“The Microsoft executive who oversees software design for Windows Phone admitted that the mobile operating system was redesigned in response to Apple’s iPhone,” Steven Musil reports for CNET. “‘Apple created a sea change in the industry in terms of the kinds of things they did that were unique and highly appealing to consumers,’ Joe Belfiore told The New York Times. ‘We wanted to respond with something that would be competitive, but not the same.'”
“Despite being an early player in the smartphone sector, Microsoft’s effort was hobbled by software that featured complex on-screen menus that borrowed design cues from its desktop cousin,” Musil reports. “As insiders tell the newspaper, once the iPhone appeared on the scene, Microsoft executives knew that their OS would not be able to compete as designed.”
Musil reports, “Microsoft hopes to recapture some of that lost luster with the expected launch of the Nokia Lumia 900 at CES this week. The two companies are reportedly planning to spend $200 million on marketing in the U.S. to promote the upcoming lineup of Windows Phone 7 handsets.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Windows Phone will remain an also-ran unless or until the patent infringement cases, security concerns, and/or fragmentation end up increasing the price of Google’s pretend iOS to the point where Microsoft’s mobile OS becomes more attractive to cellphone makers than creating trade dress infringing iPhone clones, loading them up with Android, and peddling them with depressingly inane marketing campaigns targeted at preteen boys waiting for their pubes to sprout.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “silverhawk1” for the heads up.]