Microsoft's London Windows Phone launch: Stylish, upbeat, confident

I’ve just arrived back from the swish Microsoft Windows Phone party held tonight in London. Goodness me there’s a buzz about the company. The excitement was demonstrable and the beautiful people were out in force for the event.

“Are there a lot of famous people here, then?” I asked, scanning the crowd and recognising nobody. I was talking to Casey from Crown, the logistics team behind the event.

“Oh yes,” nodded Casey who then began to ream off the great and the good. I should point out that I recognised next to nobody because I spend most of my time with my head buried in mobile phones. Pop culture is most definitely not my thing. I am only cool when I step outside without a jacket.

I spent a good 30 minutes playing with one of the HTC Windows Phones as the beautiful people looked on. Indeed, I reckon I was the only person in the room who tried putting his own sim card into the HTC phone to activate an internet connection on the device to have a look around (there was a slight issue with the WiFi).

“What do you think of this?” I asked, thrusting the HTC in the face of what could well have been a famous actress. (The paparazzi were out in force, by the way — and they don’t bother unless it’s someone worth the effort). My wife would probably have recognised her instantly.

“Oh I think it’s lovely,” said the girl, her friends nodding vigorously.

“What phone do you use now?” I queried.

I understand, you see, that there’s meant to be some kind of ‘my gosh, are you so-and-so off-off TV‘ etiquette but I wasn’t bothering.

The girl didn’t appear too worried about my total lack of recognition and brought out her iPhone 3GS.

“I do love my iPhone,” she explained — before I could prompt her, she added, “But I think I would buy one of these… it’s just so nicely organised.”

Her colleagues all nodded away in agreement.

And you know what? I believed her.

Of course one expects a certain element of built-in positivity when you’re talking to someone who’s been invited to the launch event.

One person I did recognise was Eliza Dolittle, the ‘pack up yer troubles’ girl who’s doing very well this year in the charts. She popped on stage and did a very well received set. She also thanked Microsoft profusely for giving her a handset.

And guess what… I think she might even use it.

You know, I’ve been to many a launch event where the devices have just been dire. They’ve been shit before the company even launched them. It’s such a disappointing experience having to participate in going-through-the-motions when even the CEO tries and fails to demonstrate the device(s) nicely.

With Windows Phone, Microsoft are on to a winner. It does actually work. It is rather elegant. It’s nice and simple. Sharing media is effortless. The app experience looks good. You don’t have to force the touchscreen to work. You don’t have to wait patiently while the phone does the human equivalent of staring-at-the-wall for five minutes before doing what you’ve asked. It’s such a breath of fresh air.

I think Microsoft know they’ve got something good on their hands. The European team are excited. There’s a lot of energy flowing through them and their partners. Finally, their mobile products do not suck. So all the usual capability and super marketing agility that you associate with a company such as Microsoft can actually be of value.

I asked Oded Ran, Microsoft’s Windows Phone Consumer Marketing genius, if he had a message for you — the MIR reader.

“Most definitely,” he said, “Come down to the Orange Store on Oxford Street tomorrow [Thursday — i.e. today] at 7am and get your phone.”

I was half tempted. Oded has a point. This is an operating system you should not and cannot ignore. Whatever your immediate loyalty, whatever your built-in perspective, if you work in or around the mobile industry (and you’ve got the budget available) you should definitely get yourself a Windows Phone tomorrow or sometime soon. You just should. It’s Microsoft, they’re serious, they’ve done a *good* job with this version and I recommend carefully monitoring their performance. But most of all, you should experience it directly and physically. Watching Balmer lay out his stall online doesn’t count. Neither does browsing the Orange online shop or reading a review. Get one and see what you think.

My issue tomorrow is a logistical one. Logistical because, as nice as Orange are (and, they’re very nice people), I don’t think they’ll let me add another contract handset to my already burgeoning account. However I am due an upgrade on one of my Three handsets.

What of developers? Facebook’s live tomorrow, I hear. Touchnote is looking phenomenal (I was delighted to see it in Oded’s list of applications). The marketplace is looking full. There is confidence and excitement amongst the ranks of Windows Phone developers I’ve spoken to. 600,000 of them have downloaded the SDK so far. There’s a good few thousand on the store for tomorrow morning — so I don’t think the first lot of consumers will be disappointed.

I bumped into my colleague Belinda from LadyGeek (standby, our all new series of The App Show is coming soon) who was chatting away with Rikke Rasmussen (Developer & Business Marketing, Windows Phone, Microsoft). Rikke was going nuts with her HTC WP7 device, snapping photo after photo of the band and zipping them up to Facebook in short order. I have to say, it did look fun. I can see a lot of consumers enjoying the WP7 experience.

I asked Rikke if she had a message for you, too. She nodded, “Being a woman, loving gadgets is so much cooler now Windows Phone 7 is in the market.”

Again, I do agree. I am very excited to see how the market reacts. 

And what about your favourite app, Rikke?

“Right now, it’s got to be MSN Celebrities.”

I’ll need to look that one up.