The HD2 smartphone is a design masterpiece that runs a Windows version that will be out-of-date by yearend. A gorgeous, archaic piece of art?

The Good: Largest smartphone screen on the market, lightning-fast processor, 5 megapixel camera

The Bad: Won’t run Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system; dearth of applications

The Bottom Line: A great smartphone for consumers who don’t feel they need to own a device running Google or Apple software

Sometimes timing is everything. After several weeks of testing HTC’s gorgeous new HD2 smartphone, I can tell you it’s unquestionably the best device yet that runs Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system.

Therein lays the problem. Microsoft plans to release a major overhaul to Windows for smartphones—called Windows Phone 7—by the end of the year. As good as the HD2 is, it may have a very short shelf life.

The HD2, which went on sale on Mar. 24 in the U.S., through T-Mobile, is a design masterpiece. It uses Qualcomm’s (QCOM) speedy 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor and sports a stunning 4.3-in. screen surrounded by a thin, black bezel.

Yet HTC’s stunning hardware is hobbled by a lack of applications for users to download from Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Marketplace. By my count, there are less than 1,000, compared to more than 185,000 from Apple’s (AAPL) App Store and more than 30,000 from Google’s (GOOG) Android Marketplace for phones that run its operating system. Worse, Microsoft says many of today’s apps won’t work when it rolls out Windows Phone 7.

If that doesn’t bother you—or you want to take a chance that Microsoft will change its stance—I’d recommend the HD2 wholeheartedly. It’s available for $199 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile.

Adopting the less-is-more approach that’s increasingly common in the smartphone market, the HD2 has hardly any buttons. On the bottom of its face, from left to right, there’s a dedicated phone button, one that calls up a customizable home page of applications, a button to access Windows applications, a back button, and a power toggle.

A COUPLE OF EXTRAS IN THE U.S.

The phone doesn’t have much usable memory, but users can add up to 16GB of storage with an additional microSD card. (It takes some work to remove the rear panel to access the slot where you place the card.)

The T-Mobile version of the HD2 includes Blockbuster on Demand software for watching movies and free access to MobiTV for a month. European versions of the HD2 don’t offer those.

From a usability perspective, the HD2 stands out by cleverly layering HTC’s Sense user interface on top of Windows Mobile 6.5. Reviewers panned the operating system when Microsoft released it last fall, despite a belated move to icon-based applications, or widgets, which do away with a terrible dropdown system that had made navigation a nightmare.

HTC says it designed Sense to satisfy three fundamental needs: customization, discovery, and social computing. The HD2 does all three well. Users can configure the home screen to show nine favorite applications, including Facebook, a compass, and an e-mail program.

The lower portion of the screen includes a dock that handles the discovery and social aspects of using the phone. The dock includes quick access to a Web browser, YouTube, Twitter, a calendar, and other information, including music and video collections. There’s also weather, in the form of photorealistic animations of clouds moving across the screen and a windshield wiper when it’s raining.

A GOOD BUSINESS TOOL

HTC doesn’t skimp on the extras. It includes a 5-megapixel digital camera with built-in flash and photo-editing features such as white balancing and ISO setting adjustment. You can even send video via multimedia messaging. A built-in speaker on the back delivers relatively smooth playback of MP3 downloads from Amazon.com’s (AMZN) music store and from a personal collection, although most people will likely use the headphone jack on the bottom.

The HD2 is a good business tool, too. I downloaded the Good Technology mobile client, which synchronized my work e-mail, contacts, and calendar. At first, I had some trepidation about the lack of a physical keyboard, but then found that the phone’s virtual keyboard worked fairly well. I was frustrated with the predictive typing technology, which slowed me down by suggesting words that tried to match my typos. It was easier to identify the typos and correct them manually. And unlike Apple’s iPhone and Motorola’s (MOT) Droid, the HD2 doesn’t offer a landscape mode.

