Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 7

Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7 in late 2010 as a complete break from the aging Windows Mobile interface. Instead of trying to shrink the desktop Windows experience onto a phone, Microsoft built a touch-first design around large typography and Live Tiles.

The platform used a managed application environment based on Silverlight and XNA rather than allowing arbitrary legacy Windows software. This gave Microsoft more control over performance and interface consistency but meant developers had to write new applications. The operating system also imposed fairly strict hardware requirements on manufacturers.

Windows Phone 7 was praised for its distinctive interface but entered a market already dominated by iPhone and Android momentum. Its history shows a hard platform problem: a good operating system is not enough if users expect an application ecosystem that developers have little incentive to rebuild for.