As Oprah named the Apple iPad her favorite thing, it looks like the day-time television shows are the latest battleground in the mobile war. Not to be outdone, Microsoft had its Windows Phone 7 devices prominently featured in a recent Ellen Degeneres show.
Devices like the HTC Surround with Windows Phone 7 were part of a giveaway on the show. Contestants vying for $10,000 in cash used the Windows Phone 7 handsets to use Bing local search to find a Chicago landmark and then use the camera to snap a photo of them kissing a stranger under some mistletoe. Only one person won the $10,000 but all the 10 participants were able to keep their Windows Phone 7 device.
While some of us may laugh at Oprah and the Ellen Degeneres show getting involved, both of these shows can garner a lot of attention with mainstream users. This is obviously a paid placement by Microsoft and I think it’s a smart one if it hopes to make Windows Phone 7 a success.
While it’s too early to call Windows Phone 7 a flop the early sales numbers we’ve seen indicate it’s not as big of a success as Microsoft had hoped. I’d imagine we’ll get some solid sales numbers from Microsoft around CES time and the Ellen Degeneres show shout out can only help.
You can check out our full review here to get our take on the new Microsoft smartphone platform. Basically, it’s a gorgeous-looking interface that has a lot of potential but the lack of copy and paste and other features makes it trail the iPhone and Android.
A software update is coming is January that should fix the copy and paste issue, as well as add support for CDMA providers like Sprint and Verizon. This could actually be the most important thing because Verizon and Sprint represent more than 130 million potential customers for Microsoft to go after with its mobile platform.
[Via Mobility Digest