Windows Mobile rumors are being pumped out all over the place, and each one is a little different from the last.<BR><BR><a href='http://meincmagazine.com/microsoft/news/2010/01/rumor-roundup-the-when-and-what-of-windows-mobile-7.ars'>Read the whole story</a>
Rumor roundup: the when and what of Windows Mobile 7
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If they don't get it right this time around, then they should just give up on windows mobile.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">If they don't get it right this time around, then they should just give up on windows mobile. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I haven't used Windows mobile, but I know heaps of friends who like it. What's the problem?
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by amardeus:<BR>If they don't get it right this time around, then they should just give up on windows mobile. </div></BLOCKQUOTE> Frankly, this.<BR><BR>I really, really hope they make something work, though. Pre-iPhone, I was a Windows Mobile user, and I want to see them become relevant, for their enterprise/Exchange support. iPhone is "good enough", but I want better. Android's Exchange support is laughable, and RIM requires way too much overhead.
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I hope they nail it and windows mobile stays relevant. The only other smart phone that really interest me is the nokia N900, but I'm not willing to drop sprint to get a different phone, and am concerned by the battery life. My main love affair with windows mobile is the power efficiency. I don't know of any other device that can do as much, but still be expected to last an entire impromptu weekend activity without a charger. I can get a week of use on my phone running windows mobile 6.5, but when I boot it into android 1.6 the battery dies at about 30 hours. I'm just going to have to see how long I can keep putting newer cooked up versions of windows mobile on my 2.5 year old HTC Touch and see what's out there eventually.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">enterprise/Exchange support. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>That's a rather specific requirement though. To be honest, I see giant monolithic email systems getting slaughtered by the competing clouds. Even in the corporate market.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by dobrien75:<BR><BR>I haven't used Windows mobile, but I know heaps of friends who like it. What's the problem? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>If you have a straight up windows mobile 5.0, 6.0, or 6.1 release on your phone without any good manufacturer customizations it can be a bit frustrating to say the least. The OS in feel, and in many ways in implementation feels like windows 98. This was a good OS to use with a mouse and a decent sized screen, but they didn't really rethink how you would interact with the device. Dialog boxes and message boxes with a small OK button don't really belong on phones in my opinion. This was a result of the expectation of using a stylus thanks to palm, and it was so deep in the older OS's that you really need a stylus to do basic things. 6.5 isn't so bad and is actually finger friendly for the most part. What I don't know enough about but appreciate is the developer tools and openness of windows mobile. I think that this was also it's own problem. Anybody could write an app for the device just as easily as for windows, and distribute it however they wanted. This meant that no central and easy to find place existed for apps, even though many existed.<BR><BR>What really makes the phone feel competitive with the iphone, android, pre, etc. is the front end that HTC has themselves written for many of their different phones. I actually prefer the interface that HTC made over an android, and I now see that they have ported over a lot of the windows mobile stuff to android. The Droid Eris main screen looks almost identical to the interface that I had on my phone over a year ago. If it wasn't for HTC, I think that I would have a much lower opinion of windows mobile.
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Thanks Snoman. That is rather surprising. Considering the wealth of talent and resources MS has at their disposal. How do things like this happen?<BR><BR>Android is in its formative stages, so I can imagine some big strides coming from Google in the near future. Considering how strong an emphasis they place on simplicity.
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This seems a lot like Apple's darkest moments with Mac OS in the 90s; all previous plans (Copland, Taligent, Kaleida, etc.) spinning out of control and losing any sense of strategic direction. Finally, they brought Steve Jobs back and the rest is history. The big difference here is Apple needed a new OS as part of their core business. In the case of Microsoft, Windows Mobile is hardly a critical component to their success (whereas Mac OS had been a critical component to Apple's very survival!) so they're not backed against the wall like Apple was. I doubt WM will see the pure focus of attention and resources that it requires, particularly under Steve 'See What Sticks' Ballmer.<BR><BR>Interesting historical tidbit: In both the case of Apple's OS and Microsoft's Windows Mobile flailings, the code name chosen for the future product was 'Pink'. History repeats itself.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Thanks Snoman. That is rather surprising. Considering the wealth of talent and resources MS has at their disposal. How do things like this happen? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>neglect, plain and simple. Once they basically killed Palm off in the PDA space, they sat on their asses.
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http://silverlight.net/learn/mobile/<BR><BR>"Silverlight for mobile is currently under development. We plan to release the final version in 2009."<BR><BR>So a new version and a time machine too. Nice work. Say what you like about Microsoft but they don't make a habit of breaking promised release dates -- something's gone 'orribly wrong in Redmond.
