The Boss Closes the Deal

Microsoft CEO and Chairman Steve Ballmer came out to summarize the Windows Phone 8 launch Oct. 29 at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. Virtually all the major phone makers—except Apple, of course—will have a device that will run on Win 8 starting in the next few weeks.

Ballmer showed Win 8 phones from Nokia, HTC, Samsung, Qualcomm and several others at the launch event. They will range from $99 (plus a carrier data plan) to around $300, depending upon the feature set and data storage.

Ballmer said that Taiwanese device maker HTC, which also makes Android phones for Google, was inspired to build an all-new smartphone for Windows 8, which takes full advantage of the new “live” user interface and lock screen.

This new Windows 8 phone was the largest new device by screen size that debuted at the launch. Samsung is also making Windows 8 tablets.

Nokia, which went into an important partnership with Microsoft in 2011 in an effort to save its smartphone business against competitors such as Apple and Google, debuted its most powerful Windows 8 phone at the event—Lumia 920. It will become available in November.

Microsoft’s new Windows 8 phones all carry native connections with all other Microsoft PCs, notebooks and tablets through the SkyDrive cloud storage services. Word documents, photos, video and music can be shared through this service and the interface comes installed on all devices.

Some of the new Windows 8 phones come with optional Beats Audio, the high-end sound system that Hewlett-Packard uses for its notebooks and workstations. Connection with SkyDrive enables users to access their music at any time, and if a device gets lost, the music doesn’t.

Windows 8 phones come with a universal Outlook bridge for contacts, email and calendars that can be used with any other device—including iPhones (right).

Microsoft enlisted the help of actress Jessica Alba at the event. She explained how she and her daughter, Honor, use the phones together to play games, surf the Web, and connect with friends and family members through Skype—now a Microsoft company.

Users can create their own lock screen on Windows 8 phones and include photos, notifications, news feeds, email messages, text messages—basically anything they want. Never a dull moment on the phone screen; users won’t see the same intro more than once.

Microsoft is rapidly building its outside development community. The company claims more than 120,000 applications are now available in the Windows store and that “hundreds” are becoming available each day. Pandora, the popular customized-music site, is coming early next year.

Nokia has some cool new charging devices. This one enables a user to simply lay it down on the “carpet,” and the phone will be charged up in a short period of time.