Microsoft's efforts to regain lost ground in the mobile phone business will see the company offering two versions of its operating system next year.
The company will continue to broadly sell Windows Mobile 6.5 to a large variety of handset manufacturers, but will also work more closely with rival phone makers to sell phones built on a new version of Windows Mobile that has been several years in the making, according to a source familiar with the plans.
While Windows Mobile 6.5 is a fairly interim update to the mobile operating system Microsoft has been selling, it has also been working on more radical efforts to overhaul the OS. Its plans for both Windows Mobile 7 and the long-running 'Pink' project aim to match the kinds of experiences seen on the iPhone and Android, using more advanced voice and touch interfaces, and higher-end hardware.
Microsoft demonstrated Windows Mobile 6.5 at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The interim update to Windows Mobile will begin arriving on phones this autumn, while a more radical overhaul of the mobile phone OS is due next year.
A report by Digitimes Systems this week called the effort a "dual-platform" strategy. What is clear is that Microsoft must do something serious if it hopes to live up to its mobile ambitions.
For years, the company has made rather modest updates to the Windows Mobile operating system, which dates back to the days of code-powered PDAs and other organisers that were neither phones nor, in some cases, even connected to the internet.
In that time, Palm has gone back to the drawing board and reinvented itself with the WebOS-based Pre, while the iPhone and Android have entered the market and even Research In Motion has arguably done more to capture consumer interest than has Microsoft.
Internally, Microsoft has shifted a number of its people into the mobile unit. In addition to former server executive Andy Lees, who now runs the phone business, former Mac business unit chief Roz Ho has been leading a top-secret 'premium mobile experiences' team responsible for some of the Pink work. The company purchased mobile phone company Danger, which Ho also heads.
Microsoft has also pulled staff from its Tellme unit to help bring improved voice-recognition capability to Windows Mobile.
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The company has been working on Windows Mobile 7 for what now seems like an eternity, especially in the mobile world. The product was supposed to be in phone makers' hands by early this year, but has suffered a number of delays.
Officially, the company will discuss only Windows Mobile 6.5 and its plan to start using the Windows Phone brand.
"We're on track to deliver Windows Phones that will be running Windows Mobile 6.5 this autumn," a representative said.
But, in a discussion with reporters earlier this year, Microsoft Entertainment unit president Robbie Bach stressed the importance of new user interfaces, such as touch and voice.
"Independent of specific plans for any specific product, you should just assume over time that that's going to become part of the products that we produce," Bach said, according to a Seattle Times account. "And, you know, specific timing and all those things, I'll leave aside, but it is a huge trend. And once you have something like touch or voice to interact with, you wonder why you did it the old way."
And, although Microsoft has denied it is looking to enter the handset business, it has said it thinks it needs to partner more closely with a few companies to produce more competitive devices.
"To date, we haven't done as good a job as I would like in building the relationships and getting the right level of integration," Bach said at the company's financial analyst meeting last month. "Obviously, phones take time to develop, so that won't happen overnight, but you're going to see a dramatic improvement in the integration between what we do in the software and what our hardware partners do on the hardware side."
The company has also aimed to have its software run on the widest range of devices, resulting in what Lees and Bach have both called a "lowest common denominator" experience.
In a July interview with ZDNet UK's sister site CNET News.com, Bach acknowledged that Microsoft just needs to pick up the pace.
"If your point is we haven't advanced Windows Mobile as fast as we'd like, I think the answer is that's true," Bach said. "You are going to see that change."
However, he did not say much more about where Microsoft is headed, other than to point out that the company has made a lot of changes to the team working on the product over the past year.
"My view on these topics is that talk is cheap," he said. "The next thing we are going to show people is Windows Mobile 6.5. There's plenty of innovation in the pipeline."
