Windows Phone Thoughts: PC World: Microsoft Should Focus On Apps

"In an ideal world, Microsoft would have led the smartphone revolution from day one. With a dominant role in enterprise server operating systems and messaging, and a virtual monopoly on the desktop operating system and office productivity software, it seems like it should have been a natural extension of what Microsoft already offers to extend that same functionality to a mobile platform like a smartphone."

PCWorld's Tom Bradley thinks that Windows Phone 7 will arrive with too little, too late to help Microsoft regain it's footing in the smartphone sweepstakes. That's an opinion shared by many, given the dominance of Blackberry in entreprise and Apple's and Google's storming of the consumer market. The key to this thinking here is apart from RIM, Microsoft already supplies the backbone infrastructure for everybody else through Exchange - hence the conclusion that Microsoft should just forget about competing in hardware (which they don't build anyway), and just concentrate on the server side where it already has a big revenue stream in place. That's sensible advice, one that I would expect from a management consultant, but WP7 is really a complete reboot of Microsoft's mobile strategy and platform with only residual brand goodwill (or really "badwill") from Windows Mobile. The key to WP7's success I think is really whether the OS delivers on its promise, and whether developers will support it, and it's far to premature to talk about that until WP7 devices actually hit the streets and we can get our grubby hands on one. Thoughts, people?