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I can't really see Microsoft sinking that much money into this for R&D. I mean, they have billions in the bank but they refuse to spend most of that money on any sort of R&D on Windows Mobile. I think they "hope" it sells because it's selling Windows on a phone, but that's not exactly a selling point unless your company uses Exchange. So I see it failing in the marketplace unless they rewrite the whole OS from scratch to compete with the iPhone and RIM in the consumer space. But I don't think they're willing to sink billions into what might be still a losing proposition, because by then the iPhone and RIM will have gotten more sophisticated (not to mention Android), so I dunno. They just might be doomed if Android turns out to support Exchange and because it's free and Google even helps manufacturers integrate the OS with their hardware, no manufacturer is going to want to pay Microsoft for an OS that they have to work to integrate their hardware. In that case, Microsoft will have to compete with Google by actually paying manufacturers to use its OS... that'll be the day <img src="http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif" alt="Wink" width="15" height="15">
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Will Windows Mobile 6 still have a browser based on IE6? Will it still be almost unusable without a stylus? Will it still be bad at making good use of high resolution screens? <BR><BR>The sheer amount of ball dropping going on here is ludicrous. Microsoft has been hyping their plans to significantly improve WinMo since Google announced Android, and they're still basically at square one.
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2011 = DEATH.<BR><BR>In fact, if they can't ship WM7 this spring, they probably shouldn't bother, open their chequebook and go after RIM instead.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by axell:<BR>Will Windows Mobile 6 still have a browser based on IE6? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>For some asinine reason Microsoft labeled their <I>mobile</I> browser 'Internet Explorer Mobile 6x', which is not based on <I>desktop</I> IE6. Someone in the company simply doesn't understand the stigma associated with IE6 (or didn't watch the Mojave video to understand how public perception works) and has now laid the groundwork for yet another vortex of customer confusion.<BR><BR>It's The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight.
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Windows Mobile 7:<BR><UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI><I>When:</I> Not now…<LI><I>What:</I> Meh…</UL><BR>By the time WM7 comes out, it will likely be competing against at least iPhone OS 4, Android 3 and whatever Palm is working on. Microsoft have simply lost their relevance in the mobile space; they have been relegated to also-ran status below even the Symbian OS. Considering their past efforts, I find it unlikely that they will suddenly show something novel or compelling.
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MS has never had a clue about mobile. I wonder if anyone in Redmond actually uses a cell phone. I got away from Windows mobile as soon as I possibly could. If it wasn't for the hardware manufactures adding software on top of Windows mobile they wouldn't even sell as many handsets as they do now. Come on, it took something like eight taps of a stylus to kill an app. The smartest thing MS could do is buy Palm. Palm has a great product but they are out of money and the market perception is they are circling the drain. I am afraid the Windows mobile 7 will be the Vista of cell phones. Re-written in a hurry and rushed out the door. The difference is there are plenty of alternatives in the cell OS market. Good luck MS. Sorry, but me and a lot of others have given up on your mobile OS for good.
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Looks like they're doing two versions, business version out late in 2010 and the Zune-ish one in 2011. But first, I can't think they'll keep to schedule, as poorly as they've been doing, we don't have any real announcements that they've changed the people involved or the reporting structure. Second, love the idea that the consumer version will move closer to the xbox in functionality. Third, if they think they can do emulation for wm6 apps on a mobile device, I'd say they're still clueless.<BR><BR>Look, I know they have a ton of apps already on WM. But they're written for completely different devices. I think MS would be wise to start over, at least on the consumer side. But then, we've argued this for years about Windows itself and they never do this.
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I've been using Windows Mobile since when it was PocketPC 2002. Windows Mobile 2003, 2003 Second Edition, Windows Mobile 5, Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1, 6.5 and cooked ROMs with WM 6.5.3 (or 6.6 as now MS likes to call them). But I'm highly disappointed about the lack of progress on may areas to keep up with new demands: finger friendlier interface (thanks HTC, at least they got it right), get rid of old dialogs that every now and then pop out their ugly head, and fix ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Center NOW!<BR><BR>Well I've had enough, I'm jumping the ship before it sinks. I got an HTC Hero and I'm slowly moving to use it full time as my only device.<BR><BR>I recognize Android still doesn't offer the same level of functionality, for instance: no VPN in Android 1.5, no uploads from the browser, no built-in Internet sharing, no Bluetooth OBEX file transfers; but it's progressing really fast so I hope most of those issues will be fixed before Windows Mobile 7. Also my Hero is much faster with the same processor than my HD which now feels painfully slow. I haven't felt the need to use the stylus, although I don't use it much on the HD either, thanks to the good work of HTC (and the nice 3,8" screen).<BR><BR>So if Windows Mobile 7 comes out this year, good for Microsoft. If not, MS will probably be out of the race for a long time. But either way it don't care that much now that I have a Plan B.
