By IAN SHERR And SHIRA OVIDE
Microsoft Corp. officially released an overhaul for its nascent Windows Phone software, in its latest attempt to catch up to Apple Inc. and devices running software from Google Inc.
The new software, dubbed Windows Phone 8, will include a bevy of new features, including the ability for apps, such as those from Facebook Inc. or Groupon Inc., to display recently posted photos or the latest daily deal on the device's home screen.
But Microsoft said that while some of the new Windows 8 phones would launch in early November, others wouldn't arrive until December. The timing means that Microsoft could lose out on the post-Thanksgiving holiday sales rush in the U.S., since rival phones, such as Apple's iPhone 5, will have already been on the market for more than a month at that point.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., has been struggling to match competitors in the mobile market. Two years after the first Windows Phone devices went on sale, Microsoft's software has less than 3% share of the world-wide smartphone market, according to research firm Gartner Inc. Meanwhile, the iPhone and smartphones running Google's Android combined power more than eight out of every 10 new smartphones in the world.
On Monday at a Windows Phone 8 launch event in San Francisco, Microsoft acknowledged its competitors several times. The company said some new features are compatible with non-Windows devices and mentioned some of its newest popular apps were top performers on Apple's and Google's devices.
Indeed, Microsoft emphasized it now has more apps available for Windows Phone devices. The company has regularly offered resources and stipends to encourage developers to create apps for its platform.
Microsoft said its apps catalog now numbers up to 120,000 programs, and will soon include offerings such as Zynga Inc.'s "Words With Friends," which had been conspicuously absent from the company's store. All told, Microsoft said it would have 46 of the top 50 most popular heavily-used apps in its store.
"That's huge progress for us," said Joe Belfiore, a Microsoft corporate vice president.
Still, Google and Apple offer customers 700,000 apps, and many developers choose to focus resources on apps for Android and Apple devices. That wasn't helped by Microsoft's decision to restrict the number of app developers who could preview Windows Phone 8 software and prep their apps ahead of the formal launch.
As a result, some apps aren't launching till later. One of the newer apps, which will stream music from Pandora Media Inc., won't be arriving until the first quarter of 2013, the company said. Twitter Inc. declined to say when an update to its app would be made available.
Microsoft also discussed new technologies it has built to interconnect its devices. Among them, Microsoft has made its SkyDrive storage service capable of synchronizing photos and documents between Windows Phones and other computers and tablets. The company also launched SmartGlass, a free application that lets Windows Phone customers control and share information with their Xbox 360 videogame console from their device.
The Windows Phone software follows the release last week of Microsoft's new Windows 8 computer operating system, with a new start screen designed for touch on devices such as tablets. The company also released Surface, its first ever computer, designed to be a flagship of the company's redoubled touch-screen efforts.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, said response to the company's new products has been "incredible."
รข€"Steven D. Jones contributed to this article.
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