Microsoft Reboots Windows Mobile, Now Windows Phone

If you ask carriers or OEMs off the record, they will probably tell you that Windows Mobile seems to be superfluous, and that's clear by how rapidly its market share numbers continue to drop. Microsoft is not going away easily, however, as at MWC it has officially rebooted the OS and renamed it Windows Phone.

To be exact, if you are speaking of the OS version at hand, it would be Windows Phone Series 7. A long name, no doubt, but there's a long list of changes as well.

For one, Windows Phone will include Zune integration, making it (in a sense) the so-called Zune Phone that's been long rumored. It will also include Xbox Live integration, as well.

It's also obvious that Microsoft has been watching as other platforms have passed it by, and added changes to the UI to embrace social media and make the OS less of a mobile version of its desktop platform. For example, on the Home (or now, Start) screen, you can dedicate dynamically updated "live tiles." If you tile a friend, you can see updates for their latest pictures and posts, right on the Start screen.

Microsoft is also dictating the HW configuration of the phone, as well as banning use of third-party skins such as Sense or TouchWiz. We'll see if that upsets OEMs, but it might be less necessary to "hide" the Windows Phone UI than the Windows Mobile UI.

Microsoft is dictating a specific CPU and speed, screen aspect ratio and resolution, memory, and even button configuration, including a dedicated Bing hardware button. Of course, unsurprisingly, the default search and map services are provided by Bing.

Windows Phone 7 series should be hitting smartphones by the end of the year. Watch a video demo below: