Shout Hallelujah, Come On, Get Appy

When you think about Microsoft, a lot of adjectives come to mind, but hip and cool are probably not among them. Many consumers associate Microsoft only with the Windows machine they're using. And all those "I'm a Mac. I'm a PC" ads have made Apple users like me feel kind of sorry for PCs.

But it's a brand-new decade, and Microsoft is about to leapfrog Apple — and every other player in the cell-phone world — with the launch of Windows Phone 7 (WP7). (Get the latest gadget news and reviews on Techland.)

While many of us were preoccupied with cursing Windows Vista, Microsoft was busy developing a lineup of stellar non-Windows products, including the wildly popular Xbox game consoles and the Bing search engine, which is already averaging more than 3 billion queries a month. But the most underappreciated product in Microsoft's vast portfolio, the Zune digital media player, is about to roll all these products into one handy little phone that catapults Microsoft ahead of Apple, Google, Palm and BlackBerry's maker, RIM.

What sets Microsoft apart? For starters, every WP7 device, regardless of manufacturer, will have a dedicated search button that gives you one-click access to Bing — no hopping around required. WP7 will also let users play an assortment of Xbox Live games on their phones. (See the top iPhone applications.)

Both of these add-ons are certainly nice, but the real game changer is Microsoft's solution to a fundamental flaw in most mobile platforms. Instead of having to toggle back and forth between separate apps so you can check Facebook or send a tweet, the WP7 team figured out how to aggregate all your social-networking content in a People hub on your Start screen. Likewise, photos from your mobile device, PC and various social networks will be neatly organized within the Pictures hub. In all, WP7 has created six distinct hubs — People, Pictures, Music+Video, Games, Office and the App Store — like Marketplace, which is due to be open by the time the phones are available to consumers at the end of this year.

I was one of a handful of journalists who got a look at WP7 before the official Feb. 15 unveiling by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. And after spending some time with several core members of the Windows phone team, I walked away wondering if these vibrant people worked for the same company that gave us Vista. The team constantly referred to the WP7 project as a "gut check" because it was obvious that they had to do something different. And they did.

So is WP7 an iPhone killer? (Like you weren't wondering that.) No, but every other company, including Apple, will be racing to catch up with it. It's a bit surreal to lust for a Microsoft product, especially a Windows phone, but come Christmas, I'll be first in line to buy one.

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