Windows Phone 7 Series Officially Unveiled

Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the next generation of Windows Phones, which comes under the name of Windows Phones 7 Series. According to the company, the new mobile platform that powered the handsets comes with a smart design and truly integrated experiences, putting together Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music and video experience on a mobile device. Moreover, Microsoft also announced that its partners were already working on delivering devices on the market, and that the first handsets should arrive on shelves before the holiday season 2010.

“Today, I’m proud to introduce Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Windows Phones,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people’s lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.”

Among the novelties that will be included in the upcoming devices, we can count a new Start screen, with “live tiles” that bring real-time content directly to users, as well as a dedicated hardware button for Bing, so that users can access the search engine from anywhere on the device. Moreover, the experience delivered by Windows Phone 7 Series devices is enhanced via Windows Phone hubs, which put together content from the Web, applications and services in a single view.

There are six hubs included in Windows Phone 7 Series:
- People, which brings together content based on the person, such as live feeds from social networks and photos, and also provides a new way of posting updates to Facebook and Windows Live;
- Pictures, which simplifies the way in which one can share pictures and videos to a social network;
- Games, which delivers a Xbox LIVE experience on a phone,
- Music + Video, which brings Zune on a mobile phone, including content from a user’s PC, online music services and even a built-in FM radio, and which also features sharing capabilities via Zune Social;
- Marketplace, with the possibility to easily discover and load the phone with certified applications and games;
- Office, which delivers access to leading productivity software, including Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace, as well as Outlook Mobile.

Windows Phone 7 Series will be included in portfolios of a wide range of Microsoft partners, the company revealed. Among them, we can count carriers like AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, as well as mobile phone makers like Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC Corp., HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm Inc. As stated above, the first handsets in the new series are expected to land on the market in time for the holiday season 2010.