Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) confirmed yesterday that it will provide an update on its mobile business at Mobile World Congress in Spain, which is now just two weeks away.
In the company’s second-quarter conference call, Bill Koefoed, Microsoft’s General Manager of Investor Relations said: “We also continue to make progress in the mobile space and you will hear more about that at Mobile World Congress in February.” Peter Klein, Microsoft’s CFO, then detailed that it will revolve around Windows Mobile (via Seeking Alpha transcript). “As we have been saying from a product perspective, we are working very hard on the next version of Windows Mobile. As Bill indicated, we will be talking more about that in Barcelona in a few weeks.”
On Feb. 15, Microsoft has scheduled a late-afternoon press conference in Spain. While no details have been provided, the company is largely expected to unveil its latest operating system, Windows Mobile 7. The update is expected to compete better with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating systems. Microsoft’s mobile business has suffered over the past couple years as it has failed to keep up with touchscreen interfaces, and the move to apps and the mobile web.
Microsoft has been very hush-hush about what the user interface will look like on the new OS, however, many expect it to integrate learnings from Danger, the Sidekick-maker Microsoft acquired awhile back, and Zune, its MP3 player. In fact, blogger Long Zheng of istartedsomething.com, noticed recently that in a scheduled Zune.net maintenance update, the code included hints of phone capabilities with a couple of lines with the word “phone.”
Expect the hardware to come from its largest handset partners, including LG (SEO: 066570) and HTC. Other partners, over the past year, such as Palm (NSDQ: PALM) and Motorola (NYSE: MOT) have decided to go with other operating systems. At this point, whatever Microsoft unveils will have to be impressive, and will have to reach consumers in the next year. Its largest competitors, including Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Palm and others, have gotten a head-start on releasing next-generation hardware and software. In other words, Microsoft will have to leap-frog them somehow to get noticed.

Comments have been disabled for this post