Apple Inc. rocked the wireless business by combining the functions of a phone and an iPod. Now, more than two years later, Microsoft Corp. has its response: phone software that works a lot like its own Zune media player.
The software, which was unveiled Monday at the Mobile World Congress, is a dramatic change from previous generations of the software that used to be called Windows Mobile. But Microsoft is, for now, sticking to its model of making the software and selling it to phone manufacturers, rather than making its own phones.
Microsoft’s mobile system powered 13.1% of smart phones sold in the U.S. last year, according to research firm In-Stat. That made it No. 3 after Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and the iPhone. But Microsoft has been losing market share while Apple and Google Inc.’s Android gained.
The new phones won’t be called “Zune phones,” as had been speculated. The software will be called “Windows Phone 7 series.”
Andy Lees, senior vice-president of Microsoft’s mobile communications business, said Windows Mobile suffered from the company’s chaotic approach to the market. The software maker gave phone hardware makers and wireless carriers so much freedom to alter the system and install it on so many different devices that none worked the same way.
As a result, while other phone vendors such as Apple linked their hardware and software tightly to ensure a better experience, Windows Mobile might not have looked like it quite fit on a certain handset.
Microsoft is imposing a set of required features for Windows phones. Manufacturers must include permanent buttons on the phone for “home,” “search” and “back,” a high-resolution screen with the same touch-sensing technology as the iPhone, and a camera with at least 5 megapixels of resolution and a flash. Hardware QWERTY keyboards will be optional.
Just as it did with the Zune, Microsoft has tried to avoid an icon-intensive copy of that setup used on Apple’s iPhone. Instead, it relies more on clickable words and images pulled from the content itself. For example, if you put a weather program on the device’s home page, it shows a constantly updated snapshot of conditions where you are, rather than a static icon that you have to click to see the weather.
The idea of pulling information from different websites, like Facebook, and presenting them on the phone’s “home” screen isn’t unique to Microsoft: Motorola Inc. and HTC Corp. have created such software for their own phones.
Most of the built-in applications complement or connect with existing Microsoft programs or services, such as the Bing search engine. The games “hub” connects to an Xbox Live account and lets players pick up where they left off with multiplayer games. They will even be able to play games against PC users.
About 18 months ago, Microsoft stopped most improvements to its existing smart-phone operating software and started from scratch on Windows Phone 7 Series.
Microsoft “is resolved at a company level to be successful in mobile,” Lees said. He indicated Microsoft is willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing to ensure it’s successful.
