At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, Microsoft  finally unveiled the latest version of Windows Mobile. The company took two years to develop the new OS, starting essentially from scratch. The result is a world class smartphone operating system and UI that actually has a chance to make Microsoft a player in the space again. The company has been operating in the mobile space for a while, of course, but after Apple  and Google entered the market, Microsoft had no choice but to chuck its old OS in favor of a more competitive version.

To understand Microsoft’s approach to the market with Windows Phone Series 7, we need to examine the diametrically opposing ways its competitors develop products for the space. Apple epitomizes the closed approach. Google and the open source community, on the other hand, view smartphones as an open platform for design and innovation. While both approaches have merit, Apple’s move to drive software developers to write and support a specific OS has helped the company go from zero to 25 percent market share in less than three years. It has served the company well and has generated a lot of money for the developers of the iPhone’s more than 150,000 apps.
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