The last three years has seen an explosion in new smartphone operating systems. Apple's iPhone OS, Google's Android, Palm's webOS, and Nokia's Maemo all offer rich, touch-driven platforms for a new generation of fast, Internet-capable, high-end telephonic pocket-sized computers. The one company missing from that list is, of course, Microsoft. Though a long-time player in the smartphone OS market, Windows Mobile is outclassed by its competition. The recent 6.5 release has done little to redress the balance. Windows Mobile is slow, unstable, clunky, and fundamentally not designed for use with fingers. Today at Mobile World Congress, Microsoft showed off its new phone platform for the first time. Everything that we knew and loathed about Windows Mobile is gone. Even the name is different. It's now "Windows Phone 7 Series."
