Microsoft had tested Surface phones: Report - Times of India

NEW DELHI: Its Surface tablet may have failed to make much impact in the market, but Microsoft was planning to launch a smartphone under the same brand. Interestingly, Microsoft had tested the Surface smartphone even as its partner Nokia flirted with Android as the possible operating system for its Lumia range of smartphones just prior to buyout of its mobile division. A report by The Verge has stated that insiders associated with the Microsoft project have admitted that the company had built a number of prototypes on the Surface platform as part of the tests. The report states that Terry Myerson, the current head of Windows Phone and XBox operating systems, was heading the project. The news comes in the wake of the recent New York Times report that Nokia had been testing Android on some of its phones, including the top-end Lumia devices. A Nokia team reportedly began testing Android on Lumia handsets long before the company signed the dotted line on acquisition by Microsoft of its mobile business. The lower-than-expected response to the Lumia device s that run exclusively on Windows Phone platform seems to have had forced both the companies to work on the "Plan B" options as the deal's tenure was nearing its end. Nokia is currently the largest marketshare holder of Windows Phone OS with over 80% market share among all Windows devices. Instead of a variety of phone makers using Windows Phone like they do with Android, Nokia has been sole user of the Microsoft phone OS. According to the NYT report, Nokia using Android wasn't a part of Microsoft's acquisition discussions with the company. However, Microsoft executives were aware of the existence of the Nokia Android project. Analysts believe that the Nokia plan may have hastened Microsoft's decision to acquire Nokia. The Finnish handset maker was also reportedly not happy with Microsoft's efforts to lower the prices of the Windows Phone devices to lure more buyers. The project for cheaper Windows Phone devices had also been codenamed as " According to another report in The Verge, Nokia had plans of unveiling an Android-powered Asha device in 2014 after the end of the deal. Nokia and Microsoft made the deal to use Windows Phone OS in 2011 and the former had the option to exit the partnership at the end of 2014. Now with the acquisition formalised, both the projects of Nokia and Microsoft seem to have gone on a backburner, with reports suggesting that both the possibilities of an Android-run Nokia phone and a Windows Surface phone seem a distant reality. via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNG8aq1y2PnUNSMtoi9jLdLB7NOlzw&url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/hardware/Microsoft-had-tested-Surface-phones-Report/articleshow/22626694.cms

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