28.8.09

Calling Windows OS?

When you think about a cool mobile phone user interface, you probably think of Google Android or the more obvious Apple iPhone. Both designs are not only revolutionary in terms of technology but they’re simply easy on the eye and exceptionally user friendly.

However, if you think about the Windows Phone OS the same thought do not cross through your mind. Visually, Microsoft’s Windows phone OS get trampled by Google’s and Apple’s coolness. Likewise BlackBerry makes Microsoft Phone OS as if it’s from the Stone Age.

Just when it seems that Microsoft will lose a lot of its market share, the software giant firm decided to redesign the OS for the cellular market which can be installed on cell phones later this year and may boast a myriad of new capabilities.

Microsoft places consumers’ needs at the heart of its product design; with the Window Phone OS you can take pictures and access Facebook and Twitter, edit a Microsoft document or an Excel spreadsheet and email these files. This new OS will be particularly useful for consumers in the corporate sector.

The whole interface has had makers aimed at making the OS more intuitive and finger-friendly. In the latest OS, care has been given to the home screen.

The need to drill down to an application is eliminated. Microsoft will also initiate a series of related support products from an application store to Myphone, an online backup service that already works well in beta.

The inevitable question yet to be answered is whether Microsoft can compete with market leaders. The figures at this point suggest that it has steep catching up to do. Industry is densely competitive. Microsoft’s share of the cellphones’ OS market has fallen as the iPhone has wormed its way into corporations by licensing Microsoft Exchange so that it can handle Active Sync push notifications and calendaring.

So while users enjoy the sleekness of the iPhone or the coolness of the Android, Microsoft is brewing what it hopes to be its next big break in the mobile phone OSs market.