Windows Phone Thoughts: Microsoft Looking to Help Windows Phone 7 OEMs Develop Unique Applications

"Here's the simple truth about touchscreen smartphones: it's the software, dummy. Just look around at all the flagship handsets... other than a choice of with or without a QWERTY, today's handsets all look pretty much the same and are built using the same off-the-shelf components with very few exceptions."

One of the side effects of the Windows Phone 7 UI interface being immovable from an OEM perspective is that there's very real possibility that many of these devices will feel the same from a software perspective. That's the catch-22 you get when you enforce a UI - but I still believe it's the right thing for Microsoft to do. They are, however, going to be helping their OEM partners to add some "secret sauce" to the overall user interface. Hopefully, to good effect!