Until today, critics had been preparing Microsoft's obituary in the absence of what they saw as a viable mobile strategy. Those same critics on Monday were falling over themselves to praise
Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Series, which they say secures the software giant's future in an increasingly wireless world.
"It's astounding that until this moment, three years after the
iPhone, the biggest software company in the world basically didn't compete in mobile," writes Gizmodo. "Everything's different now," it states, adding: "The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft ... Everybody else is
screwed."
"Microsoft has done what would have been unthinkable for the company just a few years ago: started from scratch," declares Engadget. "This really is a completely new OS -- and not just Microsoft's
new OS, it's a new smartphone OS, like webOS new, like iPhone OS new."
"Everything we've heard and seen so far indicates that the leap from Windows Mobile 6.5 to Windows Phone
was pretty massive," notes TechCrunch.
"Microsoft has spent the past 18 months trying to add gloss and sophistication to a product that had suffered ridicule as being clunky and too wedded to the company's personal computer roots," writes
The New York Times, while the Windows Phone 7 Series, "marks a rare moment when Microsoft scrapped previous versions of its
software in favor of building something new from scratch."
Microsoft executives tell The Associated Press that they aim to have greater control over their mobile software. "We were too flexible, at the expense of end-user focus," said Joe Belfiore, a corporate vice president in the Windows phone
group. For one, Microsoft will make manufacturers have permanent buttons on the phone for "home," "search" and "back."
Read the whole story at Gizmodo et al. »