Microsoft has taken a page out of the Apple playbook for its new mobile OS. It may be the key to the company's success in the space.
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, Microsoft finally unveiled the latest version of Windows Mobile. The company took two years to develop the new OS, starting essentially from scratch. The result is a world class smartphone operating system and UI that actually has a chance to make Microsoft a player in the space again. The company has been operating in the mobile space for a while, of course, but after Apple and Google entered the market, Microsoft had no choice but to chuck its old OS in favor of a more competitive version.
To understand Microsoft's approach to the market with Windows Phone 7 Series, we need to examine the diametrically opposing ways its competitors develop products for the space. Apple epitomizes the closed approach. Google and the open source community, on the other hand, view smartphones as an open platform for design and innovation. While both approaches have merit, Apple's move to drive software developers to write and support a specific OS has helped the company go from zero to 25 percent market share in less than three years. It has served the company well and has generated a lot of money for the developers of the iPhone's more than 150,000 apps.
Google takes a vastly different approach. While the company does have a set of OS and UI guidelines for Android, its nature as an open source project means that companies can customize the operating system to help differentiate their version from the competition. This is a powerful approach, but it comes with some tricky issues for software developers. When I talk to app developers, they may complain about Apple's App Store vetting process, but they all seem to hail the company's SDK guidelines that force them to write to a single user interface and hardware specification. This means they can create applications faster. As long as they write to Apple's iPhone conventions, their apps will work with the iPhone, iPod touch, and—soon—the iPad.
This isn't always true for Android. Handset makers want to differentiate their devices from the competition, and in doing so, they may place hard-coded buttons one way and soft buttons another. Add the trend of making the UI touch-sensitive, and you have another layer of complexity. If a developer wants to write an app for Google's Nexus One, their app has to be created specifically for that phone's hardware and UI. If they want to create the app for the Motorola Droid, on the other hand, they may have to tweak it quite a bit.
Apple believes that the user should have a single UI on its device that can be used across similar devices, as part of a large ecosystem of products. On the other hand, while Android, mobile Linux, or even Nokia and Intel's new Meego provide a solid open source approach to a powerful smartphone OS, the HTC Sense UI on the Hero phone is different that the UI on the Nexus One, forcing users to learn a new UI on each device.
In the tech community, we're often hard on Apple or anyone who delivers a "closed" system. The one thing we often forget is the fact that most customers are much less enamored with UI choices. They want simplicity—products that are easy to use and consistent across platforms and devices. That's a large part of the reason that Apple rose to a 25 percent market share so quickly. The iPhone is simple, easy to understand, and all of the apps work with the company's uniform UI.
Microsoft is taking a page out of Apple's playbook with Windows Phone 7 Series. The company has delivered strict hardware and software guidelines to its partners. We won't know the OS's exact details until the MIX conference next month, but we can be sure that they will force all applications to be designed around a single hardware and software specification to ensure that any phone that has Windows Phone 7 Series on it will work the same. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was asked how handset manufacturers can differentiate their products, given the strict guidelines. The details, he told the press, will be revealed at MIX. If we use the Windows PC as a guideline, however, the answer emerges. Windows PCs come in all manner of sizes, shapes, and designs.
Microsoft is at least two years behind Apple in the smartphone market. The company is doing the right thing by making sure all Windows phones work and act the same. Like Apple, it can give smartphone developers a single OS/UI to work with that will ensure that any app written for the OS will work on any phone designed for it. This strategy serves Microsoft well in its core enterprise markets. Windows phones have had success in this space, and if there's one thing enterprise buyers want, it's consistency. With Windows Phone 7 Series, enterprise buyers will have plenty of choices for hardware and carriers, while maintaining a single OS and UI across the company.
These new devices won't be out until Q4, so its too early to tell if Microsoft really has a winner on its hands. Given the fact that it is creating an easy to use platform that is also easy to develop for, Windows Phone 7 Series has the chance to become one of the major smartphone platforms. The attempt to recreate its successful PC OS model may be controversial, but it's probably the best chance the company has for re-gaining ground in the mobile space.
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