I’m not going to start off by setting unreasonable expectations for the readers here. Maybe my honesty will garner more attention than the typical fare (“Windows Mobile Should Scare Apple” or “Window at War with Apple”). Apple and WinMo phones are likely going after completely different market segments – Windows has never been all that attractive to folks who enjoy paying twice the reasonable amount for a device or piece of software.

I will say this, though: Microsoft is definitely back, baby. Windows Mobile was one of the first truly workable (and hackable) solutions for mobile devices.  I enjoyed using it on an old Asus palmtop computer, which in the face of what was available from Palm and Handspring at the time (and generally more affordable than the inspiring but ultimately cost-prohibitive Nokia smartphones).

There’s no denying in recent years, in the face of the iPhone, the Palm Pre, Android, and even Symbian OS, the Microsoft Mobile offerings have been looking a little dated.

Today That All Changes

Windows Mobile is back, and it’s updated for today’s prettified, highly animated mobile experience.

Stowe Boyd really cut through the press release regurgitation better than most of the rest of the analysis and said in plain English what’s apparent to the rest of us:

They have thrown away the general purpose file/folder/desktop environment so familiar to programmers, and moved ahead to an environment designed around information streaming to the device or to the user.

Here we see the adoption of ’tiles’ — rectangular information objects that access streams or stores of information when touched. These ’tiles’ will replace the notion of running apps, or opening files, or initiating a connection to the web through a browser, although it seems like we are going to be stuck with the browser metaphor for some time.

The deepest shift at work in these new environments is a transition to information flows away from information stores.

Microsoft has embraced social today in just the same way that Google embraced social wholeheartedly with Google Buzz. 

In essence, Microsoft is doing away with the PC-style architecture, as Stowe said, and not only changed the user interface, but to a cloud style architecture. By focusing closely on social networks, with Facebook, XBox and Zune, the resulting architecture relies heavily on the network, and consequently the cloud for storage.

Previous incarnations of Windows Mobile were essentially adaptations of the same Windows experience, pared down to run on an underpowered computer that fits in your palm.

What Will This Look Like?

Aside from the pictures of what’s being dubbed a “Zune Phone” by some, we’re seeing that there are an announced number of partners, both on the network and hardware side, that provides clues as to how these new WinMo7 devices will shape up. On the network side, we see the usual suspects for a global launch: AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone.

More interestingly is the list of manufactures: Dell, Garmin-Asus, HP, and Toshiba are the ones that really provide clues as to the breadth of what this might look like. Certainly, most expected devices to come out from HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Qualcomm that supported the new Microsoft mobile operating system. What wasn’t expected, or at least accounted for, was for Microsoft to deliver an operating system to PC makers that can apply it to devices ranging from not just mobile phones, but old school hand held devices (like an iPod Touch) or even a tablet PC.

If you notice the messaging in the official Microsoft releases today, you’ll notice that they took great care to lead with the fact that they’ve been “working on this idea for over a year.” This, to me, says to the inevitable iPad comparison that “this isn’t just a me too device to Apple, we had the idea first, we’re just not trying to brag about it out loud.”

Really? You’re Telling Me Microsoft Got Something Right?

Look, it’s hard to believe that Windows 7 is good, but guess what – it is. It beats the pants off of Windows Vista and every other operating system Microsoft has ever put out. I know, I’ve run them all. The problem isn’t that Microsoft hasn’t produced quality products the last few years – it’s that they’ve suffered from a crisis of marketing.

Think about it – they’ve been so far out of step from the zeitgeist of technology that paying millions of dollars for Jerry Seinfeld to hang out with Bill Gates didn’t do much but induce an irrational backlash from the blogosphere and the media. The Zune has always been a favorite by true fans of podcasting, both on the the producer side as well as the user side, yet has regularly received public floggings by the same group of media workers. Bing even gets panned by the Apple Fan Boy media corp (the folks that just so happen to for some reason be assigned to Microsoft stories as well).

The problem with the public narrative is that these efforts by Microsoft are starting to get noticed, as Steven Hodson noted today:

Windows 7 proved it.

Xbox, even though it took a number of years and a lot of money, proved.

Bing, even though it will probably take a few years and a lot of money, could prove it as well.

Windows Phone 7 Series could very prove it as well.

The XBox is an undeniable, qualified success as both a media center PC as well as a gaming console (something Apple will never come close to touching in terms of success). Bing has grabbed a remarkable amount of marketshare, something that no search engine has been able to do since Google assumed it’s dominant position. Windows 7 has continued to be a solid operating system, continuously failing to provide the humor mill with the volume of fodder that previous incarnations Windows XP, ME and Vista provided.

So while it’s only surprising that Microsoft got something right because their marketing up to last year has always been so wrong, it’s important to note that it’s always been their engineer-like approach to operating systems that got them where they were (which is stuck a decade behind on GUI design). Once they started applying decade appropriate aesthetics to their products (as they started with Vista, the XBox 360 and Windows 7) did people start seeing their products as relevant again.

WinMo7 is the start of something big.