Microsoft – More Windows Mobile innovation in the next 24 months than the last 4 years

March 1, 2009 | By Surur

In an article published in the Seattle Times, Robbie Bach claimed Windows Mobile development was moving into fast gear.

"You’re going to see from us over the next 24 months, probably more innovation than you’ve seen in the last, I’d say, three or four years in the Windows Mobile space," said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division.

He said the next two generations of Windows Mobile – 6.5 just announced, with 7 set to come in 2010 – will have improvements to the user experience, including a greater emphasis on touch controls; "dramatically better" mobile Web browsing, expanded music, video and other consumer-oriented capabilities; and connections to Web services such as Facebook and Twitter.

Several new developments have already been announced, including a new version of Pocket Internet Explorer, using the IE6 rendering and IE8 JavaScript engine. Also announced have been an online application market place and back-up service, and still unannounced but widely expected is Zune Marketplace integration.

"And we’re truly scratching the surface on what’s possible these days." said Scott Rockfeld, director of Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business.

Microsoft, who classes themselves 3rd in the mobile marketplace behind Symbian and RIM, remains ambitious about their prospects.

Bach, talking to students in Redmond, Wash., last week, said a billion phones are sold around the world each year.

"What it does for us from a business perspective is create tremendous opportunities," Bach said.

"What happens in the next three years is what’s going to define the next 10," said Scott Rockfeld. He went on to say Apple’s success in the smart phone market has helped the rest of the industry.

"They are the new guy," he said in an interview last week. "They definitely raise the awareness of what smart phones can do, so that’s actually benefited all of us and has benefited the industry."

Read the full article at the SeattleTimes.com

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged microsoft, windows mobile, windows mobile 6.5, windows mobile 7

michi!

Good to see that Microsoft is working on Windows Mobile and i really like the changes. I think that the Zune service will be announced after the MSN Music stores in England and Germany are closed.
http://www.avianwaves.com Parrotlover77

I’m glad PIE is getting a lot of work done on it (the builds in 6.5 look very pretty) but why on EARTH are they focusing on the IE6 rendering engine instead of using IE7 or IE8s? They could at least use IE7 (it’s mature now and does a much better job at rendering than IE6).

On the flip side, the javascript engine from IE8 is most welcome! the JSCRIPT stuff in PIE now is so incredibly limited and the IE team has spent time optimizing the javascript engine for IE8, so that will be a great addition to windows mobile.
NuShrike

Or maybe this interpretation works:
“After riding our Windows Mobile laurels into obsolescence the same way we did with IE after Netscape, Apple finally handed our asses to us in the mobile sphere. The iPhone whipped up our middle-managers’ hunger to copy-and-crush into a serious, renewed froth.

And this time, we’re going to try out an almost industry-standards compliant browser since we need to first get on the same page as Safari as we follow the tried-and-true strategy of embrace-and-extend.”
http://www.myspace.com/undomusic the undude

nushrike hits it on the head. ms had been drinking its own coolaid for far too long.