Microsoft"s head of the Windows Phone division, Andy Lees, has been doing the interviews for a number of media outlets in the past couple of days. In a new interview over at the Seattle Times web site, Lees takes some shots at Apple about its upcoming iPhone 4S and its iOS 5 operating system, as well as smartphones based on Google"s Android OS.
When asked if Apple "missed an opportunity" with the features of both the iPhone 4S and iOS 5, Lees replies, "Yes I do. I think, from an end user"s experience on the software, there"s a lot of interesting reviews written comparing us to iOS 5 and the amount that we"ve got done in 11 months — so some people [are] making comparisons of pace." He adds, "From a pure hardware perspective, I was surprised they"re not giving the consumer more choice. People want a variety of different things."
In terms of the phones that use Android, Lees states, "If you"ve used some of the [Android] phones, some of them are great, but some of them are not great. But it"s random. And it feels like, with some of them, that you"ve had several cooks in the kitchen trying to bake different things with the same thing. Whereas we have much more coherency in the totality of what somebody gets when they buy our phone."
Lees also talked about its plans for Windows Phone, saying that we should see some smartphones running the OS that will sell for below $100 for the 2011 holiday season. He also believe that interest in smartphones with Windows Phone 7.5 will increase, adding that "In terms of just the phone, having the choice of hardware and the quality of the experience are going to be accelerants. Over the next 12, 18, 24 months, I can see a lot of stars lining up."