Stephen Elop has also sent a mail to employees of Microsoft devices group, after Satya Nadella’s email brought news about 12,500 job cuts affecting ex-Nokia employees. In his email Elop has reiterated focus on expanding or rather making market for Windows Phone. For this Microsoft is planning to kill some future Nokia X family products and bringing them as additional low-cost Lumias for targeting the more affordable smartphone segments.
We will be particularly focused on making the market for Windows Phone. In the near term, we plan to drive Windows Phone volume by targeting the more affordable smartphone segments, which are the fastest growing segments of the market, with Lumia. In addition to the portfolio already planned, we plan to deliver additional lower-cost Lumia devices by shifting select future Nokia X designs and products to Windows Phone devices. We expect to make this shift immediately while continuing to sell and support existing Nokia X products.
To win in the higher price segments, we will focus on delivering great breakthrough products in alignment with major milestones ahead from both the Windows team and the Applications and Services Group. We will ensure that the very best experiences and scenarios from across the company will be showcased on our products. We plan to take advantage of innovation from the Windows team, like Universal Windows Apps, to continue to enrich the Windows application ecosystem. And in the very lowest price ranges, we plan to run our first phones business for maximum efficiency with a smaller team.
This actually makes sense, considering Windows Phone is already being licensed for free to OEMs, so using Android for lowest-end devices hardly makes sense now. So, we can expect Lumia devices to touch much lower price points in future., and perhaps that is an end to higher-end Lumia with Android rumors.
