Will Windows Phone 7
Microsoft announced the launch of Windows Mobile 7 Series phones on Tuesday at
the World Mobile Congress at Barcelona in Spain. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung,
Motorola, BlackBerry and LG were clearly bringing out exciting phones every
quarter for the past five years.
Apple fired up the market in 2007
with its revolutionary iPhone. Palm did create a buzz last year with its Palm
Pre designed by the legendary Jonathan Rubinstein (who earlier designed the
first generation of iPod working for Apple). Over the years Microsoft has become
a non-serious player in the mobile phone area with its lacklustre performance of
Windows Mobile OS platforms. Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is definitely received
with lots of scepticism, but a few remarkable strategies show some
promise.
First the designer Albert Shum, director of mobile
experience design at Microsoft is a 12 year Nike veteran who
always wanted to combine "left" and "right" brain experiences from his college
days at University of Waterloo; he did an Engineering + Architecture degree
before a pursuing a Design Program at Stanford. Albert Shum has worked on
Windows Mobile design for nearly three years; way back in 1990 he wanted to
design a "new" phone for a design competition!
The user experience is
the driving force behind Windows Phone 7 Series. With a minimalist, but stunning
graphics the opening screen is customisable and goes beyond the
menu screens of the yesteryears, any number of buttons of the past
three years (pioneered by Apple iPhone) and goes into a series of tiles that
groups together "hubs" of user experiences - People, Pictures, Games,
Music+Video, Office and MarketPlace.
One no longer has to think of
"phone button" for calling or "text button" for SMS messaging; you think of your
friend (may be locate his picture) and do what you want - call, SMS or IM!
Microsoft plans to insist on some consistency across all Windows Phone 7 Series
phones - 3 buttons, one for start, one for back and one button for search and
minimal specs for processor speed to achieve performance.
The best of
Microsoft is there too! Office and Xbox are Microsoft crown jewels; they are
there! In some niche areas Zune and Media Player are great. Microsoft has put
them all in Windows Phone7. Just as iPhone gave every user an iPod too,
Microsoft packs its best - Outlook and Office for office work, Xbox for game
enthusiasts, Zune for multimedia enthusiasts, and, of course phone for
everyone!
The worst of Microsoft hopefully is gone! It takes a lot of
courage on the part of Microsoft to openly admit that "mobile phone is not a PC"
(we do not know if it is too late!). Microsoft has taken the bold decision to
dump the old code base and the Windows interface on to the phone.
In
the process, the phone will not be dead slow trying to run every application
built in the past 25 years! Will it have enough new applications when the phone
enters the market for he Christmas season of 2010? That will decide the fate of
this phone. Microsoft claims amazing partnerships leading carriers
AT&T , Vodafone, Verizon & T Mobile and many others; leading handset
makers HTC, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson and the surprising new entrants Dell
& HP.
It is interesting to note that January 2007 saw Steve Jobs
announcing iPhone; January 2009 saw Palm announcing Palm Pre; and we are
witnessing Windows Mobile 7 in February 2010. All of them are driven by
"designers" with great experience in "consumer products" and the winning
strategy is the deep insights derived from what the consumers want and not
driven by what great specifications the engineers have created. That seems to be
the paradigm shift in mobile industry today.
Will Windows Phone win?
As Engadgets Nilay Patel puts it "It is not a battle already won; it is a
battle yet to be fought"; yet it looks like Microsoft has a winning
chance.
Adirondack Chairs are made from different types of materials