Microsoft should abandon or entirely reboot its mobile strategy because its latest product is barely as good as the iPhone from 2007 on the present developer offer

The as-yet unreleased Windows Phone 7 is a "waste of time and money", a "disaster" that Microsoft should kill as soon as possible. So says Galen Gruman of Infoworld, who has watched an in-depth demonstration of the new phone software at Microsoft's Worldwide Partners Conference which has been going on all week at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

Windows Phone uses a "contact-centric" approach, where rather than doing "tasks" (in the iPhone app way), you are presented generally with contacts, and informed when someone has done something (updated their Facebook/Twitter feed, called you, etc). My personal first impression of the screenshots was "that's really not going to scale to the point where you have 300 people in your contacts book and 20 Facebook friends and 50 emails and 100 people you follow on Twitter and 30 apps", but I thought that was just me not following the thinking behind it.

But it looks like I may have been right.

Gruman started the year being impressed with early demos of Windows Phone 7 - but that's worn off in a big way.

"Announced to much bravado in February as the platform that would breathe life into Microsoft's mobile ambitions, Windows Phone 7 looked based on very early previews as if it might bring something new and exciting to the table. Back then, I noted that I was impressed by what I saw -- with the caveat "so far."

"No caveats now: Windows Phone 7 is a waste of time and money. It's a platform that no carrier, device maker, developer, or user should bother with. Microsoft should kill it before it ships and admit that it's out of the mobile game for good. It is supposed to ship around Christmas 2010, but anyone who gets one will prefer a lump of coal. I really mean that."

Ouch. What's happened, Galen?

"The early demos were intriguing due to the use of the card metaphor to organize apps and information, providing a possible fluidity among apps and information that would let users swim through their business and social activities. And the distinct UI -- though based on the unsuccessful Zune media player -- looked as if it would stand out from the crowd of mobile devices that have largely copied the iPhone UI, such as Google's Android, RIM's touch-oriented BlackBerry Storm, and Palm's WebOS."

Hmm.

"But that was just the lipstick. Now, in Microsoft's in-depth demo this week at the Mobile Beat conference, there's no mistaking the big pig behind the gloss. Seeing the UI in action across several tasks, not just in a highly controlled presentation, shows how awkward and unsophisticated it is -- I had the same feeling you get when you got a movie based on a great trailer, only to discover that all the good stuff was in the trailer and the rest of the movie was a mess. A pig, in fact."

There's plenty more; it's worth reading in depth. Gruman says that as well as resting on old technology, Windows Phone 7 is simply outdated:

"The bottom line is this: Windows Phone 7 is a pale imitation of the 2007-era iPhone. It's as if Microsoft decided in summer 2007 to copy the iPhone and has shut its developers in a bunker ever since, so they don't realize that several years have passed, that the iPhone has advanced, and that competitors such as Google Android and Palm WebOS have also pushed the needle forward. Microsoft is stuck in 2007, with a smartphone OS whose feature checklist might match that era's iPhone but whose fit and finish would look like a Pinto next to a Maserati."

Gruman went along to a presentation at WPC (which has been generally described as "lacklustre" - and certainly seems to have been much smaller than in previous years by all accounts) and was worried by what seemed like poor responses to the handful of outside developers who had come along.

Arguably, WPC is not the place where you're going to find the hottest WP7 developers; it's more about geeing up the people who will resell Microsoft products. But the fact that only a few months short of the grand launch of WP7 it can't wow even developers for the platform sounds bad. Gruman's description of the presentation makes it sound like one of those uncomfortable events where the tumbleweed was always at risk of rolling past.

And as for the "locked in a bunker since 2007" jibe - don't forget the Kin, which seems to have been the victim of political infighting at Microsoft, as the incoming developer team from Danger (which Microsoft bought to produce the Kin) found themselves mired in layers of management that effectively brought them to a dead stop. Read the full horror of it at the Mini-Microsoft blog (by a disaffected Microsoft manager, but the comments are from ex-Danger staff and others).

Back to Gruman, who points to the flaws with the "tiles" method:

"... the big tiles quickly eat up screen real estate (about four fit), so you don't get the compact access to apps that all the other major mobile operating systems provide. I bet this will depress app sales for those poor souls unlucky enough to get seduced by the Microsoft brand or the inevitable discounts at the cellular stores as the carriers try to dump these devices in January 2011 for $25 (shades of the unlamented Kin).

"Plus, Microsoft has done its usual trick of gumming up the UI, even though this one is relatively simple. There are two ways to navigate through tiles: in panorama mode and in pivot mode. In both cases, the tile continues to the right, and you swipe to see more. In panorama mode, cut-off text on the right indicates there's more (at Mobile Beat, a developer asked if users knew what that cut-off text was for, and the Microsoft rep essentially admitted they didn't get it was a way to say "more"). In pivot mode, each tile is self-contained, and there is an icon to indicate there is more. It's a subtle difference: Using a panorama basically means the tile continues because it won't fit on screen, while using a pivot means you have a series of what are essentially pages. I bet developers and users will get confused very fast.

"Visions of Vista's litter of control panel dialog boxes, Microsoft Bob, the Office ribbon, Clippy, and Windows 3 flew through my head -- not that Windows Phone 7 looks like any of these; it just shares the same flaw of being obtuse."

And that's only for starters. Other complaints: the browser, IE7 with a bit of IE8, doesn't support HTML5; there's no multitasking except for Microsoft's own apps (Android and, now, the iPhone both support cooperative multitasking by all apps); there doesn't seem to be interapplication communication for third-party apps; there's no copy-and-paste (emphasis added) - even though Apple was roundly and rightly criticised for not introducing it until summer 2009, and Windows Mobile 6.1 did have it.

Gruman says there's going to be no come-from-behind take-over-the-world for Microsoft if this doesn't succeed: RIM (prepping BlackBerry 6), Android, Apple and Nokia will all eat its lunch and dance on its grave.

At this point, people usually begin an ad-hominem, to ask whether Gruman is biased or (sigh) in the pay of company X or Y. Judge for yourself from the Infoworld author bio and item list.

Meanwhile, if anyone else has had a hands-on with Windows Phone 7 - via the developer kit or other methods - we'd love to hear about it. Good? Bad? Indifferent? What's it really like?