Some users may be turned off by the HD2’s relatively large size—about the length of one-and-a-half decks of cards. Yet thanks to its thin, high-resolution AMOLED display, it’s much slimmer than other smartphones. The glossy screen does show fingerprint smudges. The good news is that the screen works well, even in bright sunlight.

Battery life is slightly above-average and lasts all day, even with the Good data connection running at average display brightness. If you’re also using WiFi to access the Internet and have the Bluetooth connection turned on, expect about five hours’ use before you’ll need to recharge.

There’s a lot to like about the HD2. But thanks to Microsoft’s assertion that Windows 6.5 users won’t be able to upgrade their devices to Windows Phone 7, using HTC’s smartphone feels like admiring a beautiful but archaic work of art.

backlink: bussinessweek

Forget everything you know about Windows Mobile. Seriously, throw the whole OS concept in a garbage bin or incinerator or something. Microsoft has done what would have been unthinkable for the company just a few years ago: started from scratch. At least, that’s how things look (and feel) with Windows Phone 7 Series. This really is a completely new OS — and not just Microsoft’s new OS, it’s a new smartphone OS, like webOS new, like iPhone OS new.

You haven’t used an interface like this before (well, okay, if you’ve used a Zune HD then you’ve kind of used an interface like this). Still, 7 Series goes wider and deeper than the Zune by a longshot, and it’s got some pretty intense ideas about how you’re supposed to be interacting with a mobile device. We had a chance to go hands-on with the dev phone before today’s announcement, and hear from some of the people behind the devices, and here’s our takeaway. (And don’t worry, we’ve got loads of pictures and video coming, so keep checking this post for the freshest updates).

First the look and feel. The phones are really secondary here, and we want to focus on the interface. The design and layout of 7 Series’ UI (internally called Metro) is really quite original, utilizing what one of the designers (Albert Shum, formerly of Nike) calls an “authentically digital” and “chromeless” experience. What does that mean? Well we can tell you what it doesn’t mean — no shaded icons, no faux 3D or drop shadows, no busy backgrounds (no backgrounds at all), and very little visual flair besides clean typography and transition animations. The whole look is strangely reminiscent of a terminal display (maybe Microsoft is recalling its DOS roots here) — almost Tron-like in its primary color simplicity. To us, it’s rather exciting. This OS looks nothing like anything else on the market, and we think that’s to its advantage. Admittedly, we could stand for a little more information available within single views, and we have yet to see how the phone will handle things like notifications, but the design of the interface is definitely in a class of its own. Here’s a few takeaways on what it’s like to use (and some video)…

Windows Phone 7 Series UI walkthrough

For larger images, click on the link : http://www.engadget.com/photos/windows-phone-7-series-first-look/#2710895

Start screen: the Start experience is completely revamped, now focusing on sets of tiles which represent links to applications or contacts. It’s a completely contextual experience which can be customized both by users and carriers, and allows people to “promote” items higher up in the list. To the right of this screen is a long, vertical list of all your apps for quick jumps. It will take some time getting used to this layout; one or two tiles per line, and that long list which goes up and down rather than left and right, but honestly — this does have some advantages. Things seems less out of reach in this configuration, and Microsoft swears that they’ll be working closely with developers to build widgets that make use of the concept.

General phone navigation: If you’ve used the Zune HD, you know what this is like. Lots of bold text on the device, lists with text cut off on the sides of the phone, and additional screens to the left and right driven by arrows pointing you in either direction. For the most part this works, though in instances like email, it feels like there’s a bit of wasted space. Everything else is super stripped down — the calendar app looks like vector line art (and weirdly one of our favorite parts of the phone), the browser seems to be using the bare minimum to show its content (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), and the phone application is essentially monochromatic. On the other hand, you’ve got a beautiful and robust photo app (with pinch to zoom, as in the browser), and the Zune end of things is perfectly integrated… but what did you expect? Oh, and never mind that this is the first time Microsoft is bringing Zune to the rest of the world.

