Microsoft challenges competition with new phones, Windows 8 preview
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer鈥檚 keynote address, which kicked off the company鈥檚 Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) Monday, included a little bit of bad news and a whole lot of good news.
The bad news was that Windows Phone 7 handsets haven鈥檛 been selling very well. As we鈥檝e noted before in this blog, WP7 only commands about 1 percent of newly activated mobile devices, trailing behind Apple鈥檚 iOS at 17 percent and Google鈥檚 Android at 27 percent.
The good news, however, is that several sleek, new devices are on the way running Windows Phone 7.5 鈥淢ango,鈥� the latest version of the mobile OS set to be released in mid-October. Microsoft gave a sneak peek of those devices this Tuesday.
Most of the blogosphere buzz centered around a thin new handset from Samsung that Microsoft Corporate VP Steve Guggenheimer says he is 鈥減articularly excited鈥� about. The device looks an awful lot like Samsung鈥檚 Galaxy S II, an Android model sporting a Super AMOLED display and an 8-megapixel camera, which is expected to be released in the US this summer.
Microsoft also revealed the first Windows phones from manufacturers Acer, Toshiba, and ZTE. They didn鈥檛 give any specifications or release dates for these new devices, but it鈥檚 nice to know that Windows Phone 7 will be supported by a wide range of hardware manufacturers.
The WPC news so far hasn鈥檛 only revolved around smart phones, though. Microsoft CFO Tami Reller also talked about Windows 7 and what we should expect from its successor, which technically doesn't have a name but we'll call Windows 8. Reller noted that Windows 7 has sold 400 million licenses worldwide in the year 鈥� that鈥檚 three times the rate of Windows XP over the same timeframe. (XP fans beware: Reller also announced that customers have 1,000 days, or a little less than three years, until Microsoft drops support for the decade-old XP.)
Attendees were treated a few more details concerning Windows 8, which was officially unveiled on June 1st. Reller reiterated, as we鈥檝e heard before, that the OS is designed to work with both touch tablets and keyboard and mouse. But Reller also confirmed that Windows 8 would have 鈥渢he same [system] requirements or lower鈥� than Windows 7, meaning customers don鈥檛 need to worry about their hardware being left in the dust. This should also help Windows 8 to successfully scale onto tablet and mobile devices, which tend to be less powerful than their desktop and notebook counterparts.
What are your thoughts on the conference so far? Do you like the direction Microsoft鈥檚 mobile and desktop software is headed? Let us know in the comments.
