14 DAY TRIAL // Redmond-based software company Microsoft is getting ready to change drastically the user experience that its Windows Mobile operating system can deliver. At a recent meeting with financial analysts and investors, the company stated that things were about to change, and that the upcoming version of the platform, namely the Windows Mobile 6.5, was set to deliver a new level of hardware integration than before, as well as a richer multimedia experience, including enhanced browsing, media and video capabilities. Some of the key solutions the company seems to plan include a diversity of hardware solutions.
“The fundamentals of our strategy are based on the idea of choice and selection. It is our view that one model, one type of phone is not going to build volume into that critical mass that we think we need to make the business successful,” Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, told Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM) attendees. “We have people who are going to want Qwerty keyboard, touch keyboard, big screen, people who want small screens. People who will make trade offs on battery life to do media. So it is our view we need to work closely with Samsung, LG, HP, HTC, Sony Ericcson and others to build a broad selection of phones with different price points and different functionality.”
He also added that Windows Mobile 6.5-powered devices should be capable of providing a much richer browsing experience than before, as well as access to “more Web sites than you will be able to get to on an iPhone.” In addition, he said that Microsoft would move to the already announced Windows Phone naming for the platform starting this fall (or this October, to be more precise, as that will be the month when the first handsets running under 6.5 are expected to become available on the market). Unfortunately, these pieces of information were already known, and no other details on what Microsoft actually intends to do have been unveiled.
We already learned that the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 should include a few more attractive features than expected in the first place, and it seems that Microsoft is indeed poised to deliver them to its users. When it comes to some of the more interesting things that it should deliver in the future, such as the Windows Mobile 7, or the much-rumored Pink phone, the Redmond company keeps totally silent. Even if its optimism on Windows Mobile 6.5 might influence others, we must say that we're rather skeptical when it comes to so radical changes that the almost-here platform would be able to deliver, for that task was supposedly one that WM 7 was capable of fulfilling. Hopefully, the upcoming OS flavor will be as good as Microsoft wants us to think.