Microsoft will drop support for Windows 10 Mobile in three years

Windows Insiders have had access to Windows 10 Mobile for a while now, but unless they’ve purchased a Lumia 959 or Lumia 950 XL, most Windows Phone loyalists haven’t been able to get their hands on Microsoft’s new mobile operating system. While the desktop version of Windows 10 has seen rapid adoption, the launch of the mobile version has been lackluster to say the least, and with WinBeta’s recent discovery that the end-of-life date for Windows 10 Mobile is three years away, some of us are doubting whether Windows 10 will revitalize Microsoft’s mobile business after all. 

Although Windows 10 Mobile has been available for Windows Insiders for quite some time, the official release can currently only be found on the Lumia 950 / 950 XL, and has yet to make its way to older Lumia handsets. Despite this, it looks like Microsoft has set an end-of-life (EOL) date for Windows 10 Mobile that will see updates for the mobile OS end in January of 2018. WinBeta first picked up the news a few hours ago, but since then, Microsoft has changed the EOL date from January 2019 to January 2018, as detailed in the screenshot below, it’s not clear why the date has changed a full year overnight. Why is EOL important? EOL determines when support for a product or service will be discontinued. This is common for most products and services that enter the market, as often times they cannot be supported infinitely. For Windows 10 Mobile, it indicates when handsets and other devices will stop receiving updates directly from Microsoft. Naturally, depending on circumstances, this date could always be pushed back. In fact it’s also likely that future updates, like Redstone, will push back this date, similar to the way Windows 7 has a certain EOL but Windows 7 SP1 has a different cutoff date.