![]() ![]() Licensing its operating system and software to other PC makers is still a much, much bigger business. Microsoft likes to tout the business’ growth numbers-device sales swelled 40 percent year-over-year last fiscal year, and the Surface unit now brings in revenues of around $5.7 billion annually-but Microsoft has a small fraction of the overall PC market. ![]() That 2-in-1 Surface still exists, and the lineup grew to include clamshell laptops, uber-expensive all-in-one desktops, and giant digital whiteboards. The hardware team’s answer was a line of 2-in-1 tablets, launched in 2012. Back in 2010, while Microsoft’s mobile lunch was being eaten by Apple and Google, Panay was instructed to do something with Microsoft’s Surface, originally conceived of as a touchscreen tabletop computer. Last year, Microsoft’s departing chief of Windows, Terry Myerson, said in an exit interview that Microsoft squandered its early opportunities as a differentiated mobile platform, and said it was “so clear in hindsight that the disruption in business model which Android represented was enormous.”īut it wasn’t all bad news for Microsoft in the hardware department. In July 2017, Microsoft stopped supporting Windows Phone. Then, in 2013, Microsoft bought Nokia’s handset business for billions of dollars, part of a bold strategy to own both the hardware and software experience. ![]() The early 2010s ushered in the renamed Windows Phone operating system Windows Phone 8 was the first mobile OS from Microsoft to run on the same kernel as its PC OS. When you ask Panay what this thing is, this device with a seam and two side-by-side screens that fold closed like a soft Moleskin notebook, he immediately says, “It’s a Surface.” The company’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, underscores this distinction, saying Microsoft is not entering an existing device category instead, it’s trying to create a new one. Never mind that it doesn't run Windows but Android, the most widely-used smartphone operating system in the world. Or that Panay himself admits he makes what are universally known as a “phone calls” from it. Or that one of the earliest scenes in the marketing video for the thing, with its slow, fetishized swirls of the gadget, shows a woman picking it up to her ear and saying “Hello?” the way you would with, well, you know. Never mind that the thing slips in and out of the pocket of Panay’s salt-and-pepper tweed blazer exactly the way a smartphone would. But Panos Panay, Microsoft’s chief product officer, doesn’t want you to call it a phone. You can call it a Surface, a mobile product, a dual-screen device, a new kind of 2-in-1, a pathway to the all-important cloud. Whether Microsoft would have a foldable ready for a 2023 release remains to be seen.Īre you interested in a foldable phone made by Microsoft and running Android? Let us know on Twitter.No matter what you do, do not call the new Surface phone a phone. This original dual-screen design was supposed to ship at the end of 2023 as the next Surface Duo, featuring narrower and taller edge-to-edge displays, wireless charging, and other improvements.” Windows Central “I’m told this new foldable device came about after the company had already finalized a dual-screen design for Surface Duo 3. The report says, Microsoft had got as far as finalising the design of the Surface Duo 3 and confirming new features before pivoting, but it’s certainly better late than never. However, it struggled to make a name for itself, the implementation of Android wasn’t the best and it’s probably no surprise to see Microsoft changing tack now it seems consumers have decided on foldables rather than the book-like double screen alternative the Surface Duo touted. The second-generation device arrived that October, but the £1,349 price tag was steep, even though the internals had been improved and 5G was added. Even then, the Android powered device had limited support. The initial device was launched in 2019, but didn’t make it to the UK until February 2021. However, Microsoft’s commitment to the dual-screen form factor has been in question almost since the first device launched. The decision came after a year of experimenting with the hardware’s form factor, according to the sources. ![]()
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