Nokia Windows Phone 7 Runing MANGO

the world's largest phone maker by volume, said on Friday it was increasingly confident its first Windows Phone would reach consumers this year. There is one thing that the Microsoft mobile OS has always had that no other mobile platform can really match--Microsoft Office. Windows Phone 7--especially "Mango"--goes beyond the Office Mobile apps with the Office Hub, so today I am going to jump into the Office Hub and see how "Mango" lets you be more productive on the go.

"As we stated previously, we have increased confidence we will ship our first Windows Phone product this year," said Nokia spokesman Doug Dawson. Nokia is in the midst of changing its smartphone software platform to Microsoft's Windows Phone from its own Symbian. Let's be honest--it's a smartphone. Your screen real estate will vary some based on the exact hardware model you are running "Mango" on, but the reality is that you aren't going to create a multi-worksheet Excel spreadsheet with charts or pivot tables, or write the next great American novel on your smartphone.

But, even if the smartphone is not going to be your platform of choice for content creation, it's hard to argue with the awesomeness of being able to view and edit Microsoft Office files natively, or to even create a simple Word document or Excel spreadsheet in a pinch.I can create new OneNote files, new Word documents, or new Excel files from the smartphone. It even has a handful of templates to choose from--things like Agenda, Expenses, Mileage Tracker, Golf Scorecard, and more.

I have advocated for years that Microsoft should be aggressively developing Microsoft Office Mobile apps for all platforms. Even if Windows Phone 7 lives up to the loftiest of expectations and ascends to the number two position among smartphone platforms, it will still only have 20 or 25 percent market share. That leaves three fourths of the smartphones with no Office Mobile and possibly exploring alternatives.I'll get off my platform-agnostic Office Mobile for all soapbox now. I didn't even scratch the surface today, though, on actually using the Office Hub, and seeing how it works with the SkyDrive or Office 365 integration, so we'll call this topic "…to be continued."

Microsoft needs to give customers incentive to rely on Microsoft Office, and Microsoft's backend infrastructure (Exchange, SharePoint, etc.). It needs to make this same, consistent experience available on iOS, Android, and any other platform that comes along.