Windows Phone 7 Series Resets Mobile Strategy

Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Microsoft’s smartphone platform, is a clean break from the past: it will not support existing Windows Mobile applications and introduces a new user interface, more restrictive hardware specifications, and a different application development platform. If successful, the new platform could help IT departments answer user demands for a modern smartphone with strong support for Microsoft business applications, such as Office and SharePoint. It also offers an important new market for application developers and gives handset makers and operators a cost-effective way to compete against Apple’s iPhone.

Why Start Over?

Microsoft has been in the smartphone business for almost a decade: the first smartphones based on Microsoft’s Windows CE OS shipped in 2002. The last significant update to the platform—then called Windows Mobile—came in 2005, when Microsoft released Windows Mobile 5.0, based on the Windows CE 5.0 kernel.

Since then, smartphones have become a popular consumer item, in large part because of the iPhone, which introduced an easy-to-use touch screen and icon-based interface. As iPhone sales took off, Research In Motion (RIM) updated its BlackBerry platform with consumer-oriented enhancements, and other competitors got into the game with similar touch-enabled platforms, such as Google’s Android and Palm’s WebOS. Microsoft, on the other hand, released only minor updates to Windows Mobile, all based on the Windows CE 5.0 kernel, and important Windows Mobile partners, such as Motorola and HTC, abandoned the platform or embraced additional platforms, such as Android.