Yesterday, Steve Ballmer took the stage to orchestrate the introduction of his company's long-awaited revamp of its phone operating system. We've picked up a few review units, but aren't able to talk about them at the moment, so we thought we'd share some of our photos of the event to hold you over until the reviews are ready. Some of them reveal a bit about the Windows Phone 7 interface.
The initial marketing tagline, partially obscured by the CEO, is that Windows Phone 7 is "Always Delightful" and "Wonderfully Mine." Not exactly catchy, but it refers to a fluid, animated interface and extensive customization options.
More realistically, Ballmer hopes that an array of hardware makers, including Dell, will keep people from seeking the Droids. Although the hardware makers can differentiate on features, there are minimum hardware requirements for running the new OS, including a touch interface, three hardware buttons, and a 1GHz Snapdragon processor.
Microsoft has succeeded in that there are an array of hardware makers with products that will be ready for launch, and the phones will be on a number of carriers.
With multiple phones coming from multiple vendors, just about every carrier will get in on the Windows Phone 7 action. AT&T will be one of the major launch partners, and its CEO, Ralph de la Vega, was on hand for the introduction. His company will offer three different phones with differentiating features like hardware keyboards.
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