I’m a happy Android user at present, so today’s big unveil of Windows Phone 7 Series (WP7S?) is exciting to me mainly if it serves to push forward the rest of the mobile market (and from the sound of things it should do just that). But what peaks my interest more about this release is that a division within Microsoft managed to completely recode and reimagine from the ground up a significant OS within the Windows ecosystem without any significant information leaks prior to its announcement.
This gives me hope that there could be a similar group within Microsoft slaving away diligently on the Microsoft Courier (or more accurately the UI or OS for such a device) and that they can produce a truly game-changing tablet experience without anyone being the wiser until its release. This is the way in which Microsoft’s size should deliver for them, just because they are a huge corporation doesn’t have to mean they are a plodding behemoth. Perhaps with Zune and WP7S we are seeing Microsoft shift to more of a flock mentality. Smaller divisions that are capable of independent movement and innovation while all still trending in a similar direction.
My hope since I first saw the Courier concept has always been that it will be an OS unto itself rather than a paired down version of Windows 7 or an overlay on top of the full Windows 7 OS. There will always be a market for the convertible tablets that run the full OS, but for a relatively small all screen device that just doesn’t make sense. Seeing WP7S has me believing that Microsoft has finally realized that scaling Windows up and down for different devices is not always the answer and that the team working on Courier has been given free license to create something like WP7S which completely reinvents Microsoft’s existing product.
Here’s the video to remind you of what we are waiting for.
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