In the wake of today"s announcement that Nokia is planning to lay off 10,000 more of its team members, the company held a conference call today with a number of financial analysts. The Verge reports that during the event, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop reaffirmed the company"s commitment to creating smartphones with Microsoft"s Windows Phone OS.
In fact, Elop said that Nokia is aiming to release Windows Phone devices that will take on the cheaper portion of the Android smartphone market. He stated, "We need to compete with Android aggressively. The low-end price point war is an important part of that." That means creating one or more Windows Phone devices that will be cheaper than the Nokia Lumia 610, which started to go on sale in some parts of the world in late April.
Elop said during the conference call that the company already had plans to make a cheaper Windows Phone device but that Nokia has received help directly from Microsoft that will allow Nokia "to go even further than we anticipated." This shows that Microsoft is very serious about its Windows Phone commitment and sees Nokia as perhaps the best way to get their mobile OS out to customers.
Microsoft plans to reveal more info about the next major version of Windows Phone in a developers conference in San Fransisco on June 20.
Source: The Verge