For fans of Windows Phone, Mobile World Congress hasn"t been wildly exciting so far. While Nokia launched two Windows Phones yesterday – its new entry-level Lumia 610 and the ‘international’ version of its Lumia 900 flagship – and ZTE also announced its new Orbit handset, other manufacturers have chosen to focus on their Android offerings at MWC this year.
But don’t take this to mean that Microsoft’s hardware partners are abandoning the platform. Mirroring a similar commitment yesterday from HTC, now Samsung too has reconfirmed its support for the Windows Phone ecosystem, and assured customers that the company will launch new devices for the platform with Windows Phone 8 ‘Apollo’, due towards the end of this year.
Samsung’s head of product management, Matt Brum, explained to TechRadar: “We’re very much still focusing on Windows. There will be more products, and the key thing for us is making sure we hit the right price points and segments for our customers.”
Attention within the Windows Phone ecosystem is currently focused upon the ‘Tango’ release, which is principally designed to expand the operating system’s reach into new markets with lower-cost devices. However, it appears that the likes of Samsung and HTC have little interest in the price points that Tango is chasing, resulting in the decision to hold off on releasing further hardware until Apollo arrives. Brum confirmed that Apollo "is coming at the end of year and will increase the capability of the platform, and Samsung is looking to optimise its devices on that.”
Brum also alluded to complementary hardware built around the Windows ecosystem: “We’re very excited as we’re one of very few manufacturers that can do the convergence story that we can – so the fact that Windows 8 covers everything from tablets to laptops to phones is very cool.”
The prospect of Samsung’s beautiful tablet hardware running Windows 8, alongside similarly sleek and powerful Windows Phone 8 devices from the company, is certainly appealing – the only downside right now is that we’re still months and months away from launch.
Still, at least we can take our first step towards a Metro future tomorrow, when Microsoft launches the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.
Top image via Windows Team Blog