In a decidedly foot-in-mouth episode, Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner used his platform at the company’s recent Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington DC to attack Apple’s iPhone 4.

Although the press usually turn a blind eye to some healthy competitive spirit within the market, it was how Turner went about it that captured our attention.

During his speech Turner mentioned that the iPhone 4, which has gathered serious criticism since its launch almost a month ago due to its signal woes, “might be their Vista, and I'm okay with that”.

It’s not hard to see that bashing your own Operating System, regardless of what the public’s perception of it is, in order to take a dig at your closest competitor within the mobile space is a bit of a backwards way to go about things.

Turner was punting Microsoft’s new line of Windows 7 Phone devices which are due to hit shelves later this year.