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Rumor has it that the Nokia Lumia phones will not be supported by the upcoming Windows Phone 8 "Apollo”.

Nokia Lumia To Not Support Windows 8?

There has been a tussle going on in the industry between people who claim that the Nokia Lumia series will get Windows Phone 8 support and those who say that it won’t. Microsoft evangelist Nuno Silva recently stated that all Windows Phone sold till date will be supported by the "next major update” — which everyone took to be the Windows Phone 8 Apollo update. However, now industry news source The Verge reports the opposite.

Quoting an internal and unnamed source within Microsoft, the report states that internally Microsoft has no such plans. So Nokia Lumia phones will unfortunately not be supported by Windows Phone 8. In fact, right after the comment made by Silva, Microsoft issued a public statement saying they had nothing to share about the future updates of Windows Phone and that all apps in the marketplace right now will be supported in the next version.

Given the precision ambiguity of that statement, it is possible that Microsoft is still weighing in its options. The careful avoidance of mentioning anything about hardware might be to avoid saying no outright but it might also be to avoid saying anything at all because they a)don’t want to say yes either or b)are still not sure themselves.

Strategically speaking, it would give Microsoft some immediate install base if they allow existing Windows Phones to run Apollo. That would also keep current Windows Phone users, who can all be considered early adopters and hence patrons, happy and loyal. Technologically the handsets that will run Apollo can’t be all that different because they will be using ARM chips as well. And handsets like the Lumia 800 and 900 look quite capable of running a future version. From the sounds of it, Microsoft would not be looking to increase the specs for running Apollo. So performance parts should not be a problem. What remains to be seen is whether Microsoft comes up with some hardware twist to make Apollo unique and hence incompatible with older handsets.