The sheer minimalism of the interface is striking, and we’re really impressed by how many risks Microsoft is taking here. It’s hard to believe that just a year ago this company was showing off WM 6.5, which now looks ages behind what they’ve turned around with today. We’re not sure if someone was just let off the leash or if we’re seeing a newer, smarter, more agile Microsoft, but the 7 Series concept definitely shows that this company is learning from its mistakes.

It’s not a flawless experience. There are still some points that need polishing, and we saw our share of missed touches and weird behavior, but in comparison to another new OS we just saw (Bada), there’s not even a competition. The browser also still needs a bit of work — page rendering isn’t as snappy as we would have liked to see, though it does seem to be true to page layout, which is a great step in the right direction. It’s clear that the team we met here in Barcelona is still hard at work on refining and perfecting the work they’ve started. And honestly, for the first time in a long time, we’re excited about Microsoft in the mobile space. If they can deliver on the promises of 7 Series, this could change the current landscape of the smartphone market… but that’s a lot to deliver on. Hold tight, because things are really starting to get interesting.

Windows Phone 7 Series. Get used to the name, because it’s now a part of the smartphone vernacular… however verbose it may seem. Today Microsoft launches one of its most ambitious (if not most ambitious) projects: the rebranding of Windows Mobile. The company is introducing the new mobile OS at Mobile World Congress 2010, in Barcelona, and if the press is anything to be believed, this is just the beginning. The phone operating system does away with pretty much every scrap of previous mobile efforts from Microsoft, from the look and feel down to the underlying code — everything is brand new.

7 Series has rebuilt Windows Mobile from the ground up, featuring a completely altered home screen and user interface experience, robust Xbox LIVE and Zune integration, and vastly new and improved social networking tools. Gone is the familiar Start screen, now replaced with “tiles” which scroll vertically and can be customized as quick launches, links to contacts, or self contained widgets. The look of the OS has also been radically upended, mirroring the Zune HD experience closely, replete with that large, iconic text for menus, and content transitions which elegantly (and dimensionally) slide a user into and out of different views. The OS is also heavily focused on social networking, providing integrated contact pages which show status updates from multiple services and allow fast jumps to richer cloud content (such as photo galleries). The Xbox integration will include LIVE games, avatars, and profiles, while the Zune end of things appears to be a carbon copy of the standalone device’s features (including FM radio).

Besides just flipping the script on the brand, the company seems to be taking a much more vertical approach with hardware and user experience, dictating rigid specs for 7 Series devices (a specific CPU and speed, screen aspect ratio and resolution, memory, and even button configuration), and doing away with carrier or partner UI customizations such as Sense or TouchWiz. That’s right — there will be a single Windows Phone identity regardless of carrier or device brand. Those new phones will likely look similar at first, featuring a high res touchscreen, three front-facing buttons (back, start, and perhaps not shockingly, a Bing key), and little else.

Carrier partnerships are far and wide, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, while hardware partners include Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm. We’re told that we likely won’t get to see any third-party devices at MWC, though Microsoft is showing off dev units of unknown origin, and the first handsets are supposed to hit the market by the holidays of this year.

We had chance to go hands-on with a device before the announcement, and we’ve got some detail to share on just what the experience is like, so click here to read our hands-on impressions (with lots of pics and video on the way!).

Will Microsoft slapping “7” on the rebranded Windows Mobile (now Windows Phone) OS be enough to counter Google’s Linux for mobile phones? It’s easy to expand the Microsoft vs. Google antithesis to Windows Phone and Android – proprietary vs. open source, paid vs. free, Windows vs. Linux, etc. Most would undoubtedly agree that Windows Phone and Android being placed at opposite poles of the mobile-phone world is more than just a matter of perception.

Next week, on March 15th, it will be the first month since Microsoft showcased the Windows Phone 7 Series at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. At the same time, the week of March 15th will be synonymous with the Redmond company beginning to evangelize Windows Phone 7 to developers, as the company’s MIX10 event kicks off. Still, the general public will have to wait until the end of 2010, just ahead of the holiday season, to get their first Windows Phone 7 device. And in the meanwhile, Google will have plenty of elbow room to continue growing its marketshare, which has virtually exploded since the end of 2009.

It’s also extremely easy to credit the underlying Linux OS and open source model for the success of Android. “42.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in an average month during the November to January period, up 18 percent from the August through October period. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 43.0 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, rising 1.7 percentage points versus three months earlier. Apple ranked second with 25.1 percent share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Microsoft at 15.7 percent, Google at 7.1 percent (up 4.3 percentage points), and Palm at 5.7 percent. Google’s Android platform continues to see rapid gains in market share,” comScore revealed.

In the US, Windows Mobile continues to own more than twice as much market share as Android, but this situation will soon change, especially if Google’s mobile OS continues to grow by 4% leaps at every three months. In fact, taking into consideration just US customers, if Android’s growth holds steady, Google will own a larger size of the mobile operating-system market than Microsoft, by the time that the Windows Phone 7 Series drops. Especially seeing how Windows Mobile took a steep plunge, as steep as Android’s increase, dropping from 19.7% from November 2009 to just 15.7% in January 2010.

The good days when you can do no wrong and no evil

I’m sure that many in the open source community won’t agree with me, but Android’s explosion is not about Linux or open source, but about Google. Far from me to deny the advantages of an open source “germination” process for handset manufacturers, for mobile application developers or for the Mountain View-based search giant, but it’s Google that’s behind the fast-spreading Android “spores,” which are appearing on more and more smartphones. It is Google’s weight that made possible Android devices shipping at a rate of over 60,000 per day in the short time since the platform was launched.

Gartner has made available some extremely interesting statistics, which offer an insight into the evolution of Windows Mobile, Linux and Android on the mobile-OS market. In 2008, Symbian shipped on 52.4% of all smartphones sold globally with almost 73 million units acquired around the world. Research In Motion was second with 23 million and a 16.6% share of sales, Windows Mobile the third with 16 million and 11.8%, Mac OS X followed next with 11 million copies and 8.2%. Only 11.2 million Linux smartphones were sold in 2008, representing 8.1% of all sales that year.

At that time, Google was yet to release Android. But throughout 2009, the situation changed drastically. 46.9% of sales were Symbian smartphones, some 80,8 million, 19.9%, came from RIM (34.3 million), 14.4% were iPhones, namely 24,8 million iPhone OS devices. Statistics reveal that just 8.7% of all smartphones sold in 2009 came with Windows Mobile, 15 million, while the number of Linux handsets dropped dramatically to 8.1 million, representing just 4.7% of the sold devices. In 2009, 3.9% of all smartphones worldwide featured Android, 6.7 million units, Gartner revealed.

Interpreting the data offered by Gartner, it’s clear that manufactures that traditionally reserved devices for the open source OS were quick to embrace Android, explaining the drop in sales share of non-Android flavors of Linux. “The two best performers in 2009 were Android and Apple. Android increased its market share by 3.5 percentage points in 2009, while Apple’s share grew by 6.2 percentage points from 2008, which helped it move to the No. 3 position and displace Microsoft Windows Mobile,” Gartner said at the end of February 2010.

“Android’s success experienced in the fourth quarter of 2009 should continue into 2010 as more manufacturers launch Android products, but some CSPs and manufacturers have expressed growing concern about Google’s intentions in the mobile market,” Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, explained at the time. “If such concerns cause manufacturers to change their product strategies or CSPs to change which devices they stock, this might hinder Android’s growth in 2010.”

Windows Phone 7 Series

The way I see it, the most consistent problem that has stood in the way of open source becoming as ubiquitous as Windows is market fragmentation. The paradox however is that, while open source would be more successful under a single banner, the divisions, diversity and multi-faceted universe are the valves that drive its anti-proprietary heart.

