Trends Hut

It's about to be put up or shut up time for Microsoft in mobile. On October 11, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets CEO Ralph de la Vega will be conducting a New York City press conference to spill the beans on the widely anticipated Windows Phone 7 smartphones.

Microsoft has been rather immobile in the smartphone biz these past few years. The company's handsets have been overshadowed by Apple's iPhone, Google's Android devices, and Research In Motion's BlackBerry. Recent efforts by the company to turn things around in mobile have proved disastrous--witness the summer demise, after less than two months in the market, of the company's youth-oriented Kin handsets.


Now comes the Windows Phone 7 devices the company has been talking up for months. In an interview Monday, Ballmer told the Wall Street Journal, "we've got to move forward, not shoot for yesterday. We've got to shoot ahead in a way that's delightful to users, accessible to developers and prioritize everything else we do around those elements."

But the competition is brutal and getting more so. Microsoft has to persuade developers to play along and consumers that Windows Phone 7 phones are worthy of their consideration. Neither task will be easy.

The Windows Phone 7 phones certainly represent a major departure from the way Microsoft used to do business in mobile. The interface on demonstration phones features colorful and dynamic tiles built around activities and software. The design resembles Microsoft Zune music players more than Windows on a PC.