It’s not often that I offer praise upon Redmond’s strategic efforts, but this one is indeed praise-worthy.  For some time, Microsoft has been decidedly absent from the smart phone conversation.  Yes, Steve Balmer will contest that they ship their WinMo OS’s on a gazillion handsets each year, but the perception is that Microsoft has missed this wave, and much of that perception stems from the minimal innovation coming out of Redmond in the smartphone OS category.  Hopefully that is about to change, and if the tipster quoted in this article is to be believed, this is one of the ballsiest moves by Microsoft in some time.

Such a move is not without recent precedent for Microsoft.  For years, they got their hat handed to them in search by Google.  It was only when they took some risks and started thinking and acting more like a startup did the market take notice.  By all accounts Bing is a solid entry in the search category and is the first real compeition Google has faced in some time.  That’s a good thing.  I love Google, but competition will always be a win for consumers.

As for SmartPhones, Microsoft has avoided risk for many years, being content with releasing new mobile operating systems that were at best a marginal improvement over the previous version.  Apparently, that’s about to change and I for one am a fan.  I love my iPhone, but I don’t love it because Apple makes it.  I love it because Apple is a company that never seems content with anything they’ve built, and is constantly pushing the envelope of what’s possible.  If Microsoft could rediscover that element of their own DNA, we’d all be a lot better off and competition between Mac and PC would be even more interesting.