Steve Ballmer is about to take the stage at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
We'll be live blogging his talk here. We'll be curious to hear what he says about tablets, Nokia, and Windows Phone 7.
So far, it's mostly about small updates for Windows Phone 7 -- multitasking is coming, Twitter integration, and IE 9.
Click here to see the latest as we're updating this post as we go.
10:05: Ballmer has started ... he says the world has changed drastically in the last year. He's ticking off all Microsoft has done, from introducing WP7 to putting phones in consumers hands. Says update to WP7 coming in a few weeks.
10:07: If nokia's announcement is any indication, 2011 wil be as fast paced if not moreso as 2010. "Our top priority is to build phones people love."
10:08: As we survey initial customers, 93% of customers are delighted with Windows Phones. We're thrilled by the high degree of satisfaction. The consumers with WP7 phones will tell their friends to go buy one. They're broad evangelists for these phones.
10:09: Let me tell you why -- it starts with smart design. There are apps, but there are basics that people want to do. The market has been swamped with designs that all look alike. Good phones, but customers are happy with how different Windows Phones look. They like the difference they see. It's easier and faster to see information at a glance. (This is all stuff we've heard many times from Ballmer ... maybe he's talked out?)
With Bing you just ask your phone, Coffee? It gives you everything nearby. An example of a common task is taking pictures. With smart design and a windows phone, it is easy.
10:11: Continuing to invest in the smart design approach. We will bring multitasking to Windows Phones. We need to give people the full web, the full internet like they've come to expect with the PC. Past September we released beta version of IE 9 for PC. We had 25 million downloads. We just made the release candidate available. Today I want you to understand that later this year we will bring IE 9 to mobile.
10:14: Next up, hubs: Tiles that work on your behalf. Work into a single integrated experience. It is important because we love our apps we love our servies. We're trying to integrate things that are most important. We have 6 hubs. People hub. Social feeds, conatact info.
10:15: Office hub, brings productive side of our life. Backend for quick business collaboration. Sharepoint usage, keep your team moving along, even if you're at a keynote at Mobile World Congress. We'll soon add support for our Skydrive for consumers.
10:16: Next hub, pictures. Uploads copies automatically to cloud as backups with our Skydrive. So, first time you log into phone you get photos. Music hub integrates with cloud. Stream music, all without launching or searching for an app.
10:17: Marketplace is the hub for buying. Last but not least, is games hub. Integration with Xbox Live.
10:18: This year, 2011, we will bring Twitter integration. If you like Facebook integration, you'll love Twitter.
10:19: Now, Joe Belfiore is coming on stage. He's a big cheese on WP7 and he always does the demos. He's demoing the phone, showing off the camera feature, which is neat, but we've already seen it.
10:22: Now he's showing some use of local services. Says "Starbucks Coffee." Wireless service is not working in the auditorium because it's too packed. Yes. At the MOBILE World Congress, mobile connections don't work.
10:24: More demos of the people hub and the office hub. He's talking about IE 9. Going to show a video of IE9 on PC versus other browsers. He's showing a demo of Safari mobile versus IE9 mobile which makes Safari look very slow.
10:35: Now he's showing off multitasking. Press and hold back, and you can see all the apps you've been running. Similar to Apple's tray at the bottom that brings up older apps. It looks good, very fast switching.
10:37: The video signal just dropped on us ... waiting for it to return. It's back.
10:38: Now he's showing music running in the background. Music controls at the top of the screen. All features coming as a free update in 2011 (no date on when).
10:39: This is just some of the features. As you know Kinect was a hot seller. Wouldn't it be cool to make WP7 work with Kinect? We'll we're going to show you how it can be a companion, giving a different gaming experience.
10:40: Looks cool. You can use the phone as a controller. Shooting balls at someone who moves their body around to block them.
10:41: Now Ballmer is talking about OEM partners. Partners are critical for us and the consumer. Mobile opertors have brought WP products to market. Want to make sure operator can bring value. It will be the best place for operators to add value. We created relationships with software developers.
10:43: More applications on day 1 than any other phone at day 1. We have 8,000 apps in the marketplace, and it's rising at a rapid rate. 30,000 developers have registered in our marketplace. We've got a lot of work to do.
Click here to see the latest as we're updating this post as we go.
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LIVE: Steve Ballmer At Mobile World Congress (MSFT, NOK)
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