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Windows Phone 7 Coming on Fast

IDC last month released a report examining the uptake of Windows Phone 7 mobile devices and application development. According to analyst Al Hilwa, Microsoft has managed to bootstrap an entirely new mobile OS and application ecosystem in about 18 months -- a remarkable feat when you consider how long Windows Mobile 6.x languished on the market.

Microsoft says it has shipped more than 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 units, supported by more than 6,000 published applications. Those are impressive numbers in a short period of time. Hilwa praised Microsoft's strategy in his report.

"If Microsoft executes on its mobile strategy with the same competence and dexterity [with which] it has executed the launch of [Windows Phone 7], IDC believes that it will have a seat at the small table of the top two or three mobile application platform players in the next five years," Hilwa wrote.


Redmond has work to do, according to Hilwa, including adding support for CDMA phones (expected in the first half of this year) and delivering features like multitasking, copy and paste, and rich camera integration. It must also invest in the emerging tablet market space.

"They have a bit of a mythical man-month issue, in that they need to get a large number of rapid improvements to the software of Windows Phone 7, so they may feel that they do not have time to work on a tablet," Hilwa wrote, noting the difficulty of adding developers to speed up a project. "But they should try harder to put a parallel team together and mobilize more quickly on a tablet version by end of year, for example."

Would you develop for a Windows- or Windows Phone-based tablet? E-mail me at mdesmond@1105media.com.


About the Author

Michael Desmond is an editor and writer for 1105 Media's Enterprise Computing Group.

Reader Comments:

Wed, May 18, 2011 VLAZ Ontario

To Steve of PA.USA, This is a pretty closed minded statement to say 'Win 7 phone will never be considered as a viable tool by my dept'. Really? You wouldn't even check it out? And you have no idea what enhancements are coming down the pipe. Attitudes like that can kill companies. I have been playing around with my Windows Phone 7, and although my company has no current plans for development on the platform, I really like the experience on the phone and I think we will be writings some apps for it in the future.

Fri, Feb 11, 2011 Steve PA.USA

Win 7 phone will never be considered as a viable tool by my dept. We are currently learning Java for the Android market; esp the tablet. Why? Ms will not do it right; the rushed it out the door. Concepts were copied from market leaders and given the MS marketing treatment. What happens when product is rushed out the door? Viewpoints are developed by the early adopters. I gave up on MS hardware 7+ years ago when it took me 45 minutes to get a phone # from a WinPalm organizer. But, MS did the WinMouse right way back with win 3.1… What happened to that talented development team? Why will MS fail at the phone and tablet market? Read A.Brust's article in the back of your rag, "MS knows it has to do something"… Yes ok, that's the MS mantra:; do something, do it fast, and get it on the shelves in a manner similar to the Ford Pinto…. That, instead of developing a top class product in the manner of Apple or Google; "MS will do something." They predictably created a lukewarm turd, polished it, gave it to the marketing dept. They will use the same model with bad constraints for the tablet: it must run full blown win7. Well, predictably a few million lemmings will buy these devices and the same suckers can park them by their zunes, another polished lukewarm "we want one too" product. (PS: 1.5 mil shipments does not equate to sales, you should have specified that in your article). Your opening article is little more than propaganda as is 70+% of your rag. But, I am delighted by the rare gems that still hearken back to the old days of VBPJ: gems such as "Understanding the Dynamic Keyword in C# 4" or the March 2010 Language Lab article on Linq. Those articles are the only reason I don't just through your rag out upon delivery. Silverlight? A joke along with the data entity framework along with the deprecated Linq4Sql (long live ansi sql) along with the zune along with….. You see, most developers I know view your rag as primarily a bullhorn of the MS marketing dept. No matter how many articles you guys write preaching Silverlight, Sharepoint, DEF, et al; I would think intelligent (or at least seasoned) developers can easily determine the difference between tech writing and MS marketing dept dribble. It's quite easy to differentiate viable technology from technology born of the MS "we want one too" mentality. PSS: I dipped my toe into the DEF early and saw an extremely ugly, inefficient product; similar to MS's implementation of css in vs etc…

Wed, Feb 2, 2011 Lancelot Boston

As a Windows Phone Silverlight developer, I find the platform amazing to work with. Bygone are the days of painstakingly writing long segments of code to get small results. The Idea of the OS and it's programming environment makes the Windows Phone a breakthrough that even in it's infancy, it has taken users by storm

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