Motorola's WinMo ambitions not dead yet: 'Caesar' on the way with WinMo 7?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 4th 2009 2:40AM
posted Sep 4th 2009 2:40AM
As a key part of its corporate renaissance, Motorola's made no secret of the fact that it's placing a heavy emphasis on Android going forward, putting WinMo's continued role (especially outside Asia) within the company in jeopardy. Thing is, well-trained eyes at UX Evangelist have found a Moto software engineer's job experience on LinkedIn with app development and migration to Windows Mobile 7 beta -- yes, beta -- listed front and center. The project's mentioned for a device codenamed "Caesar," which would slot in nicely with Moto's trend of assigning ancient rulers' names to smartphones ahead of release. We have no idea what Caesar might be, but if everything we've heard is true, odds are good that it'd have to comply to Microsoft's so-called Chassis 1 specifications that require ample touchscreen resolution and processor power. And if 7's seriously in beta, that means it's moving right along with a mid-2010 release totally plausible. Sholes repping the Android camp and Caesar holding down WinMo 7? Sounds good to us.
[Via MobileTechWorld]
We will see what happens next. I hope they get it tested properly. Now we can only guess...
Don't you know technology companies love to rush out non-functional products then ask you to update it?
Yep;) That's how it goes generally. We can only hope and guess now;)
The bigger news for now is that we could get some legit details and news at PDC this year.
What will be the reason to run another version of Windows Mobile? Market has
already decided the fate of Windows Mobile. I guess it is not too obvious yet?
Which market is that? Please explain.
Also explain why a company is not allowed to improve a product that is still got a relatively healthy market share. Go and ask HTC, Motorola, Nvidia, etc, etc why they are still backing Windows Mobile.
That would be Roger's 'East Lahndahn Barrow Boy market, innit?'
It sure has, and the market has decided that WinMo continues to outsell Mobile OSX and Android year after year after year:
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=910112
Troll differently.
WindowsFTW aka WinTroll,
Why showing 08 market report? Why not show 09 report that shows WinMo marketshare
has PLUNGED! Showing out of date data just shows Wintroll like yourself is still living
in the past. WINMO is a dinosaurs of the past! That's just fact!
@Eddy: Last I checked, 2009 hasn't been over yet. I think those numbers reflect all of 2008. Unless Gartner or whoever has a time machine, there's nothing known about the rest of 2009.
Quikboy @
We are already in September. The data that covers first half of the year is already in. This doesn't
include much of the recent sales for the new iPhone, Pre and newer Android phones. And yet,
WinMo marketshare has already plunged to a single digit. So you can be sure the second half
data isn't going to be pretty for WinMo. Most likely it is going to be much uglier.
Sure Eddy,
You give me a time machine, and I'll give you the 09 numbers.
Until then, troll differently.
@WindowsFTW wow your stats seem to indicate that WinMo has been spanking Google & Apple right? Wrong, for the years 2007-2008 iPhone was not sold in every worldwide market that WinMo is sold in. If you exclude the markets (countries) WinMo is sold in that iPhone is not then iPhone probably sold more in 2008.
What is even more relevant is the fact carriers have put pressure on WinMo to deliver a better user experience, which is an indication that their sales have fallen behind Apple's, probably by a lot. When you exclude businesses that have to run WinMo (for a piece of mobile software) and Windows fanboys, there aren't a heck of a lot of people buying WinMo anymore.
In the meantime Symbian is laughing at both platform's sales. It's all so... quaint.
mid-2010? nice! i thought it was coming out later. now i need to decide if i want to get something like a Touch Pro 2 in January (when i'm eligible for a subsidy again) and upgrade to WinMo 7 later (via XDA Devs if necessary), or wait till it ships. i'm guessing WinMo 7 will support capacitive screens, so i need to figure out which screen tech i prefer. not to mention hardware could be a little faster by then.
WM7 = capacitive support out of the box + multi-touch + Tegra/Snapdragon based chipsets as min specs (as it would seem), oh and all indications point to WVGA resolutions as another requirement (though I wouldnt be surprised to see some VGA's lingering around still--which isnt that bad considering iPhone 3GS doesnt even do VGA let alone WVGA)
This guy is soooo fired.
Perhaps, the W3C should take on the BONDI SDK efforts currently sponsored by LiMo (http://bondisdk.limofoundation.org/), in order to give this initiative more visibility & weight.
An excerpt from the site:
"The BONDI SDK project is an effort to develop and maintain an open source Web SDK based on the BONDI specifications. The objective of this project is to create an SDK that enables development of Web applications and widgets that can run across all mobile handsets supporting a BONDI-compliant Web runtime."
This SDK, if broadly supported by all smartphone OSes, would allow developers to focus on building great web apps, instead of wasting all of their time building & supporting versions of the same local app for all of the different smartphone platforms.
ask him about wm7! everyone keep asking him until he tells about it
Now that is known as microsoft. Clearly innovating and making mistakes again and again.. They dont know where they are heading to and after some point of time, they will stop the whole product line.
Motorola is wise enough to know that Windows Mobile 6.5 seems to be still away from its _STRONG_ competitors like iPhone, Android or Palm and ONLY Windows Mobile 7 may catch them up.
You got to love uninformed trolls:
http://msmobiles.com/news.php/7759.html
or if you prefer: http://gizmodo.com/5071629/moto-lets-the-windows-mobile-65-cat-out-of-the-bag
"...but as you look at the plan that is Windows Mobile 7 and even 6.5, I think there are significant new added features which will help the platform," Jha said. "We have now targeted new teams which are focused – in California and Seattle – to deliver experiences. That is where we have to differentiate."
Windows Mobile 6.5 powered phones by Motorola are scheduled for the first half of 2009,
And for what it's worth, WM 6.5 is super slick.
It's basically the Zune/Zune HD interface for the home screen, and the rest of the interface, especially with the newest builds (2303x and up), is very finger friendly.
But then again, I would expect baseless blanket statements from those who have neither the know how nor the inclination to try it, yet feel compelled nevertheless to berate it.
Oh, and lastly, just how will WM7 catch WinMo up to Android or iPhone or Palm?
WinMo outsells all 3 of them, and compared to any of the aforementioned, dominates them in the business sectors, and arguably in terms of functionality and features.
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=910112
WM 6.5 and the likes of TF3D 2.5 have adressed the UI concerns largely, and Id argue that the UI on say the iPhone is stale and bland, Android is boring and simple. Can't bash Palm because their UI is not only pretty but also conducive to multi-tasking, something that iPhone users wouldn't even know how to properly define without arguing over it.
WindowsFTW aka WinTroll,
Why showing 08 market report? Why not show 09 report that shows WinMo marketshare
has PLUNGED! Showing out of date data just shows Wintroll like yourself is still living
in the past. WINMO is a dinosaurs of the past! That's just fact!
Eddy sounds like that jackass Ejr from msmobiles.com.
There are articles on other sites that say the 23xxx builds could be 6.5.1 while the official 6.5 will be a 21xxx series build that was completed a while ago. I like the 21800 build, but I'm not sure if it's part of the same string. I'm using the 234xx builds right now.
WinMo has always been crap since it was WinCE 1.0. Amazing that with all its resources and the many versions its gone through it is still crap.
Look out Caesar! Brutus is right behind you. Awww....not again
Maybe he didn't update his LinkedIn profile since the project got canned? Motorola has done a 180 degree on their WM strategy....