Article: Microsoft promises a major release of Windows Phone every year

[Cabalo]

You can view the page at https://filesharingtalk.com/content/1...one-every-year

[icerush]

well that's, um, annoying. that means you could buy a $500 piece of hardware with a 2 year agreement and by the end be 2 operating systems behind. typical micro$oft. and apple. and i guess google.

[Hologram]

Not really surprised about this when it comes to corporations like Microsoft.

[Rart]

That doesn't mean your phone is "outdated". This is simply an OS update. Your existing phone will get the new update when it comes out.

Regardless, anyone who expects hardware to still be relevant in two years is kidding themselves.

[icerush]

when i buy the nicest phone available at the time, i'm buying it to last. and i've had sprint, alltel and verizon smartphones in recent years and none of them were very good about releasing software updates. and smartphones two years ago were only a step or two behind the features in use today (3G, WiFi, 500Mhz+ processors, 256mb RAM, etc), so i dont see how they are no longer "relevant". to be fair, I think in the past few years the service providers have stepped back from forcing their own software revisions and giving the responsibility back to the OEM.

[duke0102]

If the company's didn't release a new version or major update then no-body want to by the new phones that come out. Nothing new and nothing different to what everyone else does.

[Rart]

when i buy the nicest phone available at the time, i'm buying it to last. and i've had sprint, alltel and verizon smartphones in recent years and none of them were very good about releasing software updates. and smartphones two years ago were only a step or two behind the features in use today (3G, WiFi, 500Mhz+ processors, 256mb RAM, etc), so i dont see how they are no longer "relevant". to be fair, I think in the past few years the service providers have stepped back from forcing their own software revisions and giving the responsibility back to the OEM.

You yourself were the one complaining about outdated phones after two years, not me. I just countered that point by saying that anyone who expects to have a "modern" phone after two years in such a rapidly growing industry is kidding themselves.

And yes, pushing phone updates has mostly been the responsibility of the OEM. Android has been having issues with fragmentation and Google has recently taken a stand against that by making OEM's promise to have updates for at least 18 months after the phone's release. Microsoft has already promised that all existing phones will get the Mango update, and I'm assuming this will remain constant for all other OSs due to Microsoft's heavily controlled ecosystem (most WP7 are identical except for screen and design), until the hardware is no longer powerful enough to support the OS. I don't think outdated software will be an issue.