“From the first time I got a good look at Windows Phone 7, it had all the earmarks of the end of the line for Microsoft’s mobile aspirations,” Galen Gruman reports for InfoWorld. “After spending an hour with a beta version of Windows Phone 7 in July along with a room full of developers, I was shocked (as were they) at how much was missing from the OS and thus how incapable it was — there were no signs of copy and paste, multitasking, devicewide search, or HTML5.”

“Now that Windows Phone 7 is shipping, the truth is even worse. I spent several days this week reviewing a Windows Phone 7 device; in the process, I realized Microsoft made even more boneheaded decisions than I thought possible,” Gruman reports. “You can get the detailed analysis in my deathmatch comparison between Windows Phone 7 and the iPhone 4, but Microsoft’s made several additional and unthinkable lapses.”

Gruman reports, “What’s wrong with Windows Phone 7 is partly technological and partly strategic, so moving from the bad 1.0 version to a strong 1.1 version by this spring (any later is pointless) would be no mean feat. Let me explain.”

• Technology miss: Windows Phone 7 is highly insecure
• Technology miss: Its Office apps are shockingly bad
• Technology mismatch: UI is not so much lipstick on a pig as it is lipstick on a sloth.
• Strategy miss: Abandonment of the full Microsoft customer base
• Strategy miss: Sticking to a plan that no longer made sense

Gruman reports, “Windows Phone 7 is now failing both its intended customers and the company’s historic customers, even as its competitors keep getting better and more entrenched. This is a Titanic-style disaster.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: As we explained back on October 20, 2010: Exceedingly late Microsoft was forced to design around what their competitors aren’t doing due to not only concerns about infringing upon patented IP — Google seems to have conveniently ignored this not-so-minor issue; a slip-up for which they may someday pay dearly — for which, this time, no badly-written contracts signed by unprepared sugared water salesbozos exist, but also in a vain attempt to differentiate their offering. Why they think a Zune phone will sell when Zunes didn’t is as unexplainable as Kin or, for that matter, Ballmer himself (may he remain Microsoft CEO for as long as it takes).

The real reason why Windows Phone ’07 works the way it does: Microsoft is deliberately trying to de-emphasize apps, not because it’s a good idea that’s beneficial to the user, but because they have very few developers and therefore no apps upon which to focus. This is the way Microsoft works. Because they’re always late, always copying, they have to do things in certain ways to either skirt legalities (that’s why Windows is an upside-down and backwards Mac, not a pure Mac knockoff) or to avoid market realities (an unassailable everest of 300,000+ apps staring them in the face means they have to try to convince consumers that apps aren’t that important). In reality, however, apps drive smartphone sales. And, Microsoft has no apps. No crystal ball necessary.

As one insightful Microsoft insider told us recently, “The whole home-screen tiles idea is to cover for the fact that the app store is a bit on the empty side. So rather than the utility of iOS and Android allowing you to arrange your apps the way you like, WP7 lets you have any home screen color you like, as long as it’s green. WP7 is covering their empty platform with a big green tarp in hopes that you’ll focus more on the hardware choices than the software drawbacks.”

And, as we wrote on October 30th: Sadly, over what will certainly be a major hit to the humor quotient, we don’t believe that even Microsoft’s investors are in deep enough comas to allow this buffoon to survive as CEO after Windows Phone ’07 fails to set the world on fire in 2011. To have a realistic shot at catching a whiff of Apple’s fumes, Microsoft needed Windows Phone ’15 in 2011, not Windows Phone ’07. They’re already eight years behind. Ballmer chances of remaining CEO after this plays out are not good.