Let me start this column with a look back to a statement I made two years ago when I wrote back in 2010, right before Windows Phone 7 was launched: "It's new, it's fresh and it's just different", a statement which even made it into Microsoft's German Windows Phone 7 launch campaign. And even after two year, I don't have to take it back but contrariwise, it was never as true as today. With yesterday's Windows Phone 8 announcement, Microsoft consequently followed its way and who could have imagine two years ago that such a small product like Windows Phone is going to drive Microsoft's 2012 product direction? Nobody! Congrats Windows Phone, congrats Microsoft. Everything done right! Everything?

So yesterday happened what was widely expected, Microsoft announced its own tablet hardware under the "Surface" brand, which was previously used for these interactive tables which are now called "Microsoft Pixelsense". And while neither a Windows 8 nor a Window RT tablet are anything new, at the recent Comdex both types of tablet where shown, the news is that the Surface tablets were developed and designed by Microsoft, without any help of any OEMs and that Microsoft will sell them under the Microsoft Surface brand, again without any OEMs involved. Is this a wise decision, is the overall Windows 8 and Windows RT system ready for prime time and what's next?

There's a phrase which says "There is no such thing as bad publicity" and while I would generally not agree with this phrase, Microsoft's latest "Smoked by Windows Phone" campaign might be the worst idea to advertize Windows Phone's benefits, I've ever seen. I said it before, that in general, I'm not a big fan of comparisons. Either my product is strong enough on its own, that it can attracts customers, or it's not. If it's not, I have to redesign and improve it to make it more appealing to customers. And if I think I'm better than my competition, time will tell this story anyway; I don't have to prove it with a pseudo-competition ad campaign.

Ok, you either already own an NFC-enabled smartphone, like the Google Nexus S or the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, or you might get one soon, like the recently announced Sony Ericsson Xperia S or Xperia ion, but the big question is what can you do with it? It really seems that 2012 might be the year of NFC and it's expected that the Android phones above won't stay the only one which support NFC but that other manufacturers will also follow as well as it's expected that Windows Phone Tango will also add support for NFC. But then again, the question is left what you can do with your NFC-enabled phone? Quite honestly, out of the box you can't do too much at the moment and it also depends on your location.

Don't be evil is (or was?) the informal corporate motto of Google and such was Android in some kind. One of the reasons Android became so successful was the reason that it was, more or less, open to everybody - handset manufacturers and carriers as well as services and software developers which means different apps and services can play nice with each other. Think about the sharing feature in the picture gallery where every app, which is able to post photos to some services, can be linked-in. It's the same with different services under the "Accounts & Sync" menu. Typically, Android phones come with pre-supported services like Google, E-Mail (POP/IMAP) and Exchange accounts but 3rd party apps can also be found here after installed.