“Microsoft’s new smartphone software, Windows Phone 7 Series, turns a phone into something akin to an electronic butler that tries to anticipate the user’s needs,” Vance reports. “It automatically taps into the carrier’s data network to pick up appointments, photos and messages from friends, and it presents all this information in a slick fashion that resembles a Zune music player more than a personal computer.”
MacDailyNews Take: What’s a “Zune music player?” Do you even know anyone who owns a Zune?
Vance continues, “To build it required a humbling admission by Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker: its clunky Windows Mobile architecture had failed in the marketplace, and the company needed to start over from scratch if it had any hope of competing against Apple and its iPhone. ‘To be entirely candid, the iPhone opened our eyes as to some things that needed to be done that were not in our plan,’ said Terry Myerson, the vice president in charge of Windows Phone engineering. ‘Some execution had really gone astray.'”
“Whether Microsoft’s new software truly challenges Apple or ends up a barely noticed niche player, like the Zune to Apple’s iPod, remains to be seen,” Vance reports. “Windows Phone 7 is still in final development, and the first phones running the software will not be in stores until late this year.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apples’ next-gen iPhone OS, the company’s 4th version, is expected to arrive in June.
Vance continues, “Instead of icons, Microsoft has ’tiles,’ which are actively updated and bigger than normal icons… [Microsoft] also extolled the virtues of ‘hubs,’ which combine similar themed functions in one place… While the tile and hub features give Microsoft’s software a unique feel, they failed to impress some at the Barcelona event. ‘There was no ‘wow’ effect,’ said Bjorn Behrendt, the chief executive of Hiogi, a mobile technology start-up. ‘It didn’t strike me as being innovative.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft. Way late. As usual.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]
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