Windows Phone 7 Launches

Wired: Windows Phone 7 Launches

Microsoft and its mobile phone maker partners launched Windows Phone 7 today. It’s a completely new and ‘holistic’ operating system and environment that leaves the old Windows Mobile OS behind.

“Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s man in charge of mobile, has a favorite word when he talks about Windows Phone 7: “holistic.” The company’s mobile infrastructure underwent a sea change to make an operating system based on what users want, which required retooling its entire phone manufacturing and design strategy.

It even involved building robots, like the one pictured above, to make sure handsets work like you expect them to.

‘We’re taking responsibility holistically for the product,” Belfiore said. ‘It’s a very human-centric way of thinking about it. A real person is going to pick up a phone in their hand, choose one, buy it, leave the store, configure it and live with it for two years. That’s determined by the hardware, software, application and services. We’re trying to think about all those parts such that the human experience is great.'”