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of Windows smartphones in an offensive against Apple's iPhone and
Google's Android system. Around 30 types of 'Windows phones' with
various designs will be available by the end of the year in more than
20 countries. Seven phone-makers, including Sony, Samsung and
Toshiba, and 16 operators including Orange, Vodafone and T- Mobile,
are involved in the launch. The phones, which combine the ability
to make calls, surf the Internet and view videos, carry Microsoft's
Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. 'We have done a lot of work on
the user interface, we simplified the user interface,' Ballmer told
a news conference at Microsoft's new French headquarters near Paris
in Issy-les- Moulineaux. 'We have taken the Internet Explorer
browser technologies, and we rebuilt them for the first time for
these Windows phones. So you can get the same experience on these
phones that you will get on your windows PC,' he said. The new
mobile operating system was launched simultaneously in France and
New York on Tuesday. With Tuesday's launch Microsoft hopes to
reassert itself on the smartphone market, where it has lost ground.
The sector is considered especially promising, with 29 per cent jump
in sales expected this year. But in the second quarter only 9.0
per cent of all smartphones sold were equipped with Microsoft's
operating system, against 12 per cent a year earlier, according to
the Gartner research group. At the same time, Apple's iPhone has
seen its share jump from 2.8 to 13.3 per cent.
