Posts tagged multitasking

Several questions were left unanswered at Microsoft’s launch of Windows Phone 7 Series at the Mobile World Congress 2010 on February 15.  Since then, and particularly at the MIX developer conference this week, we’ve begun to hear answers, most of which indicate that Microsoft has dramatically shifted its view of smartphones.  To summarize, Windows Phone 7 Series has no multitasking, removable storage (MicroSD cards) support, file explorer, or copy-and-paste.

It’s quite clear that Microsoft has shifted lock-stock-and-barrel from its idea of shrinking near-PC-level functionality into smartphones (Windows Mobile actually used to be called “Pocket PC”) to instead embrace Apple’s tightly-controlled, appliance-like approach to phones– the kind of vertically-integrated approach Microsoft has already used for Xbox and Zune.

Essentially what we’re left with is a misnamed OS– this is not a Windows Phone, but a Zune Phone.  The “Windows” brand implies a full-fledged computer, not a music player with a phone built in.  It’s important to note that Apple’s phone is not called a Mac Phone– it’s an extended iPod, hence iPhone.  Microsoft also makes this branding separation- Xbox and Zune don’t contain any Windows branding, for example.  Why, then, does Microsoft continue to use the Windows Phone brand when its mobile OS no longer has anything to do with Windows?

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