Smartphone fans are well familiar with Eldar Murtazin, regular source of interesting rumors. Murtazin’s just written a lengthy article on Microsoft’s prospects for the future, where he makes the case that the company’s going to need to start selling its own smartphones and other mobile devices if it wants to keep making the kind of money it’s seen in the past.

Basically, the argument boils down to a shift in the market towards portable devices, and Microsoft’s inability to make a profit on those from software alone. Murtazin claims that, beyond just Nokia, all the other Windows Phone OEMs are essentially getting all the licensing fees they pay Microsoft returned to them by way of marketing spending.

As Microsoft makes less money from PC software, Murtazin argues that it will need to start selling its own smartphones and tablets (like we’ve already seen it start with Surface) in order to offset those losses. It’s an intriguing theory, but will we continue to see a shift away from full-on PCs in favor of mobile devices, or is there a plateau on the horizon? Even if the mobile share’s growth slows, will users continue to want to pay PC prices for their software, or will the sort of free-OS-cheap-apps smartphone mentality penetrate the desktop sphere?

Source: Mobile-Review (Google Translate)
Via: BGR