Microsoft has added new features to its Windows Phone 8 platform in spades, but the best things are still to come. The technology titan is set to bring a major update for its mobile platform that will arrive on devices in the form of a Feature Pack.
This Feature Pack is aimed fairly and squarely at enterprise users, however.
Redmond aims to provide them with a number of improvements on their smartphones — including support for Enterprise Wi-Fi with EAP-TLS, auto-triggered VPN and more such features.
Tony Mestres, the vice president of Windows Phone partner and channel marketing has detailed this in a blog post saying that the main purpose of the Feature Pack is to increase the control of the IT departments over the Windows Phone devices that need to be managed.
Along with revealing plans for this new update, Microsoft has also announced that owners of Windows Phone 8 devices will receive new updates, security patches and more for a period of three months.
This, Tony says, highlights the commitment Redmond shows to the platform:
“These updates will be incremental, with each update built on the update that preceded it. The mobile operator or phone manufacturer may control the distribution of these incremental updates and update availability may also vary by country, region, and device hardware capabilities.”
Equally important is the announcement of a policy change from Microsoft when it comes to the support lifecycle of Windows Phone 8. The technology titan had earlier stuck to its 18 months support timeframe, but now it is expanding it to a 36 months period — a double upsurge.
What this means is that instead of officially ending support of Windows Phone 8 on June 8, 2014, the new date for the end of mainstream support is now January 12, 2016.
