Windows Phone 7. Big Deal?
Today, industry giant Microsoft announced a top-to-bottom revision of their cellular phone operating system now being called Windows Phone.
The new Version 7 was announced by Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer in his keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress confab in Barcelona, Spain.
From all the coverage I’ve seen Microsoft seems to have done wonders. As legend has it, Windows Phone 7 is a complete re-write of previous (and now woefully outdated versions of the OS. It looks great. And if you can believe the fan-boys blogging from the show it’s pretty amazing as well.
WinPho7 looks a lot like the logical extension of their current Zune music player operating system. That’s a good thing. Current Zunes have big block lettering, bold graphics and an easy to master touch-screen, on-screen directory system. WinPho 7 adds big block icons on the home screen. The picture shows that it looks like no other smartphone OS. That’s a good thing.
The Windows Phone 7 manufacturing rules are a giant departure for Microsoft. In the past Microsoft produced a mobile OS and then handset manufacturers were allowed to build phones that loosely incorporated older WinMo features. Now, with version 7 Microsoft has laid down the law, Apple-style. “Here is the OS. You may now produce phones that run it exactly as we say.”
That’s currently one of the most annoying problems with Android phones. There’s an OS (actually there are a bunch of current versions in use) and manufacturers can (and do) ask Google for help in making each different phone do things differently from other Android phones. Some even change the way Android looks and operates. You’ll never see that with iPhones, BlackBerries, Palm WebOS devices and now Windows Phones.
As with previous versions, these Windows mobile phone devices are going to be warmly embraced by users who need access to their corporate Microsoft Exchange e-mail servers.
Windows Mobile phones always worked best with Exchange servers just like RIM BlackBerry phones worked best with BlackBerry Enterprise e-mail systems. Add to that Apple who want you to use mac.com features and Google’s g-mail which syncs and works best with Android phones. Those lines are blurring slightly these days but, for the most part those are facts of life for smartphone users.
With the advent of WinPho7, these new mobile devices will also have access to Xbox Live. Gaming – especially live, multi-user competition, is one area where Microsoft has a giant leg up on the competition. This level of gaming integration should appeal to the legions of Xbox junkies. It’s a good selling point for Microsoft if handled correctly.
Taking all of this into consideration, WinPho7 devices are probably going to have their work cut out for them. They’re years behind iPhones and Androids. Months behind new Palm smartphones. I’m not sure being fourth in with work for Microsoft – no matter how innovative this new OS really turns out to be.
We’ll see. Actually, we’ll have to wait and see. Manufacturer HTC says their first WinPhoi7 smartphone will be ready in the fourth quarter of 2010. That’s at least eight months away. And a few months after the fourth generation iPhone hits the market.