Microsoft officially launched Windows Phone 7 Series (previously referred to as Windows Mobile 7, Windows Phone 7, or even Photon) on Monday, dropping the gauntlet on what will shape up to be a mighty mobile battle come Christmas.

A whole new OS

Windows Phone 7 Series Phones, as the new devices will be officially known (yikes), will be a complete departure from the Windows Mobile devices we are all familiar with and feature a brand-new, possibly revolutionary UI. The Start menu? Gone. Touch elements designed for six-year-old fingers? Gone. In fact, Microsoft’s new OS is aiming to change the mobile phone paradigm by shifting away from an app-centric model to an experience or task-based system that groups your personal data, social networking streams, location-based services, and media sources into what Microsoft calls ‘hubs’ (more later)

Reflecting their determination to re-define the relationship between end-user and their phone, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced at the Barcelona 2010 Mobile World Congress:

“In a crowded market, filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 marks a turning point toward phones that truly relfect the speed of people’s lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.”

Joe Belfiore, vice president of Windows Phone, said it was time to stop thinking about mobile phones like PCs:

“A phone is not a PC, it’s a smaller, more intimate device,” he said. “Too many phones are made to look like PCs. We wanted to come up with a user design that was different, that moved beyond the metaphor of the PC.”

Live Tiles

This ain’t your daddy’s Windows Phone. Microsoft has taken advantage of the fact that it is so late with this product to properly think out how people use their mobile devices. They have no doubt heard for years now about how un-finger-friendly Windows Mobile is and how counter-intuitive it can seem compared to its competition. They’ve seen people complain about icon overload and the app-to-app routine on the iPhone (one app for Facebook, one app for twittering, one app for YouTube, etc); The result? Live Tiles.

The new home screen on WP7 devices will consist of several vertically-scrollable live tiles. The main screen shows 5 live tiles: Internet Explorer, Phone, Text, People. Each of these boxes is “live” and auto-updates with real-time information from all of your various info sources. So when your friend updates his Facebook page, that update shows on the Friends tile. If you miss a phone call, the Phone tile updates to show the number of missed calls, and your most recent photos fade in and out in the Pictures tile.

Hubs

Clicking on any of these main live tiles will bring up the corresponding Hub. There are a bunch of default hubs that will ship with WP7: People, Games, Xbox Live, Pictures, Music & Video (with support for more than just Zune accounts), Zune, Office (with support for multiple exchange accounts), and of course the Marketplace. These hubs pull in data from all of your various sources and present it in a task-oriented manner, rather than using a separate app for each service you use.

For example, the above pic shows the People hub. The first screen you will see when you click on the People tile is the ‘Recent’ screen. Scrolling right will give you all of your peeps, scrolling right again will show you the What’s New tab, which lists all of your friends’ most recent social media updates,

Similarly, when you tap on the Music and Video tile, up pops the Zune menu. Scrolling to the right brings up your History, continuing to scroll brings up the “What’s New” tab, and then Apps that are music or video related. Hubs create an easy way to browse all of your data – both on-device and online – by topic or experience. Very cool.

X-Box and Zune Integration

While Microsoft’s mobile lately may have missed the mark, they have had remarkable success with their X-Box and Zune line. The X-Box model has been a decade in the making and Microsoft has earned a very respectable share of a competitive market – something it needs to do with WP7. The Zune HD was released last year to terrific reviews and great critical, if not commercial, success.

Microsoft is finally taking advantage of these successful platforms and fully integrating X-Box Live and Zune with Windows Phone 7 Series devices. Mobile gaming might be limited initially, but expect this to be a major component and battle ground in the coming year or two, and Microsoft (for once) has a clear advantage over rivals like Palm and Apple here.

As for Zune integration, you can almost thank the Zune for the new UI. Internally at Microsoft, the UI for the Zune HD was referred to as Metro; the same name they use to discuss the Windows Phone 7 Series interface. Beyond that, expect to see complete integration with the Zune service and any Zunes you might have lying around.

Manufacturers and Carriers

Just as with Windows Mobile, Microsoft has lined up a top-notch list of manufactures who are eager to start putting out Windows Phone 7 Series devices. The list includes longtime Windows Mobile supporters HTC, LG, Samsung and Toshiba, as well as Garmin-Asus, on-the-fence Sony Ericsson, and even Dell.

Unlike with Windows Mobile, however, and this is absolutely critical, Microsoft has imposed a Chassis requirement for all WP7 devices. This means that all WP7 phones will need have a minimum hardware spec that – so far – includes several mandatory hardware buttons (home, search and back), CPU and screen size/resolution requirements, plus an accelerometer, GPS, camera and other goodies.

This Chassis system should help maintain a good user experience and avoid manufacturers putting out shoddy hardware that gives Windows Phone 7 devices a bad rap.

Carriers will include all of the Big Four US carriers: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon – as well as Deutsche Telekom, Orange, SFR, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telstra, and Vodafone. Rogers and Telus haven’t made any comment yet.

WP7: Do or Die for Microsoft

By most accounts, it’s do or die time for Microsoft. For whatever reason, most likely because they simply underestimated the growth of the smartphone/mobile market, Microsoft hasn’t taken the mobile space very seriously for the past four or five years… despite being one of the first out of the gate.

By the time the first Windows Phone 7 Series device hits the market, we’ll be looking at a new iPhone, a new version of Google’s Android, and an updated webOS from Palm… very serious competition for Windows Phones. If Microsoft blunders, they might just miss the last train out of the desktop station.