Windows Phone 7 Spurs Microsoft's Mobile Strategy

Microsoft today announced the new version of its phone operating system, Windows Phone 7. It’s a sweeping redesign, coupled with an aggressive new partnership with handset makers and mobile carriers. Initial reviews are not only positive but actually excited. With the unveiling today of Microsoft’s next mobile phone platform, Windows Phone 7, it’s now official: the phone is not a PC. That statement became a mantra as Microsoft executives demonstrated a sweeping redesign of the company’s mobile operating system. But technical details were sparse, and the official Windows Phone Website doesn’t add much. Microsoft didn’t reveal what changes, if any, it had made to the OS kernel, which in the past has been based on Windows CE. The company says the Windows Mobile 7 Web browser is “much more advanced” than any previous offering, but didn’t say from which version of desktop Internet Explorer it borrows the core components. Microsoft says a brand new set of software development tools and resources, and presumably a s ftware development kit, will be forthcoming but put off details until the company’s MIX10 Web developer conference next month in Las Vegas. “We knew we needed and wanted to do things that were out of the box, that were clearly differentiated from our past and hopefully from other [offerings] in the market,” said Steve Balmer, Microsoft CEO, who hosted the press conference today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. “It’s a big step. I think we have a chance to have a major impact on the market.” Balmer wasn’t kidding. Andrew Lees, senior vice president for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business talked at length about Microsoft’s mobile partnerships, an approach that’s been given a redesign almost as sweeping as the user interface. Over 1 billion phones are sold globally each year, vastly more than the current smartphone market, he noted. “We need partners to support Windows Phone on this scale,” he said. Phones from an array of leading handset makers, and all major U.S. mobile operators will be av ailable in time for the holiday shopping season in 2010. Microsoft officials were not more specific.

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