While
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer
just announced the upcoming release of
Windows
Mobile 6.5 during last week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft
hasn't given yet any information about the next big real thing:
Windows Mobile
7. Not that Windows Mobile 6.5 is that bad at all, it's not the
groundbreaking but Microsoft needs a new platform to survive the getting tougher
mobile competition. Windows Mobile 6.5 is still a pretty much stand-alone OS and
doesn't shares too much with the rest of Microsoft's Windows family; it's just
started. However, this will most likely change with the upcoming release of
Windows Mobile 7. At least that's what Steve Ballmer mentioned in yesterday's
"Microsoft Strategic Update" conference call:
"We're extending, though, we're extending our offer to include not only
the core platform, but applications and services. We've made a nice release
announcement last week of Windows Mobile 6.5. We've got Windows Mobile 7
coming next year. We're getting more and more synergy with Windows, so the
browser improvements, et cetera, should be quite rapid."
"Windows, Windows Mobile, and those two will become I'd say closer in
many ways. There's still a real distinction between what's a phone and
what's a PC. And yet the amount of technology that can be shared across that
border continues to go up."
"On the first Windows slide I actually showed you the union of Windows
and Windows Mobile, compared to Apple, compared to RIM, because I think
that's the right way to think about it, that's the way we think about it.
There will be really shared technology across Windows and Windows mobile.
The browser is an example, the presentation surface is an example. Some day
even the kernel will be an example."
However, Ballmer again made clear that the company has no plans to release
its own Windows Phone as well:
"People ask me, will you build your own phone? Not our strategy to build
our own phone. It's our strategy to sell software that we can use and
support across a wide range of device manufacturers to encourage choice,
choice in devices, choice in the operators."
It's not a surprise at all that the next Windows Mobile version will be
released in 2010, in the past years, Microsoft definitely increased the release
cycles of Windows Mobile cycles but that's a word anyway. 2009 will be the year
of Windows 7, 2010 the year of Windows Mobile 7.
If Windows Mobile 7 becomes as good as Windows 7's Beta is already, the future
for Windows Mobile might be bright again.
Cheers ~ Arne
