HP Inc exec: Yes, we'll put a bullet in the X3 device

Canalys Channels Forum HP Inc has finally confirmed it is to kill off X3 device sales and support by the end of 2019, cutting short the proposed roadmap and hanging the blame on Microsoft's "change of strategy" with its mobile OS.

The three-in-one PC debuted in February 2016, built around Microsoft's Continuum. El Reg's lab vultures tested the kit and were impressed but found constraints caused by the Continuum operating system.

Despite an obvious mobile-shaped hole in a leaked Windows roadmap, HP Inc insisted in August that it was committed to Continuum and so was Microsoft. Until now, that is.

Nick Lazaridis, EMEA boss at HP Inc, told The Register at the Canalys Channels Forum in Venice that Microsoft had confirmed there will be no further development work on the mobile OS.

"Microsoft, as all companies do, decided on a change in strategy and so they are less focused on what they thought they would be focused on today," he said.

"Given that, we also had decided that without Microsoft's drive and support there it doesn't make sense. If the software, if the operating system ecosystem isn't there then we are not an operating system company."

HP Inc had a full roadmap for the device. "X3 was going to bifurcate, there were going to be a number of products," said the exec. Instead, sales and support will continue only "until 2019".

Lazaridis said HP Inc did not have huge stockpiles of the product sat in the channel and that X3 sales would be limited to customers with "large bids and opportunities".

Microsoft does not attend the Canalys Forum in EMEA and so was not immediately available to comment. Nevertheless, we have asked the company for its response.

Updated

A Microsoft spokesman has been in contact.

“We will continue to develop Windows 10 Mobile and support Lumia phones such as the Lumia 650, Lumia 950, and Lumia 950 XL, as well as devices from our OEM partners.” ®