Microsoft redoes phone software

Users never embraced its bland interface, sluggish response time and businesslike menus that required lots of clicking to perform tasks.

In Barcelona, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore spoke of getting past “the PC metaphor of icons” on phones. Microsoft’s new smartphone software, Windows Phone 7 Series, turns a phone into something akin to an electronic butler that tries to anticipate the user’s needs. It automatically taps into the carrier’s data network to pick up appointments, photos and messages from friends, and it presents all this information in a slick fashion that resembles a Zune music player more than a personal computer.