Microsoft will stop Windows Phone 8 support by 2014
In a recently discovered support document from Microsoft, the company states that support for their existing Windows Phone 7 and 8 OS will end by 2014. As pointed out first by Italian site Plaffo, this sheds some interesting light on the current development on the Windows Phone platform, in addition to giving us an idea of when the next generation of Windows Phone (9?) will be out.
It's important to note that while Windows Phone 7 enjoys quite a long life, having been released in 2010, Windows Phone 8's lifespan is just two years. So by the end of 2014, or perhaps even earlier than that, we'll see the next generation of Windows Phone with completely new hardware specifications, as was represented by the jump from WP 7 to WP 8.
On the other hand, this could also mean that Microsoft simply isn't seeing the momentum behind the Windows Phone platforms and abandoning it altogether to focus more on their tablet OS and perhaps even their Surface lineup. Of course, given Microsoft's history with the XBOX brand, which struggled badly at first and then became a powerhouse with the next generation, Windows Phone 9 and beyond do seem like a certainty.
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