Microsoft Makes Windows Phone 8 Release Official

Microsoft is dropping operating systems like they’re hot these days. The software giant on Monday followed up last week’s Windows 8 carnival in New York with the official release of Windows Phone 8 at an event across the country in San Francisco.

“We wanted to build a phone that was personal for each of us,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who described Windows Phone 8 as “the smartphone that has been reinvented around you.”

In a first for Microsoft, the new smartphone platform shares the core Windows kernel with the company’s flagship operating system for PCs, tablets, and hybrid systems, Windows 8. While that provides a nice bridge between the user experiences on devices and PCs running the two operating systems, particularly with regards to touch capabilities and the new eminently configurable Live Tile interface, it also means owners of Windows Phone 7 devices aren’t able to upgrade to WP8.

The first Windows Phone 8 handsets will be made available in Europe starting on Nov. 3 with products launching in the United States and elsewhere throughout the month of November, Ballmer said.

Microsoft’s own retail stores in the U.S., as well as the company’s online store, will “carry every Windows Phone 8 phone and color option available in the U.S. leading into the holidays, he said, while T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T will each have Windows Phone 8 lineups that include some exclusive products sold by each carrier.

T-Mobile, for example, will have the Nokia Lumia 810 and HTC 8X on Nov. 14 for prices ranging from $99.99 to $199.99 depending on the plan selected.

Big winners in the early days of Windows Phone 8 include Qualcomm, the exclusive maker of ARM chips powering the first handsets running the OS, as well as Nokia, HTC, and Samsung, the three companies that will be first out of the gate with Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Ballmer described coming WP8 phones like Nokia’s lineup of Lumia phone, Samsung’s ATIV S, and HTC’s Windows Phone 8X and 8S as “killer hardware” that make the most of exclusive Windows Phone 8 features like its Skype integration.

Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst for Moor Insights & Strategy, said Microsoft’s moves to differentiate Windows Phone 8 from the two leading smartphone platforms were good strategy for a company trying to break into mobile.

“Microsoft discussed features that resonate with the family crowd and it appears they are moving away from a homogenous marketing approach,” the analyst said. “I think that is a good move and required to motivate indifferent Windows Phone customers away from iOS and Android that cater to different sub-segments. The Kid’s Corner and Family Room features are features that parents will appreciate, but now the challenge becomes marketing.”

Earlier in the day, Microsoft executive and mobile platform honcho Joe Belfiore outlined many of the Windows Phone 8 features and service tie-ins the company hopes will appeal to those “different sub-segments.”

It didn’t hurt Belfiore’s message that he was joined on stage by Hollywood star and mom Jessica Alba, who testified to the usefulness of the new “Kids Corner” feature in Windows Phone 8 — basically a way to let kids play with your phone without inadvertently tweeting something bizarre or otherwise ruining your day in public.

Belfiore spent the morning talking up several new features and capabilities, as well as the addition of several new apps in Microsoft’s Windows Phone app marketplace, like Pandora, which is coming in 2013. There are now 120,000 apps available for the Windows Phone platform, he said.

Live Tiles, formerly dubbed the Metro interface before Microsoft ran into trademark problems, remain the core of the Windows Phone 8 experience and the key differentiator with competing smartphone platforms like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, Belfiore stressed.

“The idea that’s at the center of Windows Phone, and to put this in the perspective of the smartphone industry, I would say the state of the art in the smartphone industry hasn’t evolved much in the five years since its inception. That icon grid was created by Apple and copied by Android and it hasn’t really evolved,” he said.

“In Windows Phone, we decided not to use that tired old metaphor. Our way is to put people at the center of the experience, not icons for apps or speeds and feeds, as the iPhone and Android do respectively.”

Belfiore outlined the various ways Microsoft has made WP8 very different from the two leading smartphone platforms. There’s a dynamic lockscreen that can serve as a photo album that cycles through different photos or, via a tie-in with Facebook, as a live feed of photos from the social network. Windows Phone 8’s People Hub features “Rooms” that serve as configurable buckets for users to arrange contact info and activity, while the new platform’s cloud-based SkyDrive service provides a productivity boost via Microsoft’s Office app and has other features that compare favorably with iCloud, Belfiore promised.

Skype, which Microsoft acquired last year, has a big presence on Windows Phone 8. The Skype voice and video calling app is “always on,” according to Belfiore, while running unobtrusively in the background so as to conserve battery life. Another intra-Microsoft tie-in on WP8 is Xbox Music, which will be newly available on the platform.

Another key addition to WP8 is Data Sense, a new feature that maps a phone’s data usage to help users avoid going over on their data plans with carriers. Through various tricks like compressing Web pages and adjusting a phone’s operations when a data limit is being approaching, Data Sense can give WP8 users “45 percent more Web browsing” than is possible without it, Belfiore said. (PCMag.com)