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Windows Phone 7 – A Great Device for Work and Play

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Some interesting stats:

  • Demand for Smartphones that play as hard as they work is fueling the continued growth for new devices, with IDC projecting 31% growth in Smartphone units in 2010 and another 22% in 2011.
  • More than 90% of our target customers for Windows Phone use their Smartphone for business purposes and 61% use their phones equally or more for business than personal use.

You probably have already heard of all the great application development features that will let developers create engaging and entertaining applications on Windows Phone 7 from the many great sessions available at MIX 10.

For Windows Phone 7 @ Work, check out Paul Bryan’s blog post on all the great business features that will be available.  If you have seen the Windows Phone 7 UI, you are familiar with the concept of a Hub, which is a top-level panorama (i.e. navigate left and right) experience.  The Office Hub brings PowerPoint, OneNote, Word, Excel and SharePoint to Windows Phone 7 in a single integrated experience. 

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The MobileTechWorld site includes a short video clip of the Office Hub experience from TechEd 2010 here.

 

Windows Phone 7 also includes many other features that IT organizations require without needing additional infrastructure:

  • Is built from the ground up using industry best practices in secure software development (Secure Development Lifecycle).
  • Deeply Integrates email, calendar and contacts with Exchange Server enablingrich, seamless email and calendar management to enhance productivity.
  • Integrates with SharePoint through the SharePoint Workspace client, enabling enhanced collaboration through offline document access and syncing.
  • Helps protect corporate information by securing the device through PINs and passwords. Information is further protected by not allowing access to data via PC tethering or support for removable SD cards. In addition, Windows Phone 7 supports IT managed EAS policies such asRequire Password, Password Strength, Remote Wipe and Reset to Factory Settings with multiple failed unlock attempts.
  • Helps ensure data reliability and integrity through application sandboxing and managed code. Windows Phone 7ensures communications channels between applications cannot be opened and critical system resources cannot be accessed. Most malware threats are introduced through the browser. IE Mobile helps ensure that malicious code cannot be launched from web sites, thus reducing this threat.
  • Provides certification and verification of applications and content through Windows Phone Marketplace, further enhancing security.
  • Enables secure data transmission through 128 or 256 Bit SSL Encryption.
  • Supports secure access to on-premise applications and network resources using Forefront Universal Access Gateway (UAG).
  • Is future ready with cloud / services integration. Through the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), Microsoft offers hosted Exchange and SharePoint services. Windows Phone 7 will support mobile access to BPOS from Outlook Mobile and the Office Hub.

I don’t think customers would expect anything less from Microsoft than a great information worker experience that is ready for business.  Please check out the above links and let me know what you think.