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Once Symbian OS was the ruler of the phones, now its either Android or Windows. This article will tell you about Windows Phone 7 OS.
I have long been an ardent Android fan and love my Android Smartphone (Moto Milestone) for several reasons. Since the launch of the very first Android phone by T-Mobile, I have been hooked to everything that’s Android and happy to see Android growing like crazy.
Since the disruptive arrival of Android, there have been some drastic alterations in Mobile space composition. As of now, the state of Mobile OS is as follows:
- Albeit being persistently declined Mobile OS, Symbian is still the largest controller on the market. However, future of Symbian is pretty bleak.
- Apple‘s iOS controls a large chunk of Mobile OS market share, holds a dominant position in Smartphone business
- RIM (which makes BlackBerry mobile phones) still controls a big market (largely corporate) but is currently on a decline, finding it tough to contain loyal Blackberry users anymore.
- Android is the ace of the current Smartphone era. Showing the sharpest growth in all possible regards (sales, dev. support, hardware prevalence), Android is now being touted as the future of mobile OS and going by industry analysts, Android will outperform all other Smartphone Operating Systems to become the most popular Mobile OS platform by 2015.
- ‘Windows Mobile‘ is a buried OS. Microsoft long dumped their crappy mobile OS, in order to start from scratch and build a compelling experience for mobile users, competing head-on with leading Smartphone OS platforms such as Android and is.
And the last point brings up the latest OS platform to enter the Smartphone wars , Windows Phone 7, WP7 in short.
With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is placing a risky bet but it’s also leaving no stone unturned in getting its Smartphone OS noticed. With over $500Mn of advertising budget reserved for promoting WP7 platform during the Christmas season, over 1100 platform evangelists working hard to convince a large number of developers across the globe for building mobile apps for WP7 platform and over 10 WP7 Smartphones, ready at the launch of Windows Phone 7 launch event, says enough about Microsoft’s aggressive intentions.
And after hearing plenty of stuff from tech fraternity and viewing several product demos of WP7 powered phones, I have a feeling that Windows Phone 7 platform will certainly be a disruptive Mobile OS for Microsoft, even if first day sales don’t appear too encouraging to most of us right now.
Here are those 7 major key points that make Windows Phone 7, a healthy competitor to leading Mobile OS platforms.
Novel User Interface: The User Interface of WP7 OS is refreshing and unique. One can still figure out similarities among Android and iOS but novelty factor in WP7 makes it stand extremely meticulous and distinct from everyone else. The best part here is that WP7 platform derives nothing from Windows Mobile, the rusting predecessor to WP7.
Non-fragmented OS approach: It’s always good to learn from other’s mistakes and that’s exactly what Microsoft has done. Google’s fragmented OS is annoying to many of its users but mobile carriers/hardware vendors, in an effort of keeping a distinct branding, coat officially released Android versions with their own custom skin. That hinders the OS updating process of Android Smartphones as Google releases the update to mobile carriers but carriers take enormous time to update their custom skins for all their handsets. On the contrary, Microsoft has clearly defined various parameters for hardware compliances and strictly condones any changes/modification to its Mobile OS by carriers. That’s a big win for WP7 platform. Such a setting is also convenient from a developer standpoint.
Xbox Live: That’s one big difference between WP7 and every other Smartphone OS platform. Microsoft sells Xbox and there is no need to explain how popular the gaming console has become since its launch. With the launch of Kinect, Xbox is reinventing how games are played and the excitement for Xbox is only going to get better with time. With ‘Xbox Live’ seamlessly integrated in WP7 phones and simultaneous launch of some of the most desired gaming titles on WP7 phones, gaming freaks are sure to have a reason for buying WP7 phones.
Better Hardware: One thing that’s consistent with almost every WP7 powered Smartphone during a launch event of Windows Phone 7 is a higher benchmark of hardware capability. Almost all Smartphones have over 3.7 inches capacitive/AMOLED touchscreen, faster processor, higher RAM(over 512MB) among other things. As this is just the beginning, the first range of WP7 phones are obvious to define a minimum standard for future hardware for WP7 phones.
The best of both Worlds(iOS and Android): WP7 takes the best things out of iOS and Android platforms. WP7 gives plenty of options to consumers in terms of phone hardware(this advantage had been exclusive to Android this far). On the other side, WP7 prefers keeping itself on the driving seat by condoning any modifications to its Mobile OS by any third party(hardware vendors/mobile carriers), thereby maintaining consistency across all WP7 devices(advantage of iOS) and having the ability to push software updates to every phone without any hindrance/delay from the hardware manufacturer / carrier.
Fast growing Apps Marketplace: Developers are excited about WP7 platform, mainly because the platform is really well built. And when a Mobile OS platform is one of Microsoft’s riskiest bet in the future of computing (mobile), the developer community (where Microsoft is already popular) is bound to fall for it. Many big names on the Internet have already announced their (eBay, Twitter…) official apps for WP7. platform. Others will soon do the needful.
Immense Marketing: You talk about $500Mn of the marketing budget for WP7 phones, massive promotional event in Times square, 1100 MS evangelists around the globe spreading more awareness/buzz about their new platform or its generous but strategic giveaway of WP7 devices to every one of their 89000 employees, only Microsoft can really afford to spend this much on bringing their Mobile OS into everyone’s notice.
From the consumer’s perspective, the more the competition, the better the outcome…So, let’s hope WP7 push the innovation forward and makes Google, Apple, RIM, Nokia….work even harder to sell mobile phones to consumers.
