Microsoft Chief Executive, Steve Ballmer, has spent much time in the last few months telling the world that Microsoft was changing from a software company to one that focuses on devices and services.
It so turns out, there’s one device that Microsoft has no plans to make anytime soon: “a smartphone.”
At the Mobile conference in Spain, Terry Myerson, the Vice President in charge of Windows Phone, said that Microsoft would only jump into the business of making a smartphone if its partners, such as Nokia, weren’t offering compelling devices.
“But we don’t see that happening,” Myerson said. “So we don’t see a need for Microsoft to build its own device.”
There is, of course, more to it than that. Microsoft recognizes that the cost of creating a premium handset to compete at the high-end of the smartphone market against Apple’s iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S3 is an enormously expensive and risky proposition.
However, Microsoft Surface Pro, which is one of the best rated Tablets in the market now, should be sufficient to showcase the innovative capacity of the firm.