Windows Phone 7 Series: Did Microsoft finally do the right thing?

A few hours ago Microsoft finally announced what many of you have been waiting for a long time; Windows Mobile 7 aka Windows Phone 7 Series. Time for us to take a step back and think about what Microsoft just did today. The most surprising part of the whole thing was that all the info that was posted here and at PPCGeeks was actually true.

This clearly a step in the right direction but looking at new OS I could help myself thinking “Wow that’s the Zune HD slapped on to a phone” and frankly I expected something a bit different. Obviously I can’t really judge an unfinished product but it won’t stop me from asking myself some question:

– Is aiming at the iPhone market the best possible decission Microsoft could take?

– Windows Phone7 Series seems to feature iPhone-like multi-tasking which means that you won’t have a taskmanager or anything like the “ cards” UI features on Palm’s WebOS. I know that a lot of people are angry about that but, lets wait and see how it looks like. I’have used an iPhone 3G for more than 6 months and rarely felt the need for a taskmanager or a more some sort of support advance task macanisme. What’s important is the speed/responssiveness of the handset IMO. If you can go from one place to another fast enough, why would you need a taskmanager? Microsoft will talk more about how they will allow third partie develpoers to build apps that can have some sort of background service during the MIX10 in march.

– Can I transfer files/photos/videos etc directly to the phone without using the Zune Application on the desktop or is it like the iPhone+iTunes. If that’s the case then Microsoft clearly missed the boat here. So I hope the they will speak about it sooner rather than later. I want my smartphone to be able to act like an external hard-drive (just like any WM6.X handset)

– Will I lose the ability to do things like tethering, using my phone as a WiFi router?

– No OEM costumisation can also be seen as a bad thing. One of the main reason people buy HTC products is because of their top-notch UIs on Android & Windows Mobile. Microsoft is saying that they will allow OEM to chande the backgrounds, colors and have their own “Hubs” but the OS UI will stay the same (so no more TouchFlo/Sense/TouchWIZ/S-Class). It is going to be intersting to see how this pans out and what OEMS do to differentiat their products.

All in all todays announcement is a radical shift for Microsoft. Windows Mobile went from being a Business centric OS to a consumer centric product. There are still lots of unanswered questions that will probably be addressed next month during the MIX conference so lets all just wait and see how it unfolds.