Microsoft was by no means actually slow to embrace mobile operating systems with Windows, but despite this, the company seemed out of breath with the Windows Mobile 6.5 release in 2009, and watched Apple slide past, being in danger of Google outrunning it as well. This although the Redmond company had an indisputable head-start over both Google and Apple. But just as indisputable, Microsoft failed to build a momentum for Windows Mobile, and now there’s nothing to conserve, and what little remains might prove insufficient to build growth at the same rate as its rivals, considering that the company is losing its grip on the market more and more with each passing day. Certainly, the hope is that Windows Phone 7 will fuel the Windows Mobile dying fire.

“Windows 7 Phone Series (…) that’s coming out this fall, is our new phone platform. And it’s not a me-too product, it’s an incredible social piece of lifestyle technology that has both cloud services with it that allows you to do Xbox gaming to Facebook to your music and movies and everything you want to watch on your mobile telephone, and it is an incredible product that we just gave some sneak peek demos of it last week or two weeks ago, and stay tuned for it,” Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner stated during a speech at the University of Zurich in Switzerland on March 5, 2010.

Still, I continue to believe that the vast majority of customers take a wide range of features and capabilities into consideration when buying a smartphone, but that the actual operating system is not a deal-breaking factor. From my point of view, handsets are being purchased for the overall experience – a combination of media features, hardware specifications (with the camera specs and touch interaction model key details), social networking and Internet-browsing capabilities, application and standards support and app ecosystem diversity and ease of access, and only lastly because of the actual operating system.

But Microsoft should in no way ignore the power of “Google” in “Google Android” devices. Taipei-based Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC) estimates that shipments of Android smartphones will reach 32 million units in just three years, namely in 2013. Telecom consultant Juniper Research expects 223 million smartphones to be shipped with open source operating systems by 2014. According to IDC, Google and its handset partners are going to make Android the second most used mobile operating system worldwide by 2013, with total sales of approximately 70 million devices.

With Windows Phone 7,Microsoft showed that it was on the right track, understanding that it was not about the operating system but rather about the phone experience. Now, the company needs to deliver on its promise of a new beginning.

I’ve often noticed nuances, not exactly subtle, of envy from Microsoft as company representatives pointed out that Google was now in a place where it could do no wrong. The vast majority of the projects that the search giant embarks on turn out to be gold mines, and Google gets applauded constantly for being, well, not Microsoft.

Not that Microsoft has a shortage of gold mines. The Windows Phone 7 Series, provided that it will be all that the company promised in Barcelona, will surely help turn things around. But realistically speaking, Microsoft needs to pick up the pace. In the long-term mobile OS marathon, it’s now short dashes, rhythm breaks and explosions of pace that seem to define success, at least on the short term, but guaranteed to also impact the evolution of OS vendors in the long run.

And for the time being, the software giant continues to move so slow that it’s in danger of coming too close to being pushed to the periphery of the mobile-OS market.

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To help give you the best shopping experience, we need you to sign in to Marketplace for Mobile on your phone, then you’ll be able to buy apps from our site. Don’t have Marketplace on your Windows Mobile 6.x phone? Download it here. World View – Select Catalog: Australia – EnglishAustria – GermanBelgium – FrenchBelgium – DutchBrazil – Portugese-BrazilCanada – FrenchCanada – EnglishFrance – FrenchGermany – GermanGreece – GreekHong Kong – Traditional ChineseIndia – EnglishIreland – EnglishItaly – ItalianJapan – JapaneseLuxembourg – FrenchMexico – SpanishNetherlands – DutchNew Zealand – EnglishNorway – NorwegianPoland – PolishPortugal – PortugueseSingapore – EnglishSpain – SpanishTaiwan – Traditional ChineseUnited Kingdom – EnglishUnited States – English (home)United States – SpanishKorea – Korean SHOWCASE UNO Kinoma Play Winter Sports L… Battleship Conn… Battleship Conn… Agenda One Guitar Hero 5 Heineken Vancou… AP Mobile MySportTraining MOST POPULAR MySpace for Win… Social Networks Microsoft My Ph… Utilities Meon Lite Word & Puzzle Mobile Manager… Entertainment AP Mobile News Bing Maps TouchTwit WHAT’S NEW Satski Health & Fitness Terminator Travel Wordly Lite Word & Puzzle Wordly Word & Puzzle MobilePad Utilities Sadhana Mobile Health & Fitness

| By Steven van Hemert

Microsoft has steadily been shedding market share in the mobile arena over the past couple of years, with only an estimated 8% of handsets worldwide running Windows Mobile.

