Windows Mobile 7 delayed AGAIN!!!

[frazell]

Originally Posted by smoove21

I completely agree. I started a thread awhile back with the required specs and story of microsoft releasing a phone of their own. Of course microsoft denies this but it would also make sense that 6.5 would be the os that other phone makers use while microsoft themselves develop their own brand to release with the new software. what other reason would you delay when its obvious the competition is catching up(in certain areas). Look we all know that no one else outside of RIM has the business aspect of mobile phones understood. So as long as the iphones and g1(2)s or whatever dont start cutting into that part of the pie microsoft knows they can take their time and finish developing the touch area of windows mobile.. This however doesnt mean im gonna hang around until then. Ive decided to get a pre and come back when windows "phone" 7 is released.

Although Microsoft has made a major game shift like this before with the Zune offering. It isn't something they are accustomed to doing and I'm not convinced they will yet try it with Windows Mobile.

Microsoft as a company has expertise in software. They'll do whatever they can to keep their hands out of the hardware cookie jar and I'm a big fan of that. They just courted all these relationships with LG, Samsung, and other new Windows Mobile phone makers. If they release their own phone offering everyone, HTC included, would almost immediately drop the ball on Windows Mobile. They would be getting the short end of the stick. Microsoft would be their new competitor. If Microsoft does as you said and kept Windows Mobile 7 for itself and only gave its partners 6.5 the partners would REALLY feel betrayed.

Although for consumers it seems that Microsoft needs to come out with their own device and fight apple directly it isn't a logical move. Microsoft's solid strength is in the Business market. If they cut out HTC, LG, etc. they would need to start offering Windows Mobile devices in the myriad of form factors and designs that meet the needs of many diffierent companies. That would overwhelm them.

Keep in mind this consumer shift is new and everyone is learning how to pull it in. The problems are shared both sides. The iPhone is considered the god for the consumer as it does the few things it does in a simple manner that average people can grasp. It doesn't offer the configuration and complexity that a company needs from a Smartphone and as a result it isn't really penetrating the business market (that's why RIM was just named the fastest growing company in the world by Fortune even though the iPhone is killing RIM in the consumer space). The heavyweights like Microsoft and RIM on the other hand have been having a similar fight with their stuff being heavy in the business world and hard to transfer over to the consumer world.

What will end up happening, imho, is the smartphone OS world will segment much like the desktop world. There will end up being Consumer and Buisness OS editions...

[boredandtattooed]

last year sometime i remember reading an article where it said world wide, there were over a 100 different handsests that run some version of Windows Mobile... thats gotta be hard to support that amount of devices youd think...

i dont think microsoft offering their own devices and with its own OS, is any different than the way you had to have a good enough computer to run vista... maybe its not microsoft wants to shaft their consumers, but that they know conventional devices can barely handle it as it is sometimes, and would actually be making a better product for the future...

snapdragon is basically here... tegra is not far behind.... what devices can do and handle and what will become standard will drasctically change alot sooner than later... we all know microsoft is not worried about the phone experience at all really.. they want a computer feel, a buisness feel, a more sophisticated feel...

it wont be long, and i said this the other day some where else on here, before smartphones are really 4-5inch screened netbooks that make phone calls, apps, txting,etc(some wont have keyboards still, so more like a tablet in that case)

MS is probably gearing up for the future, using their own device for this makes sense to me... EVERYONE is coming out of the woodwork manufacturing new smartphones.. having to buy a MS windows phone, would simply meaning changing device manufactures really... not much different than deciding you want a BB or Iphone, instead of an HTC...

