LG has made it clear that it will be shifting its focus from Windows Phone to Android going forward. This came out during the Mobile World Conference where LG’s smartphone unit leader Ramchan Woo said that sales of its Microsoft-powered handsets had been “slower-than-hoped-for.”
This challenge has been quite a precipitous one especially because Microsoft has been slow in owning the success or failure of the OS. This hands-off approach has left most of the marketing of Windows Phone devices to manufacturers and carriers, both of whom have been unable to create a credible argument for the OS.
Windows has been playing third fiddle especially after the entry of Android and Microsoft may be squarely to blame for not taking their OS out to the market to the same extent that Google did with Android.
Arguably, the Windows Phone OS has suffered from a lack of traction and credible manufacturing partners, but the real issue has been the rapid adoption of Android, which is a free-to-adopt platform for manufacturers and which has in turn cannibalized Windows Phone markets.
This is why LG has made it clear that they would be concentrating more on Android phones at least in the near term. The company recently launched its own version of the phablet, a 5 inch smartphone, the Optimus Vue, which the company hopes will help it gain traction in the cut-throat smartphone market.
LG is also rumoured to be in talks with Google to manufacture the next Nexus phone, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out especially considering Google already more-or-less owns Motorola Mobility and may just decide to manufacture the next Nexus itself.
