Windows Mobile 7 rumors coalesce around Q4 launch, MWC announcement
By Thomas Ricker 
posted January 22nd 2010 4:57AM
posted January 22nd 2010 4:57AM
While DigiTimes isn't our go-to source for all things Microsoft, the Taiwanese tattler does have its finger on the pulse of the Taiwanese / Chinese manufacturing juggernaut. As such, we expect it to be privy to information related to HTC, Acer, and ASUS handsets. So lean in close when it cites "sources familiar to Microsoft's roadmap" in claiming a September 2010 release of Windows Mobile 7 to its handset partners -- the same month pegged by that LG leak last week. That should translate into consumer availability by the end of Q4, or Q1 2011 at the latest. As it's stated, WinMo7 will bring an improved interface, browsing, and multimedia experience with integrated support for Zune, Xbox Live, and Silverlight; nothing we haven't heard before (and long wished for). DigiTimes claims that only English and "common European languages" will be available initially with Asian localization coming in 2011. Oh, and it'll be announced at Mobile World Congress. One thing's clear: the rapid convergence of the rumor mill around dates and feature sets has us very excited about Microsoft's chances at resurrecting its smartphone soul in time for the holidays. As such, we'll be at Mobile World Congress in force to bring you the full story starting February 15th. It's going to be good.
To the "Engadget only talks about iPhone/Apple" trolls:
Here's a perfect example of a positive non-apple related post.
@geekthree
It goes both ways. Then they talk about MS applefanboys cry, and when they talk about Macs, the MS fanboys cry. It will never end.
Honestly, Most of the Engadget crew do seem to prefer macs, it think it's more of a preference thing personally, but it does look odd that they ALL use macbooks and iphones. So I really don't understand why the Mac fanboys are so critical about engadget talking about windows as you are at the moment.
Just curious, are Mac fanboys, like, Cannibals? Will you eat your own if they speak ill of Steve Jobs?
@n0ne
wow, typos. it's to damn early...(5am)
@n0ne .. they don't ALL use Macs and iPhones. At least not from the photos I saw. Do you have some evidence or are you just another "engadget is biaised" troll ?
As for using Macs do you know how many are running Windows 7 ? .. I use a MacBook Pro and spend 75% of my time running Win7.
count the number of Apple table posts and WM7 posts.
@taligent
Then why use a macbook? Not a critic or trolling, just curious.
@geekthree
its not the positive non apple posts that most people cry about. there are plenty of those, its the phones that are actually pretty good phones, that get absolutely CRAPPED on, for the most intangible of reasons in their reviews. i.e. Droid (not so much), NexusOne, and especially the HD2. Its kinda like the crap that idiot mossberg pulls. Does a phone review of phone X, but often compares it to the iphone. And does it so much in his review that you hear more about the iphone in the phone X review, then the actual phone itself. Its very annoying to say the least.
@OCEAN CLAK ... are you blind ? .. On the right side there are clearly two PCs there.
@kitsune .. because I use Windows during the day when I'm working and Mac at night when I'm just surfing the web and playing around with Quartz Composer.
@OCEAN CLAK .. This photo: http://www.engadget.com/photos/engadget-bids-a-fond-farewell-to-ces-2010-0/#2605962 .. two PCs on the right (one Dell and what looks like a Lenova?). Almost all using PC mice though ;)
@geekthree engadget! stop showing that picture. you're giving me false hope coz i want a zune hd phone so bad!
@simbadogg
No kidding. I hate that the iPhone is being used as the standard to measure phones against.
"The Droid is a good phone at 92% of iPhone-ness." WTF?!
Ugh.
@geekthree
Throwing a positive bone out to the WinMo crowd every once in awhile is hardly disproving their bias. Even in this article, they manage to promote and slam WinMo at the same time.
I also agree with crapple. Every review compares X phone to the iPhone. A device is considered "too big" if the form factor is larger than an iPhone. A phone is considered "too boring" if it doesn't employ iPhone like transitions, etc, etc. The reality is that the iPhone is GREAT at doing some things. Truly, it is the standard in many areas. However, competitors are out there and they outshine the iPhone in many other ways. These phones rarely get positive reviews.
And don't even get me started on the overall amount of press Apple gets. There are about 5 tablet rumors to every WinMo rumor. It's not even close. And for an OS than has less than 10% of the market we certainly hear plenty about Apple's PC hardware and software.
