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Windows 7 for XP ProfessionalsUpdating Support Skills from XP to Windows 7by Bink.nu's Raymond Comvalius
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Today at Mobile World Congress 2010, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the next generation of Windows® Phones, Windows Phone 7 Series. With this new platform, Microsoft offers a fresh approach to phone software, distinguished by smart design and truly integrated experiences that bring to the surface the content people care about from the Web and applications. For the first time ever, Microsoft will bring together Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music and video experience on a mobile phone, exclusively on Windows Phone 7 Series. Partners have already started building phones; customers will be able to purchase the first phones in stores by holiday 2010.
“Today, I’m proud to introduce Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Windows Phones,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people’s lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.”
Designed for Life in Motion
With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft takes a fundamentally different approach to phone software. Smart design begins with a new, holistic design system that informs every aspect of the phone, from its visually appealing layout and motion to its function and hardware integration. On the Start screen, dynamically updated “live tiles” show users real-time content directly, breaking the mold of static icons that serve as an intermediate step on the way to an application. Create a tile of a friend, and the user gains a readable, up-to-date view of a friend’s latest pictures and posts, just by glancing at Start.
Every Windows Phone 7 Series phone will come with a dedicated hardware button for Bing, providing one-click access to search from anywhere on the phone, while a special implementation of Bing search provides intent-specific results, delivering the most relevant Web or local results, depending on the type of query.
Windows Phone 7 Series creates an unrivaled set of integrated experiences on a phone through Windows Phone hubs. Hubs bring together related content from the Web, applications and services into a single view to simplify common tasks. Windows Phone 7 Series includes six hubs built on specific themes reflecting activities that matter most to people:
People. This hub delivers an engaging social experience by bringing together relevant content based on the person, including his or her live feeds from social networks and photos. It also provides a central place from which to post updates to Facebook and Windows Live in one step.
Pictures. This hub makes it easy to share pictures and video to a social network in one step. Windows Phone 7 Series also brings together a user’s photos by integrating with the Web and PC, making the phone the ideal place to view a person’s entire picture and video collection.
Games. This hub delivers the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and the ability to see a gamer’s avatar, Achievements and gamer profile. With more than 23 million active members around the world, Xbox LIVE unlocks a world of friends, games and entertainment on Xbox 360, and now also on Windows Phone 7 Series.
Music + Video. This hub creates an incredible media experience that brings the best of Zune, including content from a user’s PC, online music services and even a built-in FM radio into one simple place that is all about music and video. Users can turn their media experience into a social one with Zune Social on a PC and share their media recommendations with like-minded music lovers. The playback experience is rich and easy to navigate, and immerses the listener in the content.
Marketplace. This hub allows the user to easily discover and load the phone with certified applications and games.
Office. This hub brings the familiar experience of the world’s leading productivity software to the Windows Phone. With access to Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace all in one place, users can easily read, edit and share documents. With the additional power of Outlook Mobile, users stay productive and up to date while on the go.
Availability
Partners from around the world have committed to include Windows Phone 7 Series in their portfolio plans. They include mobile operators AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, and manufacturers Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC Corp., HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm Inc. The first phones will be available by holiday 2010. Customers who would like to receive additional information about Windows Phone 7 Series and be notified when it is available can register at http://www.windowsphone7series.com.
To watch the full replay of Steve Ballmer’s press conference at Mobile World Congress, and to experience Windows Phone 7 Series through an online product demo, readers can visit http://www.microsoft.com/news/windowsphone.
If I am not mistaken - Windows Phone 7 is the official name for Windows Mobile 7.
It's interesting whether (or when, to be more precise) the Windows Mobile 7 images for mobile device emulator will be published, so we can play with it.
Dean
If this is what WinMo 7 is supposed to look like....forget it. It looks blocky and bland.
Too bad microsoft does not get it.
Zune sucks because it is too cumbersome.
The iPod/iPhone is so basic, it just works.
I am definately not an iPhone fan. But there are only 3 choices here.
1. Android, too immature and no good North American 3G on the cool handsets. Have to wait this one out.
2. Apple, draconian in their approach but it works.
3. Microsoft, they are just too big for their own good. If you have enough cash, you can try and pay for your inneptitude.
So the decision comes down to accepting arrogant iPhone or unreliable Microsoft.
After abiut 5 Windows Mobile phones, each one not delivering on the promised land, the fact that us North Americans cannot get the cool handsets delivered to the rest of the world, ie HTC HD2, and seeing the garbage that Microsoft is planning on rolling out, I have just crossed a line I thought I would never cross and ordered myself a factory unlocked iPhone.
Steve B really needs to bring in innovaters and purge Redmond of the old guard.
M
I don't agree with you at all. The Zune hasn't done so great not because of the UI, which is actually innovative, but because MS isn't pushing it anywhere close to as hard as Apple does with it's ads for iPods and iPhones.
Hope you enjoy your iPhone and it's old icon, app to app usage while WP7 is changing the whole way a smartphone works.
I like all the new ideas i've seen in the demos they showed.
GP007, your faith in Microsoft is admirable.
I have a new HTC Touch 2 and the browser experiece is a complete joke. The browser has too many issues with page rendering and refresh as well as hanging problems. It never should have been released, except they needed to release something so they rolled out crap. What makes anyone think the next version will be any better. I hope I can upgrade my HTC phone to really try it out, but it is likely that again my phone is not upgradable, unlike the iPhone.
I am a Microsoft fan when they do a good job. I believe Windows 7 is by far the best PC operating system available and makes Mac OS look like a joke. I build systems based on SQL Server and IIS. These platforms work really well. Exchange server still is unchallenged in the messaging space.
But Microsoft really needs to deliver a phone that is first stable, and next configurable so the user experience is ergonomic to the way people think and act.
Now they think a new phone interface based on Zune is what people want. I don't know anyone who owns a Zune. I have tried it and I cannot see myself scrolling through menu after menu. I like the ease of icons, shortcuts and simple search iPhone offers.
The last thing I need on a phone is XBox Live and a bunch of junk and bloatware. When you get an iPhone, it is the same from any carrier. When you get a Windows Mobile phone, the carrier always loads their apps and bloatware. Who needs this.
Look forward to seeing what happens with this 6 months after it is released.
How customizible it is we'll know at MiX. I think the tiles offer a huge oppertunity and are powerful.
As for the mobile IE, sure it's not the best, never said it was, but that's why there's Opera or even skyfire. The platform lets you use something else, so if it doesn't work for someone there is something else.
The bloatware issue is something they're countering with WP7, they won't let OEMs load their own shells and other junk on top like with WM6.x to take up resorces and slow the phone down, they'll let you customize the WP7 UI and add your own custom tiles ofc, but that's about it, some themes for tile styles as well I expect. So that's another issue out of the way. The games hub does tie into xbox live, sure, if you use it it'll sync, if you don't then it won't, that's just one feature of the games hub that they showed off, doesn't mean it's a Xbox live only app.