After officially confirming that it will sell and support Elite X3 though 2019, HP has revealed why it did away with plans to bring Elite X3’s successors. It has pinned the blame entirely on Microsoft’s Mobile OS strategy change resulting in lack of development of the Mobile OS.
Nick Lazaridis, EMEA boss at HP Inc, told The Register at the Canalys Channels Forum in Venice that Microsoft had confirmed there will be no further development work on the mobile OS.
“Microsoft, as all companies do, decided on a change in strategy and so they are less focused on what they thought they would be focused on today,” he said.
Without the required drive and focus on Microsoft’s part HP decided to abandon its upcoming Windows Mobile products range. The HP executive claimed that they had planned a number of Windows Mobile products after Elite X3.
“Given that, we also had decided that without Microsoft’s drive and support there it doesn’t make sense. If the software, if the operating system ecosystem isn’t there then we are not an operating system company.”
HP Inc had a full roadmap for the device. “X3 was going to bifurcate, there were going to be a number of products,” said the exec. Instead, sales and support will continue only “until 2019”.
It also seems that HP will target Elite X3 sales only at customers with “large bids and opportunities” roughly meaning the hallowed “Enterprise customers”.
Source: Reuters
