Posts Tagged ‘Windows Mobile’

With Microsoft gearing up for Windows Mobile 6.5 to officially hit the market, training material for partners and advertisement templates, banners, etc. are being made available. Amongst all this content, there is one bit of material in particular from June 2009 that caught my eye: Windows Phone Cobrand Guidelines

Yes, right on Microsoft’s servers, there is a set of guidelines which teaches partners how to make the sell and do it by Microsoft’s book. In a section labeled, “Communicating to Customers,” there’s a subdivision labeled, “use only when necessary.” The content in that section is a breakdown of how partners should get down to brass tacks if need be with the customer. