Watch the Microsoft Mobile World Congress 2011

Users that weren’t able to make it to Barcelona for this year’s Mobile World Congress, or watch the Microsoft keynote live, still have a chance to see Ballmer, Belfiore and Elop take the stage.

All they have to do is check out the video embedded at the bottom of this article. The software giant has made available on demand video of its keynote at the Mobile World Congress 2011.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president, Windows Phone Program Management, and Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop have been on stage providing a sneak peek into the future plans for Windows Phone.

“The last year has certainly seen a lot of change for our industry. It's clear today that the mobile industry is moving from a device battle to a platform battle.

“That change is happening faster and faster. It was only a year ago at Mobile World Congress that we first introduced our Windows Phone 7 product.

“Windows Phone 7 was really more than the launch of a single new product. Every Windows Phone brings together the best from across Microsoft, including Bing, and Xbox, and Hotmail, and Office, and Windows Live,” Ballmer noted.

MWC 2011 acted as the stage for Microsoft to reveal a range of key changes coming to Windows Phone 7 in 2011.

Starting with the much requested copy & paste functionality, Windows Phone 7 will be getting a range of goodies, including a mobile flavor of Internet Explorer 9 and support for Office Web Apps.

In the keynote Belfiore does an excellent job of demonstrating what Windows Phone 7 devices will be capable of once the Redmond company has provided them with all the updates planned for this year.

And of course, the keynote served as another opportunity for Microsoft and Nokia to highlight their new strategic alliance.

“Nokia's support will help Windows Phone overall to build strength versus the other mobile platforms or ecosystems. That's not just good for Nokia, that's actually good for all of our handset partners.

“Additional unit volumes have increasing return for Windows Phone developers as well. And, of course, operators want more alternatives that are at real scale, that enable the operator to add value.

“And as Stephen [Elop] has said from the Nokia perspective, I'll say from the Microsoft perspective, Windows Phone will be the most operator-friendly platform available,” Ballmer added.