Bad news, WinMo fans. According to well-connected tech blog VentureBeat, the first handsets running Windows Mobile 7 might not be on sale until 2010. Why? Because Microsoft’s handset partners will reportedly not get access to the new OS until the second half of next year.
Microsoft hasn’t responded officially to the report, other than to say that it’s “not publicly sharing our roadmap at this point”. If true, it will hamper the company’s attempt to seize some of the limelight back from iPhone and Android, although Microsoft may release new WinMo features in a forthcoming update to version 6 of the operating system.
Realistically, though, the ‘delay’ is only around six months - 2010 sounds a long way away, but as it stood, the first WinMo 7 handsets wouldn’t have been out until the second half of 2009 anyway. We’ll keep you posted if Microsoft does confirm the reports.
Will the first handset powered by Google’s Android operating system be out this year or next? There’ve been lots of rumours in recent weeks that it’s the latter, which would be a slip from the intended 2008 release date.
HTC is the handset maker expected to be first to market, and late last week an industry analyst claimed it was struggling to get its Android phone ready in time, due to “having structural problems to incorporate Google’s demanded feature set”. However, MocoNews has gone straight to HTC to get a reaction:
“This report is completely inaccurate and we are excited to be on track to ship our first Android-based phone later this year.”
Those of you who subscribe to the ‘no smoke without fire’ theory may still harbour concerns about whether HTC is having problems meeting its self-imposed deadline. More interesting, though, is why so many analysts, journalists and bloggers are keen to predict an Android delay.
The SDK for Google’s forthcoming Android platform is to be delayed for several weeks while the company makes significant changes. This will in turn push back the deadline for the $10 million Android Developer Challenge from March 3rd to April 14th.
This means that the Android SDK could release up to a month after Apple’s forthcoming iPhone/iPod Touch SDK lands which is due later this month. This probably won’t have much of an impact on how the respective platforms perform long term but third party developers looking to get their applications onto the iPhone will surely be glad of not having to share the limelight with a competing platform.
In the meantime Android developers looking to snare the prize money for the Developer Challenge competition can breath a sigh of relief for their extended deadline.
(Via mocoNews)
