WinMo Wrap: Is WinMo 7 Coming in September?
The week marches on and today being Saturday means it is time to recap the recent happenings in the world of Windows Mobile. No matter if you fall in the long-time WinMo camp or the merely curious, all eyes are focused on Windows Mobile 7. It is clear that Microsoft needs to get this out the door as quickly as possible or face continued loss of market share to the competition. Microsoft is not willing to let us know yet when we might expect the big upgrade, but handset maker LG may have let the cat out of the bag that it expects WM7 to hit in September of this year. LG tweeted that its handsets would get WM7 in September, but the tweets were rapidly deleted. WMPoweruser was quick enough to catch them, and it does seem that LG at least expects to be doling WM7 out to its customers in September.
Steve Ballmer was all excited that the HTC HD2 with WM6.5 is coming to the U. S., and I admit I am happy that T-Mobile has picked up the best Windows phone currently available. It’s not clear if the HD2 will be getting an upgrade to WM7 when it’s available, but HTC has sort of leaked that it will be getting the upgrade when it is available and it will be a free download. The HD2 has all of the latest smartphone hardware inside, notably the Snapdragon processor, and it should easily be able to run the new OS when it is released. Now if we can only get WM7 in our hands.
With the Mobile World Congress (MWC) looming near, it has long been expected that Microsoft would use the global phone event to roll WM7 out to the masses. This week it got a bit murkier as to whether MS would indeed be using MWC to finally show of WM7, or if they would instead be touting yet another interim release to the platform, WM6.6. While I am hoping this is just another negative rumor, Mary Jo Foley points out one very disturbing fact that lends a bit of credence to this possibility:
Some time in the past week, Microsoft removed any references to Windows Mobile from the Mix 2010 show site. A week ago, I saw a session placeholder saying there’d be some Windows Mobile content of interest to Mix attendees at the show, but it was too early to provide specifics. That placeholder is now gone, as are any references in the “Sessions” area to Windows Mobile.
It certainly seems Microsoft is playing WM7 too close to the vest, something that can be positive in the PR game if one is in a position of market strength. That is definitely not the case here, so MS better demonstrate WM7 at the MWC or there will be long-term ramifications.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
It’s worth noting that a February release for an update to WM6.5 has been rumoured for quite a long time. Engadget reported on the rumour back in August:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/19/windows-mobile-6-5-touch-interface-update-in-february-to-coexi/
As you can see, all the current talk of WM6.5.x/6.6 really just fits in with this rumour and I don’t expect it will have any impact on WM7. WM7 RTM is scheduled for mid-year and I haven’t seen anything to indicate that that’s not going to happen.
What matters now is what information comes out at MWC. I think Microsoft will release WM6.6 but will demo WM7. In fact, I think this is necessary to put an end to the negative publicity surrounding WinMo. There is a possibility that they’ll make a big fuss about WM6.6 at MWC and then focus on WM7 at MIX but I think this is less likely.
It will be difficult for Microsoft to manage their PR with two versions of their OS to talk about but I expect that the media and the blogosphere will start to ignore WM6.6 in favour of WM7 once details of the latter are announced.
Whatever happens, at this point I don’t think we’ve seen anything that would suggest that Microsoft are behind their latest schedule and everything appears to be going to plan.
Now for all the posts that say things like “Who cares about WinMo LOL. Android/iPhone OS FTW” ;)
If winmo7 is really still based on winmo6 underpinnings then WHY is it taking sooo long. We are talking internet-years hear. One Internet year is more like 7 human years. Taking a year for an UPDATE (not a complete much-needed-from-the-ground-up rewrite) is totally UNACCEPTABLE. By the time 7 comes out Android will already be at version 3.x or 4.x and the iPhone will be at 4.x as well. Microsoft is dropping the ball here…falling…falling…further behind. Period. End of sentence.
WM7 isn’t based on WM6.x underpinnings. WM6.x is based on WinCE5 whereas WM7 is based on WinCE6. Although there’s no real information out about WM7 it’s assumed that this will be a complete rewrite that breaks compatibility with WM6.x and earlier. Although this doesn’t explain the fact that it’s taken Microsoft quite this long to get it out it does explain why it’s taking them longer than a year.
Also, it seems pretty pointless to compare WM updates to Android updates at this point. Although Android updates appear to be coming thick and fast they don’t seem to be adding a great deal of functionality – in fact, this is one of the main complaints about Android at this stage.
This is one pair of eyes that could care less what happens to Windows Mobile.
From my understanding MS has already specified the hardware they want to run WM7, and according to the info at pdadb.net there’s at least a dozen high-end, as-yet-unseen, WinMo handsets with Snapdragon due for release in 2010. Manufacturers may or may not have prototype devices available, but I cannot see MS demoing anything until they have the hardware side at a similar state – something that they may have little control over.
If MS can demo WM7 that’s great. My interest is also in the hardware that will be running WM7, not just the OS itself.
Microsoft must release Windows Mobile 7 at the MWC in February. Anything less will be disastrous.
Are they really thinking of just patching 6.5 into 6.6? That would mean that Microsoft intends to keep the cruddy old OS until next year, due to the long lead time it takes to get a completed OS into handsets.
The world won’t wait for them. The OEMs are bailing out now. There can be no delay for WM7.
Does anyone even care about legacy Windows platform anymore.
I think not. :-P