Editorial: Windows Phone 8 looks good, but can it uproot those entrenched in other ecosystems?

At the tail end of Microsoft's marathon Windows Phone Summit keynote, the company's own Kevin Gallo said the following: "Everyone in the Windows ecosystem benefits." He was waxing poetic about the myriad new features coming to the outfit's latest and greatest mobile operating system, and nothing about his quote was incorrect. Developers will adore the shared codebase. Users will adore the new additions to the software framework. Carriers probably won't shun the opportunity to push yet another platform this holiday season. But the one word in there that sticks out most to me is this: "Windows."

I've been wrestling with the ecosystem issue for some time, but the gravity of it has never been so evident. Starting in 2008, one could argue that it stopped being purely about hardware. Purely about design. Purely about software. Purely about partnerships. Particularly when it came to smartphones. Slate-style handsets were en vogue years ago, with design changing extremely little and software becoming ever more of a factor. But it wasn't just software in the simplest sense -- it was how the software was interconnected to every other piece of the digital ecosystem. Phones were no longer standalone devices; they were simply the most convenient entry into a rabbit hole that Microsoft's going to have a tough time digging people out of. Allow me to explain.

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Editorial: Windows Phone 8 looks good, but can it uproot those entrenched in other ecosystems? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.