Windows Mobile 7: all you need to know

The one thing everyone knows about the next version of Windows Mobile is that it's late.

Back in September, Steve Ballmer told the Venture Capital Summit that he wished Windows Mobile 7 had already launched but that the team had been "completely revamped"; "we've pumped in some new talent" and "this will not happen again" two VCs tweeted him as saying.

Originally, the big feature in Windows Mobile 7 was going to be better web browsing, along with zooming; both of those were pulled forward into Windows Mobile 6.5. So what will Windows Mobile 7 bring and when?

Motorola CEO Sanjay Jhawas the first to let slip that Windows Mobile 7 wouldn't be around until 2010 and Microsoft confirmed that. A Windows Mobile presentation on the Microsoft site (in Danish) talks about Microsoft finishing the Windows Mobile 7 OS in November 2009 and devices appearing in April 2010; the same slide gets the 6.5 software date right as April 2009 but predicts 6.5 devices arriving in September, not October, so even if April is the planned date it could slip.

The April date was confirmed on an Office 2010 presentation to partners found by Microsoft Kitchen; if that's the date it goes to phone makers, you can expect the actual launch a few months later when phones are finished (an interval Microsoft is trying to shorten). Expect Microsoft to announce a public date at Mobile World Congress next February.

Fewer partners, not fewer phones

The problem for Microsoft is that when it finishes a version of Windows Mobile, that doesn't mean it's done. Windows Mobile 6.5 was finished on 22 April this year but instead of handing it over to phone manufacturers to tweak and customise for their devices (which ends up with multiple incompatible changes that can't be supported in the next version because they aren't in Microsoft's version of the code) the team stayed involved and delayed the launch until phones and upgrade versions were ready.

To make that stage shorter and easier, Microsoft has said it wants fewer high-value partners for Windows Mobile in the future: Director of the EMEA Mobile Communications Business Alfredo Patron told TechRadar "any new phone means a new development cycle" and "we're really focussing on the top brands".

One rumour says that in an effort to reduce the amount of incompatible customisation that goes on with Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft plans to only have it run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform (currently there are multiple phone platforms based on the Arm chip, from TI, Nvidia and others).

If Windows Mobile 7 switches entirely to Qualcomm, where would that leave phone builders who have bet on TI (like Motorola) or the Nvidia Tegra chips in the Zune HD?

The matching rumour is for a Tegra-based Zune Phone platform for the consumer market, built on Windows Mobile 7 but marketed separately. This might be the same as some of the Pink consumer phone rumours, but none of them would be Microsoft-manufactured phones; at most, Microsoft would work on a hardware reference platform for partners to build on.

Microsoft has gone back and forth on the plan according to our sources, and as with all rumours nothing is certain.

ZUNE PHONE: There may or may not be a Zune phone, but Windows Mobile 7 will have Zune features

Steve Ballmer has said repeatedly that the next version of Windows Mobile will have Zune services, one Nvidia engineer's Linked In profile (again, according to Microsoft Kitchen) mentions Tegrafor platforms including Windows Mobile 7 and the chassis spec tracked down by ZDNet specifies any Open GL ES 2 hardware, including TI and Nvidia as well as Qualcomm.

The same spec has a minimum screen size of 3.5" and WVGA (800 by 480) or FWVGA (854 by 480), and multi-touch, so there must be a different specification for non-touch Windows Mobile Smartphone. The 'chassis' terminology could also be behind rumours that Microsoft would make its own phone.