Nokia is abandoning the S60 platform... should their consumers feel betrayed? i guess thats a little different maybe though...

ive been running WM for about 3yrs now roughly, me personally, wouldnt have a problem at all if after an offical 6.5 release that was it... and everything else was upto US after that... make everything available at that point though.. so we can do what we want in a sense..

it just wouldnt bother me, to have to buy a handset from MS to get THE NEWEST OS upgrade, if they did it like tomorrow, sure it'd be kinda like wow ok,that was unexpected" but it seems like were getting told little by little this is possibly be coming at some point...

you gotta think... if you had win98, you had to pay to upgrade to XP, XP had to pay to upgrade vista.... unless u bought a new machine it came preloaded on.... isnt all this really the same thing really? am i way out on left feild in all of this??

heres my final question everyone, what if you had to pay to upgrade to say WM7, and theorectcally WM7.5, WM8,WM9, WMX(if they make a 10 thats how it shoudl look "WMX" lol) would you do it??? even if you could pay to upgrade, your device may not be able to support it, youd still have to buy a new handset then, and in that case youd switch over to a MS branded device from say HTC... MS just needs to make sure all their phones arent hideous and have a lengthy product line if they want it to work though

[redd214]

great points boradandtatooed

[Noir]

heres my final question everyone, what if you had to pay to upgrade to say WM7, and theorectcally WM7.5, WM8,WM9, WMX(if they make a 10 thats how it shoudl look "WMX" lol) would you do it??? even if you could pay to upgrade, your device may not be able to support it, youd still have to buy a new handset then, and in that case youd switch over to a MS branded device from say HTC... MS just needs to make sure all their phones arent hideous and have a lengthy product line if they want it to work though

a la iphone users/ ipod touch users paying a nominal fee to upgrade? I wouldn't mind it but IMHO I'd personally prefer the custom roms released. In many respects, this is why I am with HTC because it offers almost full customization and limitless potential due to the communities available for htc. That isn't to say microsoft will not have it - it just may but HTC is established.

I personally think that as a result of this, Microsoft should contract HTC to design the device personally. And with HTC's move to capacitive touch, stylus, and new designs, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft's phone isn't designed/manufactured by HTC. It would make a lot of sense.

That said I don't mind if WM 6.5 will tide me over. Its a bit of a dull news, but it gives me an idea where I stand as far as smartphones go. And yes seeing the price and availability of powerhouse devices in America may take time, in comparison to its international counterparts.All in all its most interesting

[craig198]

sad news indeed... waiting for more powerful phones lol. just a crappy excuse. they need to fix their sloppy coding first and stop making excuses. android is my next OS anyway. just waiting for sprint to jump on it.

[Magoo_215]

Change.... Its coming.... I can smell it... The end is near, I can feel it.... Im... Im So scared... No Htc, where... where will I go...

[craig198]

Originally Posted by Magoo_215

Change.... Its coming.... I can smell it... The end is near, I can feel it.... Im... Im So scared... No Htc, where... where will I go...

yeah but is it "change we can believe in" lolz. where is the impeach button

[hyakku]

Why is it that people feel business users need multiple different handsets to "serve different needs".

The only thing I think Apple did right with the iphone WAS make one handset, juts like RIM doesn't make dozens of different handsets a year, they have their flagship ones and that's it. The problem with microsoft is that they can only do the business aspect of their phones decently, and the issue with Apple/ Palm is that they are focused on the consumer aspect being perfect.

Can it really be that hard for them to make an OS that does BOTH. I've always laughed at how XP pro, Vista Pro, Win 7 ultimate, etc are all supposed to be more expensive, but in reality they could have just made ONE OS that way that would sell better. It's ****ing stupid. They need to make ONE windows mobile platform, get the consumer functions (easy to type, easy UI, solid build, good battery life, good multimedia capability) and the business functions (exchange, word, excel, etc) and just combine them. Why is that so difficult? The only two handsets there should be are Win Mo phones with a keyboard and without it. Besides that get HTC to design a solid touch screen only phone and a physical keyboard phone for users who are consistently writing emails/texts. that's it. This is the reason the iphone, the palm pre, and even blackberry appeals to so many consumers and many more business as they continue to get business support, the very opposite reason people keep contending that microsoft has an advantage which is their uniform models. It's far easier to manage one or two different types of handsets then worry if one person's phone is compatible with X and the other phone has Y specs, etc.

Choices in handsets to me aren't really a good thing to me, it means that there is obviously not a system that is uniformly well designed, built, portable, long lasting and efficient and therefore the consumer must make sacrifices. I already knew WM 7 wasn't coming for a while, but I'm pretty sure I'll be on Android OS (hopefully on my computer too). I trust google to do things right because they always have, one platform, strong support for it, limited amount of handsets to ensure compatibility; what more could you want?

