Either -all- smartphones will drop to half their current price, or else Microsoft's $100 phone will be mighty slim on function and/or performance.
How the hell do they plan to make a profit at that price? Are they making a loss leader?
The days when they could price Internet Explorer at (free) in order to kill off all the competition are gone. Then, they ruled the desktop. They do not rule the mobile market. They are a too-late bit player at the moment.
I hope they are able to live up to this talk. They are welcome to the market. But they actually have to produce something people want.
What's more, Microsoft doesn't even make WinPhone hardware. They merely require a minimum hardware specification from licensees.
Are phones with relatively equivalent specs to today's phones going to be cheaper next year? Of course. What's news about that? That's nothing specific to Microsoft's partners. Apple will be capable of selling low-cost iPhones -- if they want to -- for the same reasons.
But these lower-end, discount phones are going to have shorter lifespans because they might meet today's software needs, but probably will be unable to handle more than one major upgrade down the road. The newer, more powerful devices will have much longer staying power. Again, true across all brands.