When Google entered the smartphone arena everyone knew they had mobile advertising on the brain, but Microsoft's motivations were a bit of a mystery. Some might have assumed that they saw Windows Phone 7 as a natural extension of the desktop experience, but according to executives within the company it is being viewed internally as a powerful "Ad-Serving" platform.

In a recent interview with Business Development Manager Kostas Mallios it was made painfully clear that Windows Phone 7 is being designed from the ground up to serve ads, while still trying to maintaining the brand experience. "What you'll see," Mallios said, "is there is actually a message on that tile, so that title is actually a dynamic tile that you're now able to push information to as an advertiser, and stay in touch with your customer." In addition, a small sliding box called "Toast" will notify users of updated information or any new ads relating to the app. It sounds like users will have the option to opt out of these types of notifications, but they didn't make it immediately clear what the default settings would be.

We doubt this will have much of an impact on the quality of the finished product, but it certainly is an interesting admission given how competitive the smartphone market is these days. We expect iAds and other Android implementations to be somewhat similar, but we just hope the ads don't start getting in the way any more so than they already do.