Microsoft CPO says “Android’s the obvious choice” for Surface Duo, Windows Phone dreams still dead

If you haven’t been keeping up with the news, Microsoft is back to making phones again — and now the company’s basing them on Android. The Surface Duo is still in development, but the device’s announcement has still managed to brush up quite the discussion. One of the things a lot of people want to know is, could we have seen Windows Phone come back?

Well, according to Microsoft’s Panay Panos, the device was always going to use Android, and Windows Phone was never in consideration. He said that for mobile devices, “Android’s the obvious choice” followed by Windows for anything beyond smartphones. He said the company is looking to give customers what they want in the form factor that they want. This means putting the right operating system in the appropriate form factor.

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Does this mean that Microsoft won’t be making Windows phones anymore? Unfortunately, it seems like Windows Phone is still utterly and completely dead to Microsoft. In a recent interview between Panay and CNet, he claimed that Microsoft has no plans to make a Windows-based phone anytime soon. He even reaffirms this in other interviews later.

Microsoft’s reluctance to build a Windows phone makes sense on multiple levels. From a practical standpoint, it might be easier to leave the practicalities to Google, a company that’s far ahead with supporting a wide range of apps on foldable devices, and which may have a better software package for developers to start with.

Perhaps the bigger reason for them not even attempting with Windows Phone, however, is their previous failure to challenge Google and Apple. The two tech giants have completely trounced Microsoft’s efforts in the past, and it seems like Microsoft isn’t exactly raring to rush into another pointless endeavor when there’s a more beneficial solution available.

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