Windows Mobile 6.x to be free, come with free navigation?

February 10, 2010 | By Surur

MSMobiles say they have the low down on Microsoft’s Mobile World Congress announcements, and what they leaked makes quite a bit of sense.

First the bits we think we know already:

Windows Mobile 7 will be introduced with Zune, Xbox, Bing integration. It will feature a new kernel,Games and Music improvements and a new user interface, based on Windows Presentation Foundation. Development will take place in the latest version of Visual Studio.

Now the new bits:

Clearly in a direct response to Nokia and Android, Windows Mobile (not sure which version) will come with free navigation (presumably turn by turn). Also clearly in a response to all the open source mobile OS’s, Windows Mobile 6.X will be free to developing markets.

As mentioned above, these changes make perfect sense, and shows a Microsoft prepared to respond much more rapidly than before to changes in the mobile market.

What do our readers think? Is this a sufficient response to the competitive pressure Microsoft faces? Let us know below.

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 news, rumours, software, windows mobile 7

http://twitter.com/one_solo @one_solo

This is going to be great if Turn by Turn nav becomes really free…

Tamara

Turn-by-turn is like the YellowPages, with the ability for business owners to pay and make their sites more visible in a search, or have their POI logo appear on the map. The same holds true with all the major online map services (actually, it's where it all originated). It's free as they want as many millions of users consuming the data as they can get

GP007

This fits with the idea of WM6.x still being work on along with 7.0. I can see this being true, and why not make 6.x free to places like China etc? It'd be a huge win. The upside is you can get the OS out then make up the costs from ads, selling apps, and your services. It's win win really. That leaves WM7 for the newer, more expensive phones and regions of the world like the US/EU that can afford the cost. I heard that MS charged $25 per WM license, that doesn't sound all that much to me personally. That could hold true and not change with 7 OR, they could be even more aggressive with it and charge a bit less.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Lennard Lennard

true at face value $25 per WM license doesn't sound like much, but multiply that $25 by 1 million, or even even 2 million….maybe 5 million phones. There were upwards of 50 million WM phones sold last year, last time I checked WM wasn't making that much money for the Devices department…so it seems much less that $25 per license.

however, I think they should be even more aggressive with their pricing, because they will recoupe this money and more through their app catalog and adverts. the point around should be capturing mindshare and marketshare will follow suite.

Tamara

Perfect sense? So they'll have 2 versions of a mobility offering, and then all the different versions depending on what device you have, and whether it's been updated to the current version or not. Perfect sense if the goal is to go further down the path of irrelevance

http://intensedebate.com/people/Lennard Lennard

at any one time there always 2 Major versions of Windows sold to consumers and OEMs (not talking the different SKUs) and look how well that has worked for them. the older version plus the newer version. bring the same but more controlled strategy to the Mobile space and it's so crazy it just might work. I don't think they changed the slogan from Windows Mobile to Windows Phones for nothing.

http://intensedebate.com/people/snworf Tamara

It's not going to work. It's too confusing for the average consumer and is going to be compounded when antiquated devices sit on a shelf next to shiny new ones branded with the same OS moniker. Fortunately for MS, there's plenty of marketshare left over to keep fringe-OS devices alive.

Craig S

being free to developing nations does not imply that you'll see antiquated devices sitting on a shelf next to shiny new ones. I highly doubt any carrier would display and market their phones like that

Lorin

Most probably Route 66 is building the nav system. An ex colegue of mine works there and they received a batch of HTC phones in january. Some were android (he confirmed the bravo) and some were windows mobile (he's working in the android division and he doesnt know what phones or os).

They received the HTC phones to build navigation software. So, its either 6.6 or 7 that will receive a free nav, but its sure that Route 66 is the developer.

fred

Interesting, but I wonder of the Android phones negate the likelihood of this being the Windows Mobile solution.

Lorin

I'm pretty confident that its for 7. Imagine that at the launch of wm7 there will be no nav app on the phones. Most of us use a nav system, so that would be a very bad thing (not having a gps app). They would not sell many phones without a nav system. I'm thinking that it will come with a basic nav system and in the future the rest of the developers will make a wm7 nav app.

http://twitter.com/Rovex @Rovex

I think this is a great idea. It will get Winmo a larger market share, especially in China after the Google/China fall out. Imagine if its was free, the market share of Winmo would go sky high. It also gives an upgrade route to 7 making it an aspiration figure.
It would only take a few million sales of the free OS to push it nicely past Apple Worldwide, that has to be good PR if nothing else.
reddragon72

The fact that Microsoft is paying any attention at all to the changing world of the mobile market is a plus. WinMo7 may not come out as good as people want, but the fact is they redid the whole OS from the ground up shows they they have taken notice.

As for the nav stuff, if you don't have at least google maps on your phone then there is something wrong with you. There are dozens of nav apps so why do I want one built in? I love WinMo cause I have choices and don't have junk shoved down my throat or taking up space on my phone. So this little tidbit in not that big of a deal.
Mellowmelmo

A few months ago I said that I wanted XNA and WPF in WinMo 7. If MSMobiles aren't just jerking my chain, I say "Thanks MS!"
http://www.avianwaves.com Parrotlover77

"…will feature a new kernel…"

I hope you just mean a new version of the CE kernel. I just want to make sure nobody continues to fan the flames of "MS is making a brand new OS from scratch" flames, which makes no strategic sense in any possible way. Especially considering that even Zune is powered by CE.