For all the talk of the Windows Phone 7 Series, you’d think it was going to save Microsoft in the mobile market. That may be true, but it’s going to be an ugly transition. I’m sure few people missed the fact that Windows Phone 7 means everything that came before is obsolete, least of all the current Windows Mobile users. It’s gone. Kaput. None of the current Windows Mobile software will function in the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem.

A lot of people say it was necessary. I tend to agree. Windows Mobile was butt ugly and ran about as fast as an 80 year-old with an artificial hip. It had no evolutionary cycle, not to stay competitive anyway. But doing away with the old has left Windows Mobile with an 8-10 month lame duck period. Development is going to grind to a halt, likely within the week. That’s going to leave a lot very unhappy users who have been loyal to the brand to this point. I guess Microsoft expects that they’ll be willing to wait until the holidays for a phone with any new features.

The message from Microsoft today was clear: Windows Mobile is dead. We’re looking at an eight month grieving period at the very least.

Now that Windows 7 has officially launched we’ll get to see if PC manufacturers were a little overzealous in their anticipation of the new OS. Comments from AMD toward the end of last week suggested there might be a little too much PC stock because of the new Windows OS.

AMD has lowered its expectations for Q4 sales because of the high buildup for Windows 7. But a new OS doesn’t necessarily mean buying a new computer. For a lot of people, Windows 7 is just a fix for Vista – a remedy to that compelling desire to put fist through laptop when using Microsoft’s previous generation of operating systems.

If anyone’s to blame for misguided expectations, I’d say it’s Microsoft. Ballmer came out way too late in the game to say “hey, it might not be as big as we thought.” Prior to that it sounded like Windows 7 might save the planet.

Now don’t panic. There’s a lot of context to be had here. I am, of course, going to start with the incendiary remarks, though. Steve Ballmer said last week that the Windows 7 launch may not be so different from Vista.

“The test feedback has been good, but the test feedback on Vista was good,” said Ballmer. “I am optimistic, but the proof will be in the pudding.” To be honest, I think the whole world is optimistic. Windows 7 is isn’t making the big leap like Vista did from XP. While plenty of things have been improved, not everything is completely different. The driver situation is pretty much under control (Nvidia has had drivers ready for months), which was one of Vista’s biggest setbacks. All things considered, I’m betting on a smooth launch.

Source: Bloomberg

In the face of its first annual sales decline ever, Microsoft paid CEO Steve Ballmer five and a half percent less than it did last year. His total earnings for FY2009 were $1,276,627 according to Reuters, compared with a 2008 paycheck for $1,350,834.

I was actually shocked to see the low numbers. I remember reading some time ago that Microsoft never pays executives exorbitant salaries (here’s looking at you, Bobby Kotick), but Ballmer’s salary is a mere $665,833. That 5.5 percent he lost? It came as a $100,000 cut to his yearly bonus, which was just $600,000 this year. I know it’s ridiculous to talk about this kind of money as anything other than huge, but relatively speaking, Ballmer isn’t raking in the dough. Well, not from his salary anyway.

Ballmer personally owns 408 million shares of Microsoft stock – a chunk of the company worth around $10 billion. That’s where the real money’s at with Microsoft, and even though Ballmer doesn’t receive any yearly compensation in the form of shares, you can bet he makes plenty off what he’s already got.