The Windows Phone 7 launch caps a year of product launches met with critical praise. There was the launch of Microsoft’s impressive new search engine (Bing), a popular new operating system (Windows 7), an upcoming suite of cloud-based products (Office Web Apps), and a revitalized Web presence (MSN.com).
Let’s take a quick look back at what’s behind this Microsoft renaissance.
Watch Out Apple iPhone
Microsoft is also borrowing a page from Apple’s playbook by dictating certain hardware and software features. All Series 7 phones must have the same three physical buttons on the front–back, start and search–and manufacturers cannot place their own overlay, such as HTC’s TouchFLO, on top of the Series 7 user interface. The first Windows Series 7 phones won’t show up until the end of the year, and there are still a lot of questions to be answered, such as how functional the Xbox LIVE gaming experience will be. But Microsoft appears to be on the right track with Series 7, and Windows Phones might just be 2010’s holiday must-have phone.
Head in the Clouds
The Mickey Rourke of OS Comebacks
Solid Google Alternative
Windows Live also offers some great features worth checking out including 25 gigabytes of online storage with SkyDrive, social networking feeds that incorporate over 75 different services, a nice photo sharing feature and file syncing capabilities.
Website Makeover
But a new MSN is scheduled to replace the old version during the first part of this year. In fact, you can try out the public beta version right now. The new version still throws a lot of content at you, but the page layout doesn’t overwhelm you with links, scrolling text and other annoying features.
The new MSN also features a “My apps” section where you can add a mini-Twitter client (a recent tweak), your Facebook newsfeed, a Hotmail link, as well as look at your local weather and Bing Maps. The features and improvements to the new MSN are a huge jump forward for the Web property, and may just win a few people over as a cleaner, but less customizable, alternative to iGoogle or Yahoo.
Mind you, not all aspects of Microsoft products are doing great. Internet Explorer 8 offers, in my view, a less than stellar browsing experience and can’t compare to competitors like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera. Windows will always be saddled with more security hassles than other operating systems and Hotmail is in dire need of improvement. But if you’ve been writing off Microsoft as a has-been tech company with little to offer, you might want to take a second look at what the folks in Redmond have been up to lately.
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