[Young_breedent]

Originally Posted by hyakku

Why is it that people feel business users need multiple different handsets to "serve different needs".

The only thing I think Apple did right with the iphone WAS make one handset, juts like RIM doesn't make dozens of different handsets a year, they have their flagship ones and that's it. The problem with microsoft is that they can only do the business aspect of their phones decently, and the issue with Apple/ Palm is that they are focused on the consumer aspect being perfect.

Can it really be that hard for them to make an OS that does BOTH. I've always laughed at how XP pro, Vista Pro, Win 7 ultimate, etc are all supposed to be more expensive, but in reality they could have just made ONE OS that way that would sell better. It's ****ing stupid. They need to make ONE windows mobile platform, get the consumer functions (easy to type, easy UI, solid build, good battery life, good multimedia capability) and the business functions (exchange, word, excel, etc) and just combine them. Why is that so difficult? The only two handsets there should be are Win Mo phones with a keyboard and without it. Besides that get HTC to design a solid touch screen only phone and a physical keyboard phone for users who are consistently writing emails/texts. that's it. This is the reason the iphone, the palm pre, and even blackberry appeals to so many consumers and many more business as they continue to get business support, the very opposite reason people keep contending that microsoft has an advantage which is their uniform models. It's far easier to manage one or two different types of handsets then worry if one person's phone is compatible with X and the other phone has Y specs, etc.

Choices in handsets to me aren't really a good thing to me, it means that there is obviously not a system that is uniformly well designed, built, portable, long lasting and efficient and therefore the consumer must make sacrifices. I already knew WM 7 wasn't coming for a while, but I'm pretty sure I'll be on Android OS (hopefully on my computer too). I trust google to do things right because they always have, one platform, strong support for it, limited amount of handsets to ensure compatibility; what more could you want?

What i think you fail to realize is that not everyone wants "everything" on there phone. To some of us that would be great because we have no problem spending $500 + on a phone. But to other people they would never use half of those features. So to them $500 is out of the question. For this reason alone is why microsoft is going the route it's going. Why cut off some consumers when you can have both high end and low end devices. And also microsoft is all about software. If a hardware manufacturer whats to run your software on there phone it would be bad business to turn them down. This is why you have so many windows mobile phones. Manufacturers build a phone to run a certain OS unless they have there own. And alot of manufacturers choose windows mobile. The problem is that some of these manufacturers don't put the required specs in there phones to run the OS properly. Which is why some of these windows mobile phones get such a bad rep. Microsoft is changing this by having certain requirements with 6.5 and 7. This will all be a very good thing when it's all said and done.

[hyakku]

Originally Posted by Young_breedent

What i think you fail to realize is that not everyone wants "everything" on there phone. To some of us that would be great because we have no problem spending $500 + on a phone. But to other people they would never use half of those features. So to them $500 is out of the question. For this reason alone is why microsoft is going the route it's going. Why cut off some consumers when you can have both high end and low end devices. And also microsoft is all about software. If a hardware manufacturer whats to run your software on there phone it would be bad business to turn them down. This is why you have so many windows mobile phones. Manufacturers build a phone to run a certain OS unless they have there own. And alot of manufacturers choose windows mobile. The problem is that some of these manufacturers don't put the required specs in there phones to run the OS properly. Which is why some of these windows mobile phones get such a bad rep. Microsoft is changing this by having certain requirements with 6.5 and 7. This will all be a very good thing when it's all said and done.

That's not going to help the consumer. If anything, it will only consume or infuriate them to find that they thought they were getting the latest technology only to have a crippled version. In addiition, no one wants to be using old technology. there are a plethora of phones that would run better with WM 5 still up there, but they have 6.1 installed. You assume that customers will be well informed about their choices, but people want what's going to look nice and work well.

As for the pricing issue, unless you are buying your phone unlocked you won't be paying that much, and consumers are obviously willing to spend $150-$300 on a phone (see the G1, Iphone, Pre) that inherently works and comes with a ton of bells and whistles.