Rumor roundup: the when and what of Windows Mobile 7

The Windows Mobile rumor mill is officially in overdrive after a blog by the name of Bright Side of News claimed it “spoke with representatives from Microsoft, Lenovo, Qualcomm, TI, Nokia, nVidia, HTC and many more” and the sources said Windows Mobile 7 had been delayed until 2011. This conflicts with invitations bloggers like istartedsomething received from Redmond to Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona regarding “several exciting announcements” about Microsoft’s “consumer vision and grow opportunities for the mobile industry as a whole.” Upon closer inspection though, Windows Mobile 7 is not mentioned specifically in the invitation.

When?

To make matters worse for avid Windows Mobile users, DigiTimes, a great source for rumors (both those that come true and those that are quickly shot down), cited its usual industry sources as saying that “Microsoft reportedly plans to launch Windows Mobile 6.6 (codenamed Maldives) in February 2010.” To those who have been watching Windows Mobile 7 get delayed time and time again this came as no surprise, and their conclusion was that Microsoft would show off Windows Mobile 6.6 next month and Windows Mobile 7 in February 2011.

Furthermore, as ZDNet reported, Microsoft recently removed any references to Windows Mobile from the MIX10 Sessions webpage, the event at which the company promised to give developers some insight on the new version of the mobile OS. We can’t really rely on Redmond to confirm or deny what all these rumors and speculation add up to though, as Microsoft employees, executives, and PR representatives have been very careful not to mention “Windows Mobile 7” when talking about upcoming events and timelines. “Our focus is on Windows phones and experiences in market today, and we’re not discussing future versions,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. “In general, we’re always looking for ways to build on our strengths across the company to deliver great new mobile experiences to customers.”

As such, we need to turn to Microsoft’s partners for additional information. LG has been a great source for updates, specifically saying that it would have Windows Mobile 7 phones out this year. More recently, WMPoweruser caught LG telling French tech blogger Presse-Citron, who was participating in a design session at LG Design Labs, that it expected to release devices running Windows Mobile 7 in September 2010. Microsoft’s rumor control team promptly cleaned that one up too.

What?

WMPoweruser later stirred things up again when it reported that Eldar Murtazin, the man behind the Russian Mobile-review.com, managed to have a few minutes with an early build of Windows Mobile 7 running on an unreleased device. He noted that the OS has been built from scratch, none of the old Windows Mobile 6.x apps work, and that the UI is more complicated than that of the ZuneHD (much horizontal movement and “additional info by clicks”) but is a great step forward for Windows Mobile. We’re not too convinced, since if Microsoft were to do this, all the apps already submitted on the Windows Marketplace for Mobile would be rendered useless.

Indeed, Gizmodo has countered this talk with its own source, who claims Windows Mobile 7 will be released before the holiday season of 2010, Windows Mobile 6.x apps will indeed work on the OS (not necessarily out-of-the-box, native compatibility, but support will be there), a Windows Mobile 7 SDK should be available as early as June, and the OS will have a complex gesture system with a close-quarter motion sensing element.

On top of all that, WMExperts is claiming that Windows Mobile 7 will support resolutions only between WVGA and 720p, and that it will come in two versions: a business version for OEMs to work with and a media version that features “Microsoft Zune Phone Experience.” The business version will feature the ability to access live data (collaboratively) on your PC and in the cloud, will let you take a photo on your phone and embed it to a document directly, and will sport a theme closer to BlackBerry than iPhone or Android. The business version is said to be coming as an upgrade to the HD2 in October or November of this year. The media version, which is apparently set to arrive in 2011, will feature HD video, a Zune-like music player, and streaming media, as well as Silverlight, Mediaroom, XBox Live (possibly gameplay), Facebook and Twitter interfaces (similar to Xbox), and Zune Music integration.

In short, it looks to us like Microsoft will be showing off something major both this year and next year. All these rumors have us very excited, but we have to say that if Microsoft doesn’t deliver something astounding in 2010, Windows Mobile will fall even further behind in the smartphone race.