Microsoft challenges the iPhone!

Microsoft in challenge to iPhone
GORDON FARRER
February 17, 2010
MICROSOFT has unveiled a new mobile phone operating system to challenge smartphones such as the iPhone and BlackBerry.

Launched in Spain, the Windows Phone 7 Series system focuses as much on personal media functions as on business ones. Samsung, LG, HTC and Ericsson are expected to start selling phones using the system late this year.

A coalition of 24 telecom companies also announced an open platform for developing applications to work across all phone carriers, devices and operating systems. The move is seen as a direct challenge to Apple's App Store.

Joe Belfiore of Microsoft said the aim of the new system was to simplify smartphone use. A goal was to integrate functions that mean the most to people, including photos, contacts, video, games, music and work applications.

Windows Phone 7 pulls together data from social networking sites and other services to constantly update contact information and recent social media activity of users' friends and families.

The phone features ''tiles'' - similar to iPhone icons - that change appearance as information is updated.

The operating system is seen by some analysts as Microsoft's last chance to get back in the smartphone game, having been left behind by the likes of Apple, Nokia and Google, which recently released the Nexus One smartphone.

Nick Ingelbrecht, a mobile analyst with Gartner Research, says marketing the product will be a challenge for Microsoft because in a saturated market, Windows Phone was not a strong brand.