Microsoft Previews Windows Phone 7 as Consumer-Enterprise Hybrid

WASHINGTON -- As it gears up for the holiday season, Microsoft is planning to bring to market a bevy of smartphones running its new Windows Phone 7 operating system, which the company says will cater to both the consumer and enterprise markets.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) made the final beta version of the mobile development tools for Windows Phone 7 available Tuesday morning, and plans to begin shipping out limited quantities of engineering test phones to select developers on Wednesday, a company executive said this morning here at Microsoft's annual Worldwide Partner Conference.

"Windows Phone 7 for us is a completely new strategy. We believe it's a completely different kind of phone," Lees said. "It's the first time ever that you get the PC, the phone, the cloud and the console all working in harmony."

The new smartphones are one dimension of Microsoft's vision of the personal cloud (fittingly abbreviated "PC"), which aims to provide users with nothing short of ubiquitous access to the whole of their digital world, built around the company's SkyDrive online storage service.

"What's our promise? Our promise is going to be: whatever is important to you, wherever you go," said Brad Brooks, corporate vice president of Windows consumer marketing.

Brooks went on to demonstrate several features, many in early beta, that will connect the content created on devices running Windows Phone 7 and Windows 7, including the forthcoming tablet computers the company confirmed yesterday.

Users with multiple PCs will be able to sync the contents of each device whenever they connect to the Internet, which aims to cut down on the need for removable storage devices or sending files as e-email attachments.

Similarly, the Windows Phone 7 smartphones the company is prepping will be able to automatically sync their content to a user's personal cloud when docked in a charger. They will also be able to sync files with other users' computers using their Windows Live ID.

On the consumer side, when users downloads a song from Microsoft's Zune music service, a copy of the file will reside in their personal cloud, so they can access it from any device.

But the line between enterprise and consumer IT is "disappearing," Brooks said. Social networking is no longer just an after-hours affair, just as people expect to be able to access work applications from their personal devices.

"The things that we use at home are now the things that are being asked for at work," Brooks said. "The line between what do we do at home and what do we do at work is becoming more and more blurred."

The so-called consumerization of business IT is a guiding principle in Microsoft's work on the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 devices.

So, for instance, the phones will be able to display entries from a user's Exchange and Windows Live calendars alongside one another.

"I want to be perfectly clear: This phone, although we like to demo a lot of the consumer things, it's for business and consumers," Lees said. "It's the first time ever that you have Office, SharePoint, Zune, Windows Live, Xbox Live, Bing, Facebook all integrated into a unique experience."

The user interface will be grouped around "hubs" that are set up as portals to content of a similar kind across a variety of applications. The photo hub, for instance, would provide access to images from Facebook, Windows Live or other applications. Similarly, the Office hub would enable users to access work content from SharePoint, OneNote and other business applications.

Part of Microsoft's vision of a seamless experience across different devices of different form factors involves reversing what Lees described as the "fragmentation" in design and functionality of the multiplicity of smartphones currently on the market.

The Windows Phone 7 developer platform will be the familiar Silverlight, .NET and XNA environments, with Visual Studio and Expression designated as the primary developer tools. More information for developers is available on Microsoft Windows phone website.

Lees said that Microsoft is working closely with its OEM partners to ensure that the software is consistent and "fully optimized" for the different devices.

The new phones will also come with access to a companion website that will enable users to perform remote functions on the devices. If, for instance, a user lost his Windows Phone 7 device, he could log in to the website and call the phone, deactivate it or delete its contents.

Microsoft is planning a simultaneous launch of Windows Phone 7devices in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

But even the most senior executives acknowledge that Microsoft has some ground to make up in the smartphone sector.

"We missed a generation with Windows Mobile. We really did miss almost a release cycle," CEO Steve Ballmer said in his opening presentation at the conference on Monday.

However, with the Windows Phone 7 operating system, which the company debuted in February at an industry conference in Barcelona, Microsoft is looking to close the gap with a set of mobile devices that will cater to the consumer market while at once meeting the needs of corporate IT managers.

"I think we will give you a set of Windows-based devices which people will be proud to carry at home, and which will really fit and support the kinds of scenarios that enterprise IT is going to make happen with the phone form factor," Ballmer said.

Kenneth Corbin is an associate editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.