ITRefresher

BARCELONA: The frenetic pace of the mobile phone industry has forced some of the technology world’s largest players to make a break with the past. Microsoft, Intel and Nokia all leaders in their respective markets have struggled to capitalize on the rise of a new class of smartphones that can tap into a vast pool of software.

On Monday at the Mobile World Congress, Microsoft presented new smartphone software, the Windows Phone 7 Series, that succeeds its Windows Mobile line. Steven A Ballmer, MS’s CEO, introduced the software to a room overflowing with journalists curious to see if it could live up to months of hype.

“There is no question in our minds that we needed and wanted to do some things that were out of the box and clearly differentiated from our past and hopefully you will agree clearly differentiated from other things going on in the market,” he said.

Windows Phone has a cleaner lo ok than most of today’s smartphone software, with just a handful of large, colourful icons atop a black background. Icons used to start tasks like e-mail or the calling functions are labelled with text, while bigger icons are used for services like photos and music. MS executives described the icons as live tiles that will update with relevant information, be it a new calendar appointment or a status update from a friend on Facebook.

The software borrows heavily from the interface on MS’s Zune music player, and all of the new Windows Phone products will have built-in music functions. MS has tied its Xbox Live gaming service into the phone software as well.