The February announcement of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Series software at a mobile phone industry conference in Barcelona, Spain, clearly shows the company's overhaul of its not-so-well-excepted Mobile phone software; marking its move to try and "move beyond the PC metaphor of icons on a desktop," as user interface expert Joe Belfiore put it.

Keeping in view the users' complaints about the Mobile phone software's bland interface, slow response time, and tediously repeated `clicking' for performing tasks, the Windows Phone 7 has essentially been designed for anticipating the phone users' needs - it can automatically tap into the carrier's data network to display appointments, photos and messages; which it presents in a notably slick manner.

For the creation of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft virtually revamped its phone software unit two years back - bringing in the company's top workers into the phone business; as well as hiring people from firms like Nike and Procter & Gamble, to incorporate different viewpoints.

Admitting that Microsoft's clunky Windows Mobile design had been a disaster, especially vi-a-vis the smartphone market-leader Apple and its iPhone, Terry Myerson, the company's VP of Windows Phone engineering, said that for building Windows Phone 7, the company had to virtually begin from a scratch.

Myerson said: "To be entirely candid, the iPhone opened our eyes as to some things that needed to be done that were not in our plan."