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Microsoft's (news, site) Windows 7 Phone-powered devices are doing a brisk trade, but what do the developers writing the first apps think?
The Enterprise 2.0-era world needs data accessible everywhere, at any time and the smartphone is a big part of the solution. Ray Ozzie (Microsoft's recently departed head of software) said that the company must accept the end of the PC and look forward. Windows Phone 7 represents the first major step in this direction for the company and its many partners.
On launch day, we looked at how Microsoft was leveraging the power of Xbox Live, Office and other properties to drive it into the mass and business mobile markets.
Responding to this, Chad Brown, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at IdentityMine, a user experience (UX) company that designed the IMDb app for Windows Phone 7, shared his expertise and opinions on its future.
Q: Having read the article, what do you see as Microsoft's strengths and weaknesses in the mobile world today?
Brown:. Microsoft has some serious goods to deliver in the enterprise. However, with consumers driving mobile device decisions they must get a win with the consumer first. There are four must haves to compete in the mobile market today:
- Great device
- Great design
- Great store
- Great apps.
With the release of Windows Phone 7 they made huge strides in the first three. With partners like IdentityMine they are quickly closing in on #4.
Microsoft adds a potential 5th factor and that’s “Great tools”. In this case, the incumbents will be playing catch-up and this is, possibly, why Microsoft can quickly move on building Great Apps. Time will tell.
IMDb on Windows Phone 7
Q: Tell us a little about your background and your work as a user experience company, do you think UX has played a more important part of smartphone evolution than it has on the desktop? (In a similar vein, do you think UX is being taken more seriously with the arrival of smartphones?)
Brown: I have a “large consulting firm” background. When co-founding IdentityMine, its focus was on marketing emerging technologies. This required serious technology chops, broad industry exposure, and an appreciation for design. IdentityMine has become a mature user experience company retained by our customers to deliver a competitive advantage for their software products. Our business has grown even during the economic downturn, and that’s because people have been given a taste of good user experience and now they have an appetite for more.
That exposure to great UX has come from early adopter ISVs, trend setting websites and absolutely the smartphone, namely iPhone. User experience is now a major component in our perception of “quality”. The next couple of years will offer companies the opportunity to meet or exceed this new and constantly raising UX bar or disappear into yesterday.
Q: What did you think when you first saw the WP7 interface?
Brown: I wasn’t sure at first. However, it grew on me quickly. The font and layout is clean and fresh, which gives the phone a very modern feel. Although I really like the iPhone, the UX is already starting to feel a little out of date; the app launcher paradigm is also getting old. Windows Phone 7 takes an approach somewhere between the open Droid model and the closed Apple model, and allows for some creativity within provided guidelines. How stringent Microsoft will be on these guidelines long-term is unknown. The applications we created for Twitter, IMDb, Graphic.ly, SBB, and others were under quite a bit of scrutiny, which makes sense because they will be the reference apps for future developers.
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