Will include Office Mobile 2010 with it when the app is released

Feb 26, 2010 11:38 GMT  ·  By

Redmond-based software giant Microsoft announced last week the launch of a new mobile operating system, the Windows Phone 7 OS, which is expected to land on the market on handsets sometime before the holiday season (hopefully in September), and also revealed the launch of Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition SKU, on which it has just unveiled more details. When officially announced, the Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition was said to be available via BSquare, and now the company says that it is available to all direct partners, as well as via MediaTek and BSquare.

The Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition SKU is available in two different flavors, one with Office Mobile included in the package and one without it, and, in a recent interview with ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, a Microsoft spokesperson also notes that the current version of Office Mobile will be included in the SKU. However, it seems that Office Mobile 2010, which is at the moment available in a beta flavor for Windows Mobile 6.5-based devices, will also be delivered to OEMs and distributors as soon as the final version is available.

“The Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition SKU is offered in multi-language versions with and without Microsoft Office Mobile and supports 2G (GSM), 2.5G (CDMA2000 xRTT, EDGE, GPRS), CDMA (Rev A, EV-DO Revision A), and TD-SCDMA radios,” the Microsoft spokesperson also stated, adding that mobile phone makers are expected to launch the first devices based on the solution during the ongoing year. However, no details on the pricing of Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition SKU were unveiled, nor on the possibility that we might see a Starter SKU for each future Windows Mobile flavors.

In case there are some who are not familiar with the Windows Phone Starter Edition concept, we should note that they are similar with the Starter products Microsoft launched for its desktop clients, such as Windows XP and Windows Vista Starter, which were meant mainly for the emerging markets. However, Mary Jo Foley also notes that “with Windows 7, Microsoft broadened the availability of the Starter Edition to include all countries, with Home Basic becoming the new emerging-market-only SKU,” but that Windows Phone Starter Edition seems to remain only a platform for emerging markets.