Description

Microsoft showed off on Monday the first handsets to run Windows Phone 7, it's new operating system for cell phones. The launch, in New York, is potentially one of Microsoft's most important for years and is being seen as a make-or-break step for the company in the cell phone market.

Transcript

Microsoft Launches First Windows Phone 7 Handsets Martin Williams: Microsoft showed off on Monday the first handsets to run Windows Phone 7 its new operating system for cellphones. The launch in New York is potentially one of Microsoft’s most important for years and is being seen as a make or break step for the company in cellphone market. Steve Ballmer: The Windows phone a different kind of phone. A phone that is really designed to try to be always delightful, wonderfully personal, and help people get in, out and back to life. Martin: The first handsets will launch on October 21st in Europe and Asia and on November 8th in the U.S. The launch line up includes handsets from 4 manufacturers. Taiwan’s HTC will launch 5 handsets including the HD7. Samsung will have 2 as will fellow South—for LG and there will be a single model from Dell. Windows Phone 7 is the first totally new mobile operating system from Microsoft since Apple launched its iPhone in 2007 and Google’s Android came out but the heart of the user interface are themed hubs which consolidate applications and services in content. The people have for example aggregates phone calls, text messages, social media feeds and outlook email messages into a single view which is updated in real time. Microsoft is viewed as an under dog in the cellphone market and it hopes to turn this around with the new software and other strengths it has for consumers Windows Phone 7 integrates with the XBOX Live online gaming service with Microsoft’s zoom music service. Every handset we can do software for instance is a full zoom music player. The corporate users the company has tight integration with exchange and other wildly used enterprise software and is hoping that this will give it an edge with market leader research and motion. Microsoft currently has a 6.8% share of the smart phone market according to IDC. The market research company said it expects us to increase to 9.8% by 2014. Martin Williams IDG News Service.