Ballmer Confirms Windows Mobile 6.5

Author Gordon Kelly
Published 10th Nov 2008
Ballmer Confirms Windows Mobile 6.5
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Clearly, Steve Ballmer is determined to dominate this morning's news. After smugly rejecting Jerry Lang's 180 Yahoo takeover plea, the outspoken CEO has today let slip a biggie for lovers of smartphones everywhere: Windows Mobile 6 is real and it's coming soon.

Speaking during an investor briefing for Aussie telco Telstra, Ballmer was as straight talking as usual casually explaining "With releases we'll make this year - releases we'll make with 6.5 next year, Windows Mobile 7, I think we have a pretty interesting roadmap." Well, pretty interesting now Steve, that's for sure...


Of course, the cat was virtually out the bag already when WM 6.5 was referenced by embattled Motorola handset CEO Sanjay Jha in his company's earnings call last week (attention deflection, anyone?). Jha said "Windows Mobile 6 has not delivered the experience that I think Apple has been able to deliver, but as you look at the plan that Windows Mobile 7 and even 6.5, I think there are significant new added features which will help the platform."

So what can we expect from WM 6.5? Plenty of tweaks for sure, but the 110 per cent nailed on cert will be a completely overhauled UI. Both Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1 have rightly been pilloried for their PC-centric, unintuitive and stylus-needing ways (I mean just look at it below) so no doubt larger finger-friendly icons, intuitive scrolling and a new version of pocket Internet Explorer will be making their debuts.


Perhaps the bigger question however is whether or not WM 6.5 will be an upgradeable option (free or otherwise) or if a new handset and new contract will be your only escape route (short of switching allegiances to a G1, BlackBerry Bold / Storm or iPhone 3G, naturally).

Let's all hope for the former because if the smartphone market is to continue pushing forward as impressively as it has done then it needs a Microsoft which is on top of its game and cranking up the pressure on everyone else...

Link:
Telstra Webcast

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comment Gordon said on 10th November 2008

@adamz - really? You want me to go there...?

Putting a PC-centric design onto a mobile phone is an intuitive step forward? Wrong! I also think you assume everyone ha... more

comment lifethroughalens said on 10th November 2008

IMO, WM OS is a POS!

I don't ever want to be reminded of the awful days with my (numerous) IPaq's running Windows Mobile. I would be delighted if MS ditch... more

comment Chris Magowan said on 11th November 2008

I became a first time windows mobile user in April, when i got my htc kaiser.
Straight away i was dissapointed with teh interface, and the fact that, without my keyboard, it... more

comment Oliver Levett said on 11th November 2008

"Luckily O2 have an wee app that makes killing these a doddle (maybe all the operators do?)"
That kind of thing are made by the OEM (Oh look, HTC had it about 3 ye... more

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