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Windows Mobile 6.5 is no iPhone killer

Windows Mobile 6.5 is no iPhone killer

The media has made much of a Microsoft iPhone killer prototype handset being stolen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. iTWire ponders if it all might just be a publicity stunt for the failing Windows Mobile OS?

As we reported a couple of days ago, a supposedly ‘top secret’ HTC Touch handset running a new beta version of the Windows Mobile OS was stolen from a Telstra executive at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona.

We already know that, deep down, Microsoft prefers the iPHone to its own Windows Mobile devices.

We already know that Apple is moving forward with plans for a $99 iPhone to tackle the real threat from 40 Android handsets.

Perhaps Microsoft knows it has to do something to get the public interested in Windows Mobile, to take an interest in what has pretty much become a non-event in the world of mobile operating systems?

That would certainly explain the whole ‘top secret’ nonsense surrounding this theft, and why the more gullible media outlets have been spun and grabbed hold of the notion that it concerns an iPhone killer handset.

Let’s look at some of the evidence shall we? For a start, anyone who attended the Mobile World Congress will gladly tell you that Microsoft was not exactly doing much in the way of Windows Mobile 6.5 puffery.

Now you might say that if it is top secret then Microsoft would not be shouting about it from the Spanish roof tops. To which I would reply: cobblers!

If there were anything that could truly be considered to have iPhone killing potential in the OS then Microsoft would be leaking it left, right and centre.

So what did Microsoft have to say about Windows Mobile 6.5 in Barcelona, and why do I think it is all just a cleverly spun crock?

So what did we the media get at Barcelona from Microsoft regarding Windows Mobile 6.5? The revelation of a ‘honeycomb’ app launcher interface re-design that had already been leaked and news of a re-worked Pocket Internet Explorer.

Apple must be shaking in its boots at the thought. Even the whole ‘Microsoft as the new Apple’ thing with the Microsoft App Store stuff sounded very much like news to divert from the lack of real Windows Mobile 6.5 news.

Heck, Windows Mobile 6.5 leaks have been doing the rounds for a while now. Some users have reported that they have been running a leaked version and found it to be greatly wanting.

Yet many media outlets, including national newspapers, have been reporting that the Barcelona theft spells big trouble for Microsoft with potential damage being done now that Apple can see what functionality the iPhone killer has.

It was “a serious blow to Microsoft” according to one newspaper report. Another stating that the software could give Microsoft “the edge over the iPhone and the new Google Android operating system.”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, to be honest, maybe a mixture of the two. Windows Mobile 6.5 will be, at the very best, just a bit of an interface overhaul and nothing more meaningful than that.

Windows Mobile 7 is not even a dot on the horizon at this point in time, while the iPhone does not even need iPhone 3.0 to have Microsoft beat in pretty much every regard.

All of which leaves me thinking the whole Barcelona theft thing is just a marketing wet dream in that it has got the world talking about Microsoft as if it really does have an iPhone killer in the offing.

Even if the ‘theft’ was for real and not a publicity stunt, the continuing coverage has certainly started to smell as if it was.

The truth of the matter, far from being some super secret phone theft is that some dumbass Telstra executive had his pocket picked in an area notorious for exactly such activity. The resulting loss being spun into something it never was by a media with little else to report and a Microsoft happy for some publicity it certainly does not deserve.

[Thanks: http://www.itwire.com]

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