Now,there is another breed of smartphones to keep tab of. Microsoft's Windows Phone will be the latest operating system to take on the clout of Apple's iOS,Google's Android and to some extent BlackBerry,Symbian devices. And from first looks,the Metro user interface of the Windows phone seems to have what it takes to last a long race. The Windows Phone tries to be different from the popular breed of smartphones by reducing its dependence on apps. Yes,the new tile-based Metro interface will also have apps,but users will not have to turn to them for regular functions. For example,Facebook and Twitter feeds,mail and messages will all be in one integrated stream,all built in into the phone. So you wouldn't need to download a Facebook app just to do something as basic as browsing through your friends' photos. Microsoft thinks this is the "smarter way of looking at apps". Your contacts will also become threads with all conversations becoming a single stream in the People Hub,another bunch of live tiles with familiar faces. Moreover,the interface is very fluid and intuitive and there is absolutely no learning process involved here. The multi-tasking here is very real and you can simply switch from one process to the other. But is India ready for another kind of phone? "It's never too late for anything in India. We see a huge opportunity," says Bhaskar Pramanik,chairman,Microsoft India. And he has a point. For,the smartphone segment in India has been growing at around 60 per cent and roughly around 3 high-end million phones were sold last year. Industry experts feel around 70 per cent of Indian customers would be using some kind of smartphone by 2015. And for a market like India,that is an obscenely huge figure. Vikas Arora,Microsoft's Group Director (Operations Channel),explains that what they are offering is not a feature-based,but experience-based interactive phone. "We think it will be an extension of your personality. The phone will let you go beyond the browser," he adds. Windows Phones will run exclusively on Qualcomm's Snapdragon S2 processors. HTC Radar,which became available in India on Wednesday,will be the first phone in the country to run the OS and will cost Rs 25,490. Samsung's Omnia W and Acer Allegra will be available in the market in the coming weeks.