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They should invest heavily in this, it's important that Silverlight and .NET have a solid mobile device to run on. Right now if you want to build something in .NET for a small device you're screwed.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by dobrien75:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">enterprise/Exchange support. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>That's a rather specific requirement though. To be honest, I see giant monolithic email systems getting slaughtered by the competing clouds. Even in the corporate market. </div></BLOCKQUOTE> That wouold be great if there was anything even remotely as functional as Exchange as a complete messaging system, but there isn't.<BR><BR>"The Cloud" has a lot of catching up to do in this area. The most likely contender is Google's Wave, and they're impementing it as an open platform, which means as soon as it's enterprise-ready, <I>someone</I> (even if it isn't MS) will make an Exchange plugin for Wave, which essentially means Exchange will still have the best of all worlds.
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I had a number of phones with WM... all of them needed a stylus, which to me was annoying to always pull out when I want to do just about anything, I ended up tossing WM 6.5 from a ROM on my Touch Pro, and that still wasn't enough for me...<BR><BR>Went to a Sprint Hero, and while it has flaws (location awareness KILLS the phone, fixed in 1.6 and beyond) I have hope that these issues will get resolved faster than MS will make WM worth it.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by igalan:<BR>I've been using Windows Mobile since when it was PocketPC 2002. Windows Mobile 2003, 2003 Second Edition, Windows Mobile 5, Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1, 6.5 and cooked ROMs with WM 6.5.3 (or 6.6 as now MS likes to call them). But I'm highly disappointed about the lack of progress on may areas to keep up with new demands: finger friendlier interface (thanks HTC, at least they got it right), get rid of old dialogs that every now and then pop out their ugly head, and fix ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Center NOW!<BR> </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>That was not HTC rather a company called SPB Software who develops the MobileShell interface for Windows Mobile. HTC purchased the license to the software for their phone.<BR><BR><BR>I have been a long time user of Windows based operating systems dating back to the Pocket PC 2000/2002 days when it was based on Windows CE 3.0. While the UI was awkward, it did have a nice feature set. However, the UI remained the same along with the features. My last Windows mobile phone was the Samsung SCH-i760 which was nearly useless without a stylus, very slow to responses and failed regularly. Moved to Blackberry and will not look back.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by danchr:<BR>Windows Mobile 7:<BR><UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI><I>When:</I> Not now…<LI><I>What:</I> Meh…</UL><BR>By the time WM7 comes out, it will likely be competing against at least iPhone OS 4, Android 3 and whatever Palm is working on. Microsoft have simply lost their relevance in the mobile space; they have been relegated to also-ran status below even the Symbian OS. Considering their past efforts, I find it unlikely that they will suddenly show something novel or compelling. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>I think any platform would kill to be an also-ran like Symbian. Considering the fact that it is still at the top of the heap, and all. But feel free to take a typical US-centric view of the mobile industry. But in the rest of the world, symbian is sitting pretty.<BR><BR>And, you know, while windows mobile isn't the best in the consumer space, it is amazing in the business world and PIM space. Symbian is similar. RIM is popular in both, but in the consumer space as nothing more than a messaging phone. There are those of us that don't want a finger friendly candy interface, and for us, the only real option in the PIM space is symbian or windows mobile.<BR><BR>In the end though, phones and computers are just tools. Picking one over another doesn't make you cooler, they aren't religious issues, and they fundamentally all do the same things, albeit in usually different ways. <BR><BR>WM7 and Symbian^4 are both on my list of possibly awesome mobile OSes. We'll see how they are when released, I suppose. With both having support from Qt, I can imagine we'll see more and more applications with truly rich interfaces. Here's hoping, anyway.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">That was not HTC rather a company called SPB Software who develops the MobileShell interface for Windows Mobile. HTC purchased the license to the software for their phone. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>HTC's TouchFLO is their own. It was Sony Ericsson that licensed SPB for the Xperia X1.
