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Windows Mobile 7: Business Edition vs. Media Edition

Windows Mobile, a smartphone platform that has been sorely lacking a major overhaul for quite some time, will finally be kicking it up a notch with Windows Mobile 7, slated to be released next month. According to “unconfirmed reports,” Windows Mobile 7 will come in two distinct flavors: Windows Mobile 7 Business Edition (BE) and Windows Mobile 7 Multimedia Edition (ME).

Windows Mobile 7 BE

There are two classes of smartphone users: business users who use their phone to manage email, documents, calenders and contacts and the rest of us, who enjoy smartphones for their multimedia features, games, music, video and web browsing. In spite of being backed by the household name in business computing (Microsoft, of course), Windows Mobile has played second fiddle to most other business-friendly platforms (BlackBerry, FTW) and in most cases, was skinned over by manufacturers with their own custom user interface. Windows Mobile 7 BE embraces this trend and presents a more stripped down version which will make it more conducive to fitting a custom UI and instead will focus on ramping up Mobile Office and facilitating mobile collaboration a la Google Docs.

Windows Mobile 7 ME – Zune-Phone on the Horizon?

More exciting to the rest of us are the rumors about the Windows Mobile 7 Multimedia Edition. This version of Windows Mobile 7, according, again, to unconfirmed reports, will look, feel and function more like the Zune music player (Microsoft’s answer to the iPod). An analyst from Jefferies & Company (Katherine Egbert) believes that this means that Microsoft is gearing up a Zune phone (or “Pink phone”) that will contend with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Nexus One. The Zune phone would have a 5-megapixel camera as well as access to a music subscription service similar to iTunes (probably Zune pass). If the Zune phone is real, it will likely be unveiled duringthe Mobile world Congress in February.

As with most mobile OS upgrades, it often takes a few quarters for a truly magnificent handset to pick up the torch and make the most out of it. For example, many of the best Android phones such as the HTC Droid Eris and the HTC Hero still run Android 1.5 (or 1.6) while the Motorola Droid remains the sole handset running Android 2.0. Likewise, it’s unlikely that the recently released Samsung Omnia II or LG eXpo (both Windows Mobile 6.5 phones) will be overlooked even in the shadow of Windows Mobile 7 remain excellent phones. However, just as T-Mobile eventually released a free upgrade from Windows Mobile 6.1 to 6.5 for phones like the Samsung Jack, we might see some of the more popular Windows Mobile 6.5 phones become eligible for a free upgrade in the future. Stay tuned!

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Tags: windows mobile 7

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 9:00 am by Jack Busch and is filed under Cell phone plans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.