14 DAY TRIAL // According to the latest news on the Web, the first devices to feature Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system should come to the market sometime in the fourth quarter of the year. Previously, the Redmond company announced that the devices would become available in the second half of the year, yet it seems that, now, the timeframe has been narrowed down.
It's a common fact that Windows Mobile 6.5 is the next-to-come iteration of Microsoft's operating system for mobile phones, and that it is expected to bring a lot of novelties when compared to other versions of the platform, while also marking the transition to Windows Mobile 7, the platform release expected to become available next year as a completely changed OS, compared with its predecessors.
The new launch window has been spotted in a transcript of Microsoft's fiscal year third-quarter earning report, which states the following: “You can expect to see phones running Windows Mobile 6.5 by the fourth quarter of this calendar year.”
Certainly, the new launch window is within the previously announced timeframe, yet most of us have been expecting to see smartphones running under Windows Mobile 6.5 released into the wild in the third quarter of the year, especially given all the goodies Microsoft stated that the new platform would be able to offer.
At the same time, we should also note that, though it will present the OS at the TechEd event next month, Microsoft won't make the official release at that date, as we have been recently tempted to believe. For what it's worth, the Redmond company will detail the mobile platform at the event, yet it will only be a presentation, which means that the actual launch will come later during the ongoing year.
One way or another, no exact launch date for neither the operating system, nor the mobile phones that will feature it has been unveiled until now, and, while expecting to learn more on the matter at the upcoming TechEd event, we hope there will be no delays and smartphones powered by Windows Mobile 6.5 will come to the market before the end of the year.