Windows 7 Mobile ftw?

Windows 7 mobile was recently announced at MWC (Mobile World Congress) Convention and not to anyone’s surprise Microsoft COMPLETELY revamped Windows Mobile (obviously to compete with the simplicity of both Android and iPhone OS). When it comes to to functionality it is no secret that Windows mobile has been way behind other mobile operating systems like RIM, iPhone, and Android. When looking at mobile sales (check picture below) you’ll see that Windows Mobile has been declining with the release of the iPhone.

As you can tell from the picture above, Microsoft has been declining significantly (lets also remember this chart doesn’t include android and judging by their current up beat, according to trends they should beat out Microsoft as well! Judging by this of course Microsoft had to do something to get their sales back. Now of course Windows announced this new operating system, and judging by their presentation it appears they attacked on the following:

• A revamped, simple and clean UI – The current windows mobile is known globally as having a terrible UI making it extremely difficult to use. The new UI actually resembles the Zune HD look.
• Allowing this operating system to be licensed to all Phones

Now although only two bullet points seems pretty small, the truth is that it’s MUCH different and you’ll see that if you watch the presentation (click me for presentation footage). Now of course lets talk about what I think. Remember this is my opinion if you disagree with anything I say please point it out in the comments or if you want to add any points, post away (I won’t remove your comment just because you disagree with me, I actually like seeing things in other people’s perspectives). Now here is a list of things Micorosoft should have added:

• Price: Now Apple and Blackberry don’t license their operating system’s out to anyone so they aren’t really included in this. Their big competitor right now is actually Android OS. The big problem Microsoft made is sticking with their old business model. Look at the graph above once again, clearly their business model is having some issues. Lets look more carefully, notice how their biggest drop happened in June of 2008, which operating system came out then? Oh right Google Android. See here is the deal, Google Android is being released to free and is already known for being easy to program and it’s extremely advanced. Windows mobile is on a rocky start. They are known for being sloppy and difficult to use, just because they showed us a revamped version of their OS doesn’t mean it’s going to be all great. This is the same problem they had when Windows 7 came out. You need to gain back the big companies trust, so how would they do that, by making the operating system free (just like Google). Did they do that? No, they actually stuck with their old business model of licensing it from anywhere between $5-$30.
• AppStore: Now iPhone is currently the most popular consumer cell phone right now. Why is that? Well obviously because of the hundreds of thousands of apps. Now every other phone is trying to follow it’s foot steps, android with it’s thousands of apps, even the little guy Palm Pre is trailing their way into this. By the look of this conference it appears there was no talk of the App store or any future apps. Now let me ask you a question, would you even buy a windows mobile phone unless you knew there were features that competing phones don’t have?
• The UI: After looking at the UI, although it’s a great improvement from the previous Windows Mobile, I have to say it is almost TOO simple (if that’s possible). It doesn’t look like there is much room for additional apps, everything is too big. At this point we want enough room to have several apps on one screen so we can access everything in an easy page without having to flip through category by category.

Now again this is just my opinion and I would love hearing yours, so tell me what you think by posting a comment below!