Yesterday Microsoft unveiled a quite remarkable product, and one that’s certainly taken the tech-world by surprise, a fully-featured new smart phone OS that appears to have every angle covered.

This is quite an achievement, especially when you consider what type of company Microsoft is.  As it’s such a behemoth there are a huge number of very big and very important departments, none of whom seem to talk to one another.  This looks like it’s finally begun to change with the Zune, portable music player, software not only being integrated into the new Windows Mobile, but forming the basis for the look and feel of the new OS itself.

Now this is where Microsoft have done a fantastic thing, but it’s very important that they don’t drop the ball and continue doing this with a fantastic suite of software (and services) right up until the crown in all of this, the launch of Windows 8 (or Windows.Next whatever it ends up being called) in 2012.  And you know what, I think they might just pull it off!

First, let me explain why what they’ve just done is so important.  We all use a broad selection of services, be they on hardware, software or in the cloud.  Companies like Microsoft try and lock us in to their own bundle, and they’re by far the most successful as they have the only suite that talks to each other properly.  Google do try, bless their little cotton socks, to pull this off but they’ve yet to succeed and Apple still insist on charging for these services, and don’t provide enough for the money.  This is especially when you compare them to the free suites by Google and Microsoft.

Finally, Microsoft have proven that you can have truly interconnected systems and services by integrating Windows Mobile, Zune and Xbox Live.  We’ve yet to see how well the cloud services integration works with this but I can only hope it’s better than the integration with Windows Mobile 6.5, supporting your Live Calendar and SkyDrive.

The important point here is interconnectedness. Windows Phone 7 Series (which is a bit of a mouthful frankly) doesn’t just aggregate these Microsoft services onto a single platform, it does the same with Facebook, Twitter and other services have been mentioned including Flickr and GMail.

Now this interconnectedness needs to spread out from the centre with a ripple effect.  The Zune software, by far the best media player on the market in my opinion, needs to fully support Windows 7 by integrating support for tags, ratings and so on for more than just music (i.e. pictures) and wouldn’t it be great if you could interconnect the Zune player and your Xbox 360 with your Windows Phone in such a way that they’d alert you to new messages and calls when you’re out or reach / earshot of the phone?  This can easily be done over a home network or with location-aware software, something Windows 7 already has.

Finally the biggest piece of the puzzle will be the next version of Windows, due in 2012.  This really must integrate all of the above and be able to present it all to you on the desktop in a friendly manner.  It must be the most interconnected OS of them all, working seamlessly, no drivers, no additional software, with Windows Phones, your Xbox, Zune and the Zune player software, Windows Live suite and all the services you use in the cloud.

The interface on the Windows Phones must be replicated further into the Windows OS itself, not just in Media Centre and the Zune Player.  There are a great many areas where this could be possible.  Also the inroads that multi-touch is making should be complete by the time that OS comes out, if done properly.  They’ll need to use Windows 7 to do this, and they need to get started quickly to succeed.

This means that by 2012, Microsoft can release an OS not just to rival the iPad, but to far surpass it, running their new interconnected Windows.  Fully featured, finger friendly and, not to put too fine a point on it, the future.  You’ll have a suite of Microsoft hardware and software and you’ll use Microsoft services, but it won’t be clear at any time which one or ones you’re using, nor should it.  This seamless integration between everything they do, and with additional integration of the third-party services you also use, is the holy grail of usability for any OS.

The pressure’s on now and if Microsoft can pull this off, the turn around in fortunes and appreciation for the company could allow it to overtake Apple in the WOW stakes.