Windows Phone 8 given boost as its lifecycle doubles
A new lease of life
It's fair to say we were all pretty disappointed with Microsoft's announcement that it would stop supporting Windows Phone 8 on July 8 2014, after just 18 months, without even a mention of when Windows Phone 9 might take its place.
But Redmond has seen the error of its ways and now says it will instead refrain from pulling the plug until January 2016, by which time we would expect WP9 to be in full swing.
The announcement came via the Windows Phone Blog, which told us that Microsoft was investing more in the features that will win over business customers.
Microsoft means business
On top of the announcement that told that Windows Phone 8 will be getting incremental updates until the start of 2016, an "enterprise feature pack" will be released in the first half of 2014 packed full of business-focused new tools.
The one caveat is that updates can still be controlled by phone manufacturers, with region and device capabilities also affecting whether you'll be able to download them or not.
But it will all be good news for those eagerly waiting to get their fingers on the Nokia Lumia 1020, which will be officially announced later today. Although it's fair to say that Nokia probably won't have much to tell us that we don't already know.
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Hugh Langley is the ex-News Editor of TechRadar. He had written for many magazines and websites including Business Insider, The Telegraph, IGN, Gizmodo, Entrepreneur Magazine, WIRED (UK), TrustedReviews, Business Insider Australia, Business Insider India, Business Insider Singapore, Wareable, The Ambient and more.
Hugh is now a correspondent at Business Insider covering Google and Alphabet, and has the unfortunate distinction of accidentally linking the TechRadar homepage to a rival publication.