[bkrodgers]

Windows *MOBILE* is, in fact, dead. It's all Windows Phone 7 Series from here, and I'm not just being the marketing police here. It's a clean break. MS is going through the same transition Palm did a few years ago. They had an aging operating system that wasn't considered competitive with current offerings (ironically, WM6 at that time was one of their best competitors, until iPhone came along). They had concluded, correctly or not, that the existing platform could not evolve into what was needed to compete, so they went back to the drawing board. Lots of people left them for dead, it took way too long to get the "big new thing" out.

Now, Palm's delivered a good OS but isn't gaining a whole lot of traction in the market. They've got some good innovations, such as their multitasking implementation. MS, of course, has resources that dwarf Palm. And unlike Palm, which went exclusive with Sprint for awhile, it looks like MS is going to blanket the world with multiple manufacturers and carriers. So they have a good chance. But in the end, it will come down to whether users (and developers) latch on or not. They have for the iPhone, they are starting to for Android, and I do think there's still room for MS (and even Palm) to succeed as well. But the market is a fickle thing.

But make no mistake. Windows Mobile as we knew it is just as dead as Garnet was the day WebOS was announced.