American multinational corporation Microsoft is set to provide companies making phones and tablets with screen sizes under nine inches for the consumer market.

The motive behind the major move is for the company to make an impact on those fast-growing markets and counter the massive success of Google's free Android platform as announced at its annual developer's conference in San Francisco. It is in a hope that more customers will end up using Microsoft's cloud-based services like Skype and Office.

Phones running on Windows held only three per cent of the global smartphone last year and only two per cent of the tablet market according to tech researcher firm Gartner.

Microsoft has run windows on personal computers in the past with a high pay compared to currently $5 and $15 per device this is to be blamed on the overwhelming success of Android run devices.

With its free offer to the various companies, a license fee will still apply for business devices.