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Summary ... MS really dropped the ball early on the mobile market, and I'm not sure they can recover from it.<BR><BR>~~~~~<BR><BR>To answer the question further up, this happens when Microsoft quickly kit-bashes tech they have from one platform in order to meet the needs of an alternate platform, and in doing so they don't want to rock the boat so they make it operate just like the competitor (Palm and their stylus-centric crap at the time).<BR><BR>You have to understand that MS' winning strategy isn't about being the best. The best solution always costs the most, and not many folks will buy it. MS' strategy is to provide a "good enough" solution at lower cost which seems just like the best solution, but lower cost. People will prefer jumping on the lower cost solution.<BR><BR>However, Apple tossed all this stylus crap on its ear by doing the iPhone with touch-only. Microsoft had their chance to do something really innovative like touch-only when they joined the fray, but instead decided to rest on their laurels and copy Palm. They didn't take the mobile market seriously enough, because frankly when the mobile market was just PDA's for corp execs it WASN'T worth taking seriously.<BR><BR>But when smartphones started showing up and replacing pda's, well MS already had a foundation of crap that they decided to try to work with for phones, too. But all this did was make it even more painfully obvious that it wasn't a very solid foundation. <BR><BR>It sounds like they've finally got the message, are taking things seriously, and focusing on making a REAL mobile platform. However, other folks like Palm, Android, Apple, are already at the trough eating their lunch.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by bolomkxxviii:<BR>The smartest thing MS could do is buy Palm. Palm has a great product but they are out of money and the market perception is they are circling the drain. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I agree that it is a good product, but it isn't Windows. It doesn't run Microsoft applications, so it isn't a fit for the company.<BR><BR>WebOS is sort of the BeOS of the mobile world.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">avid Windows Mobile users </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Who are these people? I know people who don't actively avoid WinMo, and people who are pretty much OK with it because it's on the company phone, but I have literally never met anyone who actively prefers WinMo over all other smartphone OSes. At best, it gets picked because it's the path of least resistance for integration with a MS-driven enterprise...but even that is becoming less true as time goes on (describing System Center Mobile Device Manager as "the path of least resistance" is...questionably accurate, let's say).
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The rumors and hints about a Zune-ish WM7 makes me wonder if Microsoft is on the edge of an enormous stumble here.<BR><BR>Smartphones as a category seem to have exploded as a result of Apple, Palm, Google, etc. offering business-<I>like</I> features in a consumer-friendly, media-focused package. Even RIM, with its foundation solidly in enterprise e-mail, is making efforts to steer their ship toward consumer friendliness. <BR><BR>But RIM does seem to know where its bread and butter is, and is making sure it maintains their business-first aesthetic, bisecting their phone lines into consumer-oriented and business-oriented models. They can do this, however, because like Apple, Palm, etc. they control the whole widget. <BR><BR>Microsoft, as (so far as we know) purely a software vendor in this space, will be at the whim of their manufacturing partners. And if their partners like HTC have caught the consumer fever and want Microsoft to deliver a WM7 that is more <I>Zune</I> and less <I>Windows</I>, Microsoft may lose the one toe-hold it can still claim in the smartphone space and that is business integration. <BR><BR>As unlikely as this is, I almost want to see Microsoft come out with their own, branded smartphone that is all-business, managed from top to bottom to integrate with their enterprise solutions. Cut off RIM's incursion, and give your enterprise customers less reason to try and shoehorn consumer-oriented devices into business uses just to get a more modern and functional interface.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Control Group:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">avid Windows Mobile users </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Who are these people? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>My theory is the only "avid" WM users that still exist are people that have only lived with WM devices or their early 2000's equivalents (Palm, Blackberry). I mean lived with daily, not tried for 3 minutes in the store.<BR><BR>It's hard to imagine people that have used a modern mobile OS such as Android, OSX Mobile, WebOS, or Maemo would ever go back to WM 6.x.
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At the 2008 Microsoft partner's conference, Microsoft heavily pushed the future of Windows Mobile. But at last years conference, Microsoft downplayed Windows Mobile. During all the recent buzz about different phones, there has not been much sign of Microsoft spin promoting any kind of vision for Windows Mobile. That reality suggests little chance of any near term major upgrade of Windows Mobile. It seems likely they have decided that some major additional work is needed for Windows mobile to become competitive. I don't think there is much question about them making the effort to do the work. They will stick with it even if it takes them several more iterations to succeed. Even with poor results, they will make enough to cover the development costs.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by dnjake:<BR>At the 2008 Microsoft partner's conference, Microsoft heavily pushed the future of Windows Mobile. But at last years conference, Microsoft downplayed Windows Mobile. During all the recent buzz about different phones, there has not been much sign of Microsoft spin promoting any kind of vision for Windows Mobile. That reality suggests little chance of any near term major upgrade of Windows Mobile. It seems likely they have decided that some major additional work is needed for Windows mobile to become competitive. I don't think there is much question about them making the effort to do the work. They will stick with it even if it takes them several more iterations to succeed. Even with poor results, they will make enough to cover the development costs. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>My wife and friends all have iPhones. I have a Touch Pro 2 and wouldn't trade it for an iPhone to save my life. I hate iTunes. It's one step above AOL's software in my opinion. My HTC Touch Pro 2 does everything her iPhone does and has far better contact/calendar/email support through my company's Exchange server.<BR><BR>I'm one of those avid fans. Sure, WiMO 6.5 has its shortcomings but when combined with HTC's TouchFlo 3D, most of them never get encountered.
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Sortof begs the question of when/if Microsoft will ditch the whole approach of multiple operating systems for embedded/game machines/desktops/servers. Win7 may be losing steam for a reason...
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