@taligent WinMo 7 is getting the hype right now, especially now that 2 android phones had been released caught using this platform. The specs of HTC Obession is just amazing.. Starting with a 1.3GHz Snapdragon procs? Not shabby indeed: More details: http://bit.ly/htc-obsession-details
@geekthree
Where exactly have you spotted any sort of positive spin in this article?
Actually by suggesting that MS needs to "resurrect" its mobile OS the author manages to infer that Win Mobile for the time being, is a dead platform and that what I have been using on my HD2 for the last 4 months with extreme satisfaction (which I failed to get from my previos iPhone 3GS)must be some kind of ectoplasm.
If this are Engadget positive articles about MS I wonder what the negative are gonna be like.
More and more rumours is a good things. means WinMo7 is closer. This should be a decent reveal but the bigger the anticipation the bigger the potential disappointment. Come on MS dont disappoint.
Oh btw - only create one version and not multiple.
@pokes .. the rumor going around was that Microsoft is planning on releasing two versions of WinMo7. One this year (targeted for businesses) and one next year (targeted for consumers). Which makes sense as it gives them time to integrate Xbox Live/Zune properly instead of doing a half-assed job.
@taligent
Yeah but will that be akin to WinMo6.x Smartphone and Professional?
or will it be totally different in that I would have to choose between having business centric or media centric phone? Why not have all on one phone?
It makes sense if MS had their own phone with xbox and zune and oems took a vanilla version but even then that makes winmo confusing to consumers. With WinMo 6.x still being in the market this is even more confusing. I just hope that they can see that.
@Ike Turner
And your point is? HTC works very closely with MS and do many other vendors, there isn't really anything special about handset manufacturers getting early builds to test on their hardware to make sure everything is ready for release.
@pokes
I'm kinda glad there will be two versions. For business, we buy smartphones by the ton. We don't need the high end specs that the "Super Mobile 7" requires. That extra $ per device adds up when you buy a ton. It would be good for business.
Having said that, I'll give my business user the lame version and I'm still getting the high end one. :-)
@Ike Turner
NOOOOOO!!! That means that MS didn't fix the UI if HTC needs to fix it for them again. :-(
Q4 2010 or Q1 2011? Nothing new. That is what has been expected anyway, although imo kinda late. Who knows how many Android phones will be out by that time. But the biggest fail is, no Asian language until later? Really? How stupid MS is? Asia is a large market for mobile phones, and the consumers there have the mindset of changing phones often, a prime market, yet MS is not ready?
Maybe it's a hint that MS is focusing their time elsewhere.
@pika2000
Regardless of how many Android phone are on the market there will still be plenty of people buying new and upgrading phones. The "to late" claim is ridiculous. Phones don't last forever and people do switch fairly easily.
I'm sure Asia is a huge market but it isn't like their market share is just going to blow up once they release WinMo 7. The first batch of phones will probably be in Europe and US anyway. Europe because most are likely to be by HTC and US because they are an American company.
If there was anything learned from the iPhone growth, it is that the US should be their target market and you can just expand to the rest.
should i buy a new phone now and get a winmo7 phone next year?
my motosurf is approaching 1 year old....
it'll be a bummer if i get a new phone and winmo7 comes out a couple of months later....
@mocax Why not wait until MWC to see what announcements are made. For instance, there's a possibility that HTC will announce that the HD2 will get a WM7 upgrade this year and that might influence your decision.
I now know what I want for Christmas this year if only htc and MS can get the products to market in time.
No doubt, iPhone OS will be raped.
@revoltracers
come on, don't start that...
@revoltracers
Look that's just stupid. And it trivializes rape. GTFO.
@revoltracers
Stop thinking about the iPhone3GS circa mid-2009 as the competition.
iPhone 4 is coming.......
(er.. bad choice of words?)
Fuck silverlight - can't do anything with it. I wish apple and adobe could have been more amiable during the iPhones early days.
I also hope that the tablet supports decent art packages like Photoshop.
@ChocNut
You'll get no art support from the Ithing. You'll have to paint with your finger, as Mr. Jobs says, it's the best input device ever and always with you. I agree, I want the Apple tablet for games only, but if HP ISlate can do what Ineed at a lower price point, Iwon't be bowing at the alter of bitten Ifruit.
