The crucial part of Microsoft’s new phone strategy is the quality control it imposes onto its hardware partners. Rather than code an operating system and allow manufacturers to do whatever they want with it–like Google is doing with Android–Microsoft is requiring hardware partners to meet a rigid criteria in order to run Windows Phone 7.
Each device must feature three standard hardware buttons, for example, and before they can ship with Windows Phone 7, they have to pass a series of tests directed by Microsoft.
[…]
With brand new test facilities, Microsoft is taking on the duty of ensuring that touchscreens and sensors are calibrated properly, for example, and each hardware model undergoes software stress tests to catch bugs and system errors. The end result should be getting very close to the same OS on smartphones made by different manufacturers. That in turn could mitigate the issue of fragmentation for third-party developers: They can effectively code the same app for a large party of devices without much tweaking.
It really seems that Microsoft is trying to have its cake and eat it, too. By letting third-parties build phones, they can stay out of the hardware game, while still having the oversight companies that build their own hardware and software do — like Apple.
The other day, I said this about OEM-built Android interfaces:
These UIs are in place by hardware manufacturers so their phones don’t have to stand on the merit of their hardware alone. Without custom skins, every Android phone would have the same software, making the phone market an much more even playing field.
Looks like Microsoft is going to force an even playing field, which isn’t bad news at all. It will make being a consumer much easier and less frustrating.
It goes without saying that universal software will make life easier for third-party app developers, who often have interoperability issues across Android devices.
More importantly, Windows Phone 7 will be able to avoid fragmentation, which is a huge problem right now in the Android universe. It looks like Microsoft is playing this one the smart way, by being heavily involved in what their hardware manufacturers can do with their software. Google could learn a thing or two here. Some customization is good, but Android is feeling more and more out of control.