Sony is reportedly considering a new OS for its struggling smartphone lineup based on Android. It hopes to push some extra units off the shelves with Windows as its base platform.
Windows Phone platform for mobile devices may have struggled to match the success rate of Android and iOS, but it would be unfair to say Microsoft's mobile OS hasn't come a long way since its debut. The Redmond-based software giant has long been rumored to be in talks with leading smartphone makers like Samsung and HTC to host its home mobile platform. But the rumors had no significant grounds as there was no official word from the involved parties.
While the speculations fade with last year's passing, the New Year has given birth to a new story.
According to a latest report from the paid tech news site, The Information, Sony is considering to partner with Microsoft to launch a new Windows Phone as early as mid-2014. The news website, citing two persons familiar with the matter, says that the deal between Sony and Microsoft has come very close to a mutual agreement. Sony has even designed some prototypes of the upcoming smartphone, if and when the deal gets a go-ahead.
Sony has always offered a wide range of smartphones that run on the world's largest mobile platform, Android. Sony's flagship smartphone Xperia Z1, among other Xperia smartphones and tablets have recently been upgraded to Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. If the reported deal between Sony and Microsoft goes through, the smartphone maker will use its "Vaio" branding for the Windows OS based smartphone lineup, according to the Information.
Sony's entry into a new platform will give stiff competition to Nokia, the Windows Phone leader. Nokia has been quite successful with its Lumia lineup, but mostly because no other smartphone company uses the platform. Besides Samsung and HTC, Microsoft had approached ZTE and Huawei to produce low-end Windows Phone devices to grow as a third possible eco-system in the mobile market.
Microsoft's attempts to attract as many mobile makers under its Windows Phone platform is an understandable move as it hopes to give its OS a significant boost in the highly dominant mobile platform race.