But with the release of their latest operating system, Windows Phone 7 Series, the software giant looks set for an impressive fight back. While the name leaves much to be desired, the OS represents a sophisticated step forward, with a fresh approach to organising and displaying content.

Based loosely on the Zune OS, 7 Series prioritises information in a number of content “hubs”, with a clean interface and bold typography.

The hubs are tiled on the home screen and provide an instant snapshot of new content in that application.

For example, you can load your favourite contacts into the People hub and have instant access to your friend’s Facebook updates, including posted items, as well as text messages, calls and Twitter feed. The 7 Series features integrated XboxLive content, so you can feed your gaming fix on the go, and has full Zune media player functionality as well.

A dedicated search button on new devices will connect directly to Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Already tipped as a serious competitor to the iPhone OS, 7 Series offers seamless multitasking between applications.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article317501.ece

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) Flash 10.1 is expected to be available around the middle of this year. Flash 10.1 will offer a number of new features and enhancements that will benefit mobile users significantly.

However, there is a caveat to this statement. When the new release of Adobe Flash rolls out mobile users using handsets powered by Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 will not be able to perform the software upgrade as this release will be for new WP7 only. According to Antonio Flores, who spoke on behalf of Adobe, “We have made the tough decision to defer support for that platform until WinMo7. This is due to the fact that WinMo6.5 does not support some of the critical APIs that we need.”

This news certainly will not please many in the mobile community but to add to the misery, Android users and more specifically, Android phones without an ARM v7 Cortex chipset will also not have access to Flash 10.1 which would essentially limit usability to those that have one of either the Motorola Droid, Google Nexus One or the upcoming HTC Legend and HTC Desire.

Read more about No Adobe Flash 10.1 Support On Windows Mobile 6.5 by Coolest Gadget Reviews

Microsoft mobile partners fly the Windows flag: HTC, LG and Orange preview first Windows® phones.

BARCELONA, Spain — Feb. 16, 2009 — Today at Mobile World Congress 2009, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer along with key mobile partners, HTC, LG and Orange, unveiled new Windows® phones featuring new user-friendly software and services. The next generation of Windows® phones will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and feature a new user interface and a richer browsing experience. In addition, Windows® phones will feature two new services: My Phone, to sync text messages, photos, video, contacts and more to the Web; and Windows® Marketplace for Mobile, a new marketplace that will provide direct-to-phone mobile applications and can be accessed from both the phone and the Web.

Contacts are backed up with My Phone so users don’t have to worry about losing contacts. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/press/2009/02-16Contact-Page_lg.jpg

“Windows® phones bring together the best of the Web, the PC and the phone so you can connect instantly to the experiences you care about, no matter where you are,” Ballmer said. “We’re working with partners across the industry to deliver a new generation of Windows® phones that break down the barriers between people, information and applications and provide great end-to-end experiences that span your entire life, at work and at home.”

Windows Mobile 6.5 Delivers New User Experience

The new Windows Mobile 6.5 home screen keeps people up-to-date on important information by providing a dashboard-like experience to items such as new e-mails, texts, missed calls and calendar appointments. It also includes an improved touch-screen interface, making it easy to take action with a finger, and an updated version of the latest Internet Explorer Mobile browser, which in a third-party research study sponsored by Microsoft supported execution of up to 48 percent more assigned tasks than the other browsers and phones studied.

