Microsoft, Mobile Phones and the Battle of the Smart Phones

I listened to the really interesting Guardian Technology podcast, where the guy from Microsoft was on talking about their strategy and plans for Windows Mobile 7 and its updates. Microsoft stuck to the same line around sales figures (i.e. not saying much) but did talk about the new features they added in a software update. The one I found most interesting was the idea around trying to break down the walls between different communication streams, so email to text to twitter would seem, well seamless. This is not a million miles from the idea behind Google’s now discontinued Wave. While it has issues as an idea, I also think its a powerful tool that would give Windows Phone 7 the identity it needs.

This, I think, is where Microsoft’s recent purchase of Skype comes in. There has been much speculation about why Microsoft spent a huge wedge of cash on Skype – but when you’re trying to make your smart phone software smarter than the competition, they being able to lever in the largest VOiP network going is a huge advantage. I think there is a strong chance we’ll see Skype steadily integrated more and more into Windows Phone 7 until it s part of the system itself – and the boundaries between one form of communication and another, which in the digital realm become less and less meaningful, further dissolve.