To say that Microsoft has yet to take a big slice of the smartphone market is an understatement. The company released Windows Phone 7 a year ago but smartphones with the OS installed still take up only a few percent of the entire smartphone audience. On the other hand, Google"s Android operating system has been highly successful. Since launching in 2008, the OS has gone through three generations, been installed on a ton of phones and tablets and is arguably the most popular of the smartphone operating systems. Google announced its newest version, Android 4.0, a few hours ago.
But if you made that argument to Microsoft"s CEO Steve Ballmer, he would likely laugh in your face. The executive was questioned at the Web 2.0 conference on Tuesday and according to Business Insider when asked about Android-based phones he said, "You don"t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone. I think you do to use an Android phone."
He did admit that the cheapest smartphones that go on sale this year will be ones that run on Android and that Microsoft will "have to do more work" in that area. He also praised another smartphone maker, Apple, saying it"s, " ... a good competitor, a different kind of competitor."
But he made it clear that he thought that Microsoft"s solution was the best, saying, "The notion of putting your own information front and center...it"s not seas of icons and blah blah blah...". He also confirmed that Nokia will be showing off "a bunch of new devices running Windows Phone" sometime next week, presumably at the Nokia World conference in London.