Microsoft Corp. joined its partners to reveal nine new Windows Phone 7 handsets that will be available this holiday season from leading mobile operators in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. With more than 60 mobile operators including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, O2, Orange, Telstra, T-Mobile USA and Vodafone in over 30 countries worldwide committed to bringing Windows Phones to market, the millions of people around the world looking for a phone that plays as hard as it works will have a variety of phones from leading device-makers to choose from.

Microsoft and its partners have worked together closely to create a different kind of phone with new experiences that bring together what people care about most. Windows Phone 7 will be available in a variety of sleek form factors from device-makers such as Dell, HTC Corp., LG and Samsung. All Windows Phone 7 phones will include the high-performance Snapdragon™ processor from Qualcomm. A broad selection of phones will begin shipping in holiday 2010 with more arriving in 2011.

In today’s busy world we are spending more time heads-down on our phones than interacting with the people we’re sitting next to and missing out on important life moments. Windows Phone 7 was designed to deliver a mobile experience that has the phone working better for people, bringing together the things they care about most. Windows Phone 7 breaks the current smartphone convention to help people quickly and easily find and consume data, information and services from the Web and applications.

To help spread the word about the launch, Crispin Porter + Bogusky developed a series of humorous ads, which are set to be aired across Europe starting today and in the U.S. from October 25. According to the commercials’ tagline, “it’s time for a phone to save us from our phones,” and the new product has come to do this. “When people see the ads for the first time, it’s amazing how much self-recognition there is—that sense of ‘I have totally done that’. One of the core principles that guided us was that we wanted to start a conversation about how we could all benefit from a change in behaviour and a different kind of phone experience,” commented Microsoft’s corporate vice president of mobile communications marketing group Todd Peters.

Windows Phone 7 will make its debut in some European markets on October 21 and in the U.S. November 8.