Big demand keeps UAE waiting until November

Dubai: Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 will hit store shelves in the UAE in the first week of November, according to Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft's Corporate Vice-President of Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).

"I apologise in advance," he said during his keynote speech yesterday at Gitex. "There is a lot of demand for the phone right now so it will take a while to get them all to trickle out."

Guggenheimer leads the Microsoft division that works with manufacturers, such as Dell and HTC, that use Microsoft software in their devices.

His presentation at Gitex included an overview of a number of devices from smart phones to large gaming computers. He also provided glimpses of a number of tablet PCs, similar to the iPad, which he said were still being developed.

The line-up featured a number of new innovations, including notebooks with digital keyboards and a notebook with two screens that folded up behind each other.

He said all the new changes taking place in the platforms available could cause confusion.

"The trick in all this is to take advantage of all the changes and all the opportunities to drive innovation forward on behalf of our collective customers and not get to bogged down or too mired in what could become overload," he said.

Guggenheimer also talked about Windows 7, which was launched at last year's Gitex. He said Microsoft has sold 175 million licences, making it the fastest selling operating system (OS) ever, and that about 17 per cent of total operating systems globally are Windows 7.

He also highlighted a number of features on the mobile version of Windows 7, including the ability to play multiplayer games across handsets. Players for now will be limited to traditional games like chess or checkers, he said, but that as bandwidth increases, the games would move closer to operating in real time.