Windows win?
Microsoft showed off a number of new features for Windows Phone 7 (WP7) including more integration with Microsoft products for the handset, at MWC.
Perhaps the biggest product news is that IE9 will be available for WP7 in the second half of this year, providing "a dramatically enhanced mobile Web browser experience," according to the software giant and phones will get multitasking.
Furthermore, the company said WP7 will get copy and paste functionality via the first major update next month, plus Twitter integration directly into the People Hub this year. Support for Office documents in the cloud plus new multitasking apps will arrive in 2011 too.
Microsoft debuted WP7 at MWC just last year. Andy Lees, president of Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business, said: "So far we've had a fantastic reaction from customers, with a 93 percent customer satisfaction rate and nine out of 10 customers saying they are likely to recommend [the phone] to someone else."
Of course everyone now knows about the Nokia Microsoft partnership and Lees believes it will help WP7 take a ‘big step' towards driving global scale and reach.
"Our alliance with Nokia creates opportunities for both companies far beyond what we could achieve separately, and offers a compelling alternative to the existing choices for consumers, mobile operators and developers," he added.
Lees also confirmed that 2m licenses for WP7 have been sold in the phone's first 2 month and it is now available from 60 mobile operators in 30 countries, while the app marketplace has grown to around 8,000 and there are 28,000 registered developers...but still a way off catching up with Android and Apple's stores.
Achim Berg, a corporate VP in Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business and Marketing Group, acknowledged: "We're in the race - it's not a sprint but we are certainly gaining momentum and we're in it for the long run. We know we have tough competition, and this is a completely new product. Our design is different, our platform is different, our customer experience is different, and our long-term strategy for earning widespread adoption is different."
Microsoft said it will continue to work with third parties on phone innovation, adding new features and apps to make the platform more enticing. JP Wollersheim, a Windows Phone 7 product manager, added that the firm aims to engage with around 80 percent of worldwide phone users who are not using a smartphone.
