One of Microsoft's biggest problems in the past was that they did not enforce minimum hardware requirements for Smartphones who used their Windows Mobile Operating System. Depending on the Smartphone manufacturer, the appearance could widely differ and with that the user experience. Although the manufacturers were to blame for this, the users perceived the Operating System for many faults. To avoid a similar disaster, Microsoft decided to force the standards for its new mobile platform on hardware manufacturers. With this they ensure that the Windows 7 operates on a top notch hardware and there are no performance issues due to hardware limitations. All users are getting the same basic experience, independent of the Smartphone.
Let’s take a look at the proposed hardware:
Processor: ARM v6+, L2 Cache, VFP, Open GL ES 2.0 graphics HW (QCOM 8k, Nvidia Tegra AP15/16* and TI 3430 all meet spec). With this top notch mobile processor, Microsoft wants to emphasize low power consumption (long battery life) and high performance for playing video and audio.
Memory: 256MB+ DRAM, 1G+ Flash (at least 512MB fast flash 5MB/s unbuffered read @4K block size). This minimum amount of on-board memory will guarantee that OS will work with enough resources to smoothly work on each phone. Flash memory will ensure that users have extra storage to move files, pictures, and music from the phone to PC and back to the phone.
Display: WVGA (800 480) or FWVGA (854 480) 3.5 or greater. This display format will enable full page viewing of webpages.
Touch: 4 point multi-touch required. This is an enhancement to touchscreen technology, which provides the user with the ability to apply multiple finger gestures simultaneously onto the electronic visual display to send complex commands to the device.
Controls: Start, Back, Search are required (soft controls allowed as long as they are always present) This keyboard minimum requirement is geared toward smooth browsing of the Internet as well as going back and forth in the menus of the phone.
Camera: 5MP+, flash optional, 2nd camera optional (VGA resolution sufficient). The high resolution camera will allow the phone to act as a camera and a camcorder.
Sensors: Light Sensor, Compass (3 axis, 5 degrees, 100 Hz sample rate), Accelerometer (3 axis, 2mg resolution, 100 Hz sample rate). Mostly used for GPS calibration.
USB: High speed required, 20 MB/s transfer rate. This fast speed will enable fast synch between the phone and the PC.
Microsoft is making sure that their software, Silverlight functionality, and the user experience is always top, and the only way to do that is by mandating the hardware that powers it. Microsoft wants you to love using your phone, and not worry about a process slowing you down. This can become a great strategy because it will ensure that users have a fast and responsive phone experience. By imposing higher regulations, they try to avoid a repeating of previous failures where the OS was good but hardware was sub-par, causing users to complain about the experience. Microsoft wants to avoid compatibility issues and it wants to reduce the amount of time it takes phone manufacturers to take the Windows Phone operating system and create a device with it, making a single basic hardware platform a major advantage.
References:
Gizmodo, "What's Wrong With Windows Mobile And How WM7 and WM8 Are Going To Fix It", Dec 14, 2007, http://gizmodo.com/333536/whats-wrong-with-windows-mobile-and-how-wm7-and-wm8-are-going-to-fix-it
MostlyTech, "Windows Mobile 7 minimum hardware requirements", http://mostlytech.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/windows-mobile-7-minimum-hardware-requirements/
KnowYourCell, "Windows Mobile 7 minimum hardware requirements outed", Jan 28, 2010, http://www.knowyourcell.com/news/406317/windows_mobile_7_minimum_hardware_requirements_outed.html
Mashable, "Dell Lightning Is the Windows Phone 7 Device You Have Been Craving", Apr 22, 2010,
http://mashable.com/2010/04/22/dell-lightning/
Redmond Pie, "Windows Phone 7 vs. iPhone", Feb 16, 2010,
http://www.redmondpie.com/iphone-vs-windows-phone-7-series-9140452/