I bet MS just puts "Seven" on the slates and that's why there dropping the "Windows Mobile" tag. At least that's my hope.
@ChocNut
I'm seeing Silverlight on more and more sites. Of course they're all over Microsoft sites (Bing Maps is awesome with it) but I've seen it other places. Netflix uses it, FOX or someone uses it, ETonline.
I know why more uses Flash and Java but it isn't crap.
@AABacon
MS hasn't dropped the mobile tag. The OS is still called Windows Mobile i.e. Windows Mobile 7. All the phone out there are collectively called Windows Phone.
They have the Windows CE core which Windows Mobile is built on top - CE 7 to be exact. This is a good core and could will be the core they use for courier so no need to bung WinMo on a slate. Create something from CE7 that works for the slate form factor and not just bung WinMo on it ala Android.
@pokes Steve Ballmer, that you? :-)
@ChocNut
Are you dumb? SilverLight is awesome. No kidding. If you've ever had to program anything ever you'd know that Flash's ActionScript sucks big balls. SilverLight 2.0 and higher uses a trimmed down .NET framework. You can write REAL programs in SilverLight using VisualBasic or C# and that's a hell of a lot more sane than Flash.
@crapple Exactly!! I'm not a programmer and neither are the majority of creative people who ensure the web is not simply a collection of forms and radio buttons. Flash is a very useful tool and actionscript has come a long way too but that's not the point. The point is that people like me can't use silverlight as it's more like a software dev kit.
So Winbile 7 reaches the public in 2011, but they won't have anything that Japanese, Chinese, or Koreans can use? They can kiss the rest of their shrinking market share so-long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu…
@Paul D
ya, because every product that didn't reach every corner of the globe immediately failed.
It better be good after all they have had thousands of programmers and almost 5 years to work on it...
@bob e "It better be good after all they have had thousands of programmers and almost 5 years to work on it..."
With that kind of pedigree, and a touch of Ballmer's genius, I'm sure It will astound and amaze, just like Vista did.
@Ed T I guess Windows 7 means nothing to you, then?
Seriously, if this is the best you can come up with, you need better trolling material. And this from a guy on a Macbook Pro who owns an iPhone.
@reticulate "I guess Windows 7 means nothing to you, then?"
Yeah, it means we should expect a usable release of Winmo 7 around 2013 or thereabouts.
Sprint rumored to be bring WM7 to their line up Q4 2012.
@boe
Actually, David Owens, VP of Consumer Marketing for Sprint held a live chat with Sprint customers back in October. This snippet is from that conversation:
QDW: When will the first Windows Mobile 7 phone be available?
David: Planned for 2010, more dependent on Microsoft's timeline though.
Here's the link to the full conversation: http://community.sprint.com/baw/community/sprintblogs/chat-with-buzz/blog/2009/10/29/david-owens-chat-transcript--1029
He doesn't say much more about 2010, though. Just repeats a couple times that WM7 coming to Sprint is dependant upon MS, and that Sprint will carry it as soon as it is released to them.
@boe
It's funny because it's true
SO LATE, that will make it much harder to resurrect.
I really hope Microsoft didn't base Windows Mobile 7 on Windows CE like they did with all Windows Mobile versions to date. I really hope it's a completely new platform that takes no consideration to backwards compatibility with all the current and old Windows Mobile applications. It needs to be a fresh build from scratch to be able to compete to the smallest detail.
Looking forward to MWC. I just wish they have WinMo7 ready earlier than Q4.
@Ahmed Eltawil
I am pretty much sure that WinMo7 is based on CE7. This is not a bad thing because CE7 supports Silverlight/WPF and a whole load of new (to a mobile platform) technologies.
@pokes Well, even if CE does support those technologies, I would rather see a complete overhaul than just another pretty layer on top of a CE platform. Take the Zune HD for instance. It already has WiFi, full HTML browser support (could support Silverlight & Flash soon), a great new UI concept that works great plus has that "wow" factor that Windows Mobile is desperately missing. I am just saying that Windows Mobile needs to not look or behave like everything Windows Mobile we've seen so far. It need a better human interaction, and to achieve that Microsoft needs to write a complete new platform from scratch...like they did with the Zune HD.