My Phone allow users to view and manage photos on their phone on the Web. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/press/2009/02-16Photos-Screen_lg.jpg

My Phone Service Connects the Phone to the Web

The free My Phone service will enable people to access, manage and back up their personal information on their device to a password-protected Web-based service, making it easier to upgrade phones without the worry of losing important information. With automatic syncing and backup, users can count on their contacts, appointments, text messages and other information being kept up to date and easily restored should they lose or upgrade their phone. Consumers also will be able to automatically upload photos and video from their Windows® phone directly to the My Phone service, making it simple to preserve content that, in the past, would have lived and died on the phone. The My Phone service is currently available in a limited invitation-only beta.

Rich and Integrated Marketplace Service Will Offer Easy Access to Mobile Applications

The new operating system features Windows® Marketplace for Mobile, a rich and integrated marketplace for searching, browsing and purchasing mobile applications from Windows® phones or from a PC by simply using a Windows Live ID. The new marketplace will be included with all Windows phones based on Windows Mobile 6.5, which will help consumers to easily find, install and experience those applications that fit their needs and make the phone truly personal. Developers, who have already built over 20,000 applications for Windows® phones, will be able to offer applications to customers through the marketplace via a simple security and compatibility check from Microsoft.

Partners Showcase New Windows® Phones

Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer speaks at a press conference during the 2009 Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Feb. 16, 2009. Click for high-res version.

Leading mobile partners from around the world revealed some of the first Windows® phones showcasing the new operating system. In particular, mobile operator Orange will update its portfolio to offer new Windows phones with enhanced browsing, diverse personalization options and new user experiences. Similarly, two of the world’s top phone manufacturers displayed their Windows® phones.

The new Windows^® phones are expected to be available in the second half of 2009. Additional information on companies supporting Windows Mobile 6.5 can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/mobileworldcongress/docs/partnerlist.doc.

Additional Services and Partnerships

The company also announced Microsoft Recite, a voice search technology for Windows® phones version 6.0 or later, which provides users with a fast and simple way to capture, search and retrieve spoken notes and reminders using just their voice without the need to navigate menus or type text. Microsoft Recite efficiently organizes a user’s spoken thoughts based on same or similar terms and phrases, and is available as a free technology preview at http://recite.microsoft.com/.

Microsoft announced that several European mobile publishers and network operators have chosen Microsoft as their mobile advertising partner: Mobistar (Orange Group) and BASE, the second and the third largest mobile operators in Belgium respectively; fast-growing mobile travel site WAYN; eFinancialNews and Private Equity News, the financial and private equity news sites, part of Dow Jones; Le Parisien.fr, the mobile site of Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France, the first daily newspaper in France; La Vanguardia, one of the leading Spanish daily newspapers; Spanish sports newspaper El Mundo Deportivo; and Le Post.fr, the first interactive French mobile site. Microsoft offers full mobile advertising services including media sales, ad delivery and optimization in 12 countries, delivering mobile ads on both Microsoft and partner properties.

Microsoft partners also announced support for mobile broadband enhancements in Windows 7, Microsoft’s next-generation operating system. Mobile broadband enhancements include simple and reliable means to connect to the Internet, as well as a common infrastructure for partners to build on to create new, high-value mobile services. Partners announcing integration with the Windows 7 native mobile broadband include Acer, Asus, Birdstep Technology, Dell, Ericsson, HP, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Huawei Communications Technologies, Option, Qualcomm, Sierra Wireless, Smith Micro, T-Mobile International and ZTE.

Additional information about Microsoft at Mobile World Congress 2009 is available on the Microsoft MWC Web page at http://www.windowsmobile.com/mobileworldcongress.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx.

Skype has officially decided to remove support for Windows Mobile 6.5 in anticipation of rolling out a client for Windows Phone 7, however, if you want to download the Skype 3.0 Client for Windows Mobile, we have you covered.

You can download Skype 3.0 for Windows Mobile to your PC or directly to your device by visitinghttp://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/windowsmobile/. If you are not able to download Skype 3.0 from the above URL, Ask the Admin has a file hosted on their servers, which you can download from here.

techie-buzz.com, 2010