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NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Microsoft, which has written off more than $8 billion from its failed Nokia acquisition and which is expected to fully pull the plug on its consumer smartphone hardware business, nonetheless believes a viable wallet app is a must-have to keep its Windows 10 operating system for phones viable–although its announcement this week of Microsoft Wallet is surrounded by unknowns, including exactly when the service will generally launch.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Windows 10 for phones, set to be released later this year, will support host card emulation, or HCE, based NFC payments, Microsoft revealed at a recent Windows event in China.

Netherlands-based chip maker NXP Semiconductors has filed a patent infringement suit against rival chip maker, U.S.-based Marvell Semiconductor, which claims that Marvell infringed on four of its U.S. patents in chips sold to Microsoft for its Xbox One gaming console.

While Samsung Electronics has made known a major part of its embedded secure-element strategy for its NFC phones–with its work with Visa, MasterCard Worldwide and likely other payment schemes–Samsung isn’t the only device maker planning to enable applications on its NFC phones.

Microsoft officially launched its Windows Phone 8 operating system with built-in NFC support Monday, with the first phones supporting the platform shipping this week.

Handset maker HTC continued the flow of announcements of high-end handsets supporting Android and Windows Phone 8, with the unveiling last week of its Windows-based 8X.

NICE, France – All handset makers planning to introduce Windows Phone 8 devices are expected to support NFC, said John Skovron, group program manager, Windows Phone engineering.

Nokia today introduced its first two devices running Windows Phone 8 and, as expected, both support NFC.

While the first smartphone sporting the Windows Phone 8 operating system grabbed the headlines–the Ativ S from Samsung Electronics–a number of other NFC-enabled portable devices, from Asus, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, as well as Samsung, were unveiled at this week's IFA tradeshow in Berlin.

Samsung Electronics announced the world’s first Windows Phone 8 smartphone, the Ativ S, which supports NFC.