Microsoft have together managed to roll out some low cost Windows Phone devices which have eventually helped the OS to gain good popularity. Even though it is now in third position and way behind Android and iOS, Liberman believes that the operating system is growing at a faster pace compared to any other OS.
At present the growth of Windows Phone is small but Nokia is really doing well for itself as well as Windows Phone by rolling many devices in quick succession. In fact, Nokia had already announced the range of Windows Phone powered devices they are going to release this year. However, we feel that one major setback for the OS is that the developers have not managed to release new updates at faster pace and currently Microsoft is rolling many Windows Phone devices with existing version of the OS.
Recently, a leaked device was found to be running on Windows 8.1 aka Windows Phone Blue update which makes us feel that update release around the corner. However, another report states that the newest update is plagued with many bugs and the update will be only made available in the next year.
Liberman said that they are currently focusing a lot on feedback from the user voice site. One of the most wanted features on Windows Phone is the presence of a notification center. Microsoft is going through all the requests on the user voice site carefully and if certain features are being asked by lot of features, Microsoft will make that feature available in the next update.
Microsoft still needs to roll out many Windows Phone devices in the market. Major brands like Samsung, LG, and Sony consistently release new Androids almost every week. So, Nokia and HTC should release many Windows Phone devices in the market to shoot up the operating system’s popularity.
Considering the fact that Microsoft is quite slow in releasing an update for Windows Phone, we feel a feature-rich major update will be soon made available. If Microsoft takes on aggressive strategy for Windows Phone, it can become a good threat to Android and iOS.