Microsoft hires Movial experts to work on Surface Duo

Microsoft is not acquiring Movial as a whole. Movial will continue to operate as a standalone company with employees in Finland continuing to work under the design and engineering firm.

Microsoft has acquired Movial’s operations in Romania, the USA and Taiwan. (REUTERS)

Microsoft has hired a number of new designers and engineers from Movial to work on the Surface Duo that is expected to be available in the market by the end of the year.

When Microsoft decided to use the Android operating system in its Surface Duo smartphone, it contracted third-party firm Movial, which is a software engineering and design surface company based in Helsinki, to do the groundwork. Now, the company is hiring all the Movial employees who worked on the Surface Duo as full-time employees.

As per a report by Windows Central, Microsoft has acquired Movial's operations in Romania, the USA and Taiwan and it is bringing all the employees working at those locations on Surface Duo as its full-time employees. As per a separate report by SeeNews, Movial's lasi office will become Microsoft Romania's four Research and Development centre as it is hiring nearly 60 employees from that location.

That said, Microsoft is not acquiring Movial as a whole. Movial will continue to operate as a standalone company with employees in Finland continuing to work under the design and engineering firm.

The news was confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson, who in a statement confirmed that the company was hiring Movial employees across several locations as a part of its efforts to boost its Windows and Android efforts.

As far as the Surface Duo is concerned, it is expected to run on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 chipset that is coupled with 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage space. It will run on Google's Android OS but have Microsoft launcher on top.

(Source, Source)