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Cortana (yes!) and Many, Many Other Great Features coming in Windows Phone 8.1

Whew, what a day!  What a week!  I've just gotten off the stage at Build in front of 5,000 of our beloved developers talking about the future of the Windows platform.  And now I'm here to tell YOU about the stuff we've …

Windows Phone Blog Joe Belfiore

Context & Ripple Effects

Cortana's debut was one of the worst-kept secrets in mobile: The Verge laid out the Siri/Google Now-style assistant in February, including its plan to replace Bing search inside Windows Phone (more Cortana details surfaced then), and a leaked 8.1 build showed the full setup flow weeks later (the leaked-build walkthrough). Today at Build, Microsoft made it official, confirming Cortana as the headline feature of Windows Phone 8.1 alongside an Action Center and customizable lockscreens.

The assistant is only one strand of a broader platform push unveiled to 5,000 developers: universal apps that run across PCs, tablets, phones and Xbox One, Windows going free on devices with screens under nine inches, and new Nokia Lumias (930, 630, 635) built for 8.1. The 'many, many other great features' framing echoes Microsoft's playbook from 2011, when it touted over 500 new features in Windows Phone 7.5.

First-order effects

  • Windows Phone developers get a single universal-app target spanning phone, tablet, PC and Xbox One, collapsing separate codebases into one submission path starting with the 8.1 SDK.
  • Cortana displaces Bing search as the assistant entry point on Windows Phone handsets, giving Microsoft direct conversational access ahead of Google and Apple's own assistants.

Second-order effects

  • Nokia's new Lumia lineup (930, 630, 635) becomes the hardware vehicle for 8.1, tying the assistant's first impression to devices shipping at the low end where Windows free-under-nine-inches pricing bites hardest.
  • Apple and Google face pressure to match a proactive, notebook-style assistant, raising the bar from reactive voice commands to context-aware suggestions across iOS and Android.

Third-order effects

  • If universal apps hold, Microsoft's device categories converge around one developer ecosystem, with the assistant layer — not the start screen — becoming the durable control point Microsoft owns against Google's search and Apple's Siri.
  • Freeing Windows on small screens signals a shift from per-license revenue to services and store economics, a structural change in how the platform monetizes volume hardware.

The trend: Mobile platforms are converging on OS-level virtual assistants as the primary user entry point, with Microsoft using a unified Windows app platform and free small-screen licensing to stay in that race.

Related: Cortana · This is Cortana, Microsoft's answer to Siri · Cortana setup video on leaked Windows Phone 8.1 build · Over 500 new features coming in Windows Phone 7.5

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