As you might know, Mobile World Congress 2010 started today in Barcelona. For 4 days, biggest worldwide developers will release new interesting stuff, will change the trends and will sure surprise us with new products and innovative technologies. And yes, the releasing has begun from this very first day.
Microsoft offered a presentation of its newest Windows Operating System for mobile: Windows Phone 7 Series. Among the producers that announced to develop mobile phones featuring this Operating System we see LG, HTC and Sony Ericsson. According to Canalys, a well known research company, Microsoft only has an 8% share in smartphone’s Operating System market, meaning that it’s situated behind Symbian that owns over 44%, BlackBerry with 16% and iPhone OS with 13%.
Microsoft says that Windows Phone 7 Series is a completely different approach on mobile software and this could be their chance to make an impact on the market.
As a new feature, Windows Phone 7 Series will introduce a series of hubs which simplify usual tasks by bringing together related content from the web, services and applications into one single page. Those six hubs will feature specific topics build for activities that counts most for users:
- People: Access to social networks
- Pictures: Pictures and videos upload on social networks
- Games: Xbox Live access
- Music+Video: Online music, Zune music service or music from PC
- Marketplace: Allows users to search and download games and applications for mobiles
- Office: Used for documents’ edit through Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workplace. This hub also features Outlook Mobile.
Another feature of Windows Phone 7 Series is a physical button dedicated only for Bing, assuring users more facile access to Bing search engine only by pressing a button. No matter what application is running, by pressing “Bing button” you’ll jump to the search engine and find what you’re looking for.
Windows Phone 7 Series seems to be exactly what a Microsoft operating system must be. It connects some good services like Zune, Bing and Xbox and will have some important feature that could create some interest among people. Let’s see if they can manage to find their way through the jungle already created by iPhone and Android, will be interesting to watch.