How Windows Phone 7 impacts users, developers and hardware-makers

Microsoft took the lid off its long-awaited Windows Phone 7 platform today with four vendors and two US operators lining up to build and sell the first devices. While there’s plenty of info on the new phones and Microsoft’s big press conference, here’s Connected Planet’s take on what the new platforms means to its three primary audiences:

1. The Developer – All of those existing Windows Mobile apps developers won’t find a straightforward new home on the new Windows Phone 7 platform. Microsoft has started from scratch with the new OS, which means new developers will also have to start from scratch in building applications and services. The good news is that many of those apps can be built using Microsoft’s Silverlight platform and the same application built for the PC can be transposed onto the phone. For Microsoft’s huge base of Windows developers looking to expand their applications into the mobile market, this could be a huge boon. For developers that work only in Windows Mobile or other smartphone development shops, not so much.

2. The User – These won’t be Outlook phones. Microsoft is divorcing Windows Phone 7 from the PC in ways it would have been loath to in the past. Instead, Microsoft is tying the platform tightly with its emerging suite of Web services. The Bing search engine will be front and center as will e-mail and messaging from Windows Live cloud services and gaming and social networking functions from Xbox Live. Microsoft also is bringing some new organizational flash to its new smartphones, introducing the tile-based approach to the user interface it first attempted with its Zune digital music players. Rather than group applications as buttons on a home screen or in a folder, Windows Phone 7 will have hubs of widgets and applications that combine like services together and integrate many of their functions. The first devices will be consumer focused, but Ballmer promised that more enterprise-focused devices and features are the next step.

3. The hardware maker – Microsoft is towing the line between the two major approaches to smartphone hardware. It’s eschewing the Apple and Research in Motion model of building its own devices, yet it’s not fully opening up the platform to any sort of implementation such as with Google’s Android. Microsoft is setting clear guidelines in its licensees about the design and form factor of its device, which will place some constraints on handset makers in terms of building differentiated products. There’s also a question of how much of the software suite must be supported on the platform. If every device has to use Bing, rely on Xbox Live for gaming and social networking, etc., manufacturers might wind up producing the exact same phones as their competitors—basically the iPhone model with multiple hardware vendors.