Microsoft Hopes to Bury iPhone, Android

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Last month, a few hundred Microsoft Corp employees acted out their fantasy with a mock funeral for Apple Inc's iPhone at its Redmond, Washington campus.The bizarre gathering, which morphed into a spirited Michael Jackson "Thriller" dance routine, marked the completion of its Windows Phone 7 software, and showed how badly Microsoft wants to resurrect itself in the viciously competitive phone market.The new software, which will be publicly unveiled on October 11 and expected on handsets in stores by November, is Microsoft's last chance, some analysts say, to catch up with Apple and Google Inc's Android smartphones, after squandering its strong market position in only a few years.A group of smartphone manufacturers including Samsung and HTC Corp are expected to roll out Microsoft-based phones for the holiday season.Whether they will be good enough to render the iPhone obsolete is the question."The product can't be an also-ran that just does everything that is already out in the marketplace," said Bryan Keane, an analyst for Alpine Mutual Funds, which holds Microsoft shares. "Right now, it isn't apparent that Windows 7 is better than anything that's out there, except that it might have a better tie-in to the actual Windows platform."By the admission of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, the company "missed a generation" with Windows Mobile, its last phone operating system, which floundered while the iPhone and Android roared past with sumptuous touch screens and a host of new applications.Microsoft is now fourth in the fast-growing U.S. market for smartphone operating systems with a share of less than 12 percent, according to research firm comScore, behind BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion Ltd, Apple and Google.STOCK OVERHANGMicrosoft's strange disappearance from the phone market, and its delayed response to the emergence of tablet devices like Apple's iPad, has been seen as a drag on Microsoft's shares, which are down 20 percent this year.