Even though several Microsoft execs have recently said that the company is still fully supporting Windows 10 Mobile, it’s clear that the mobile OS is now on life support. Yesterday, we learned that the “feature2” development branch was pretty much the end of the line for current Windows 10 Mobile handsets, though new enterprise features are still coming for high-end phones such as the HP Elite x3.
Following the publication of many articles like ours reporting an upcoming reboot of Microsoft’s mobile efforts yesterday, many Windows Phone fans have since been asking Microsoft execs for a comment. Brandon LeBlanc from the Windows Insider team was the first to address these concerns yesterday, explaining on Twitter that “We’ll explain things when we’re ready.” More, the exec added that it’s ok for Windows 10 Mobile to abandon the platform if it doesn’t meet their needs anymore.
We'll explain things when we're ready. If Windows 10 Mobile isn't meeting your needs, we understand the need to switch platforms.
— Brandon LeBlanc (@brandonleblanc) August 7, 2017
As another Twitter user pointed out, “The problems is that when you are ready – there will be no one left,” to which LeBlanc replied that “I think we understand the situation quite well.” To be fair, Windows Phone sales already reached an all-time low (IDC forecasts just 1.1M sales this year, a 80.9% decline over last year), so the clock isn’t really ticking for Microsoft to announce its new mobile roadmap.
More importantly, the company may not want to announce too soon that Windows 10 Mobile has no future to avoid hurting HP and Alcatel, two OEM partners that still support the mobile OS.
We’re still looking forward to see what Microsoft will say about the future of Windows 10 Mobile and what will happen with the “feature2” development branch going forward. We were surprised to see a new Continuum feature appear two weeks ago, but last week’s preview build only brought the usual bug fixes and improvements.
As a side note, Dona Sarkar just announced that there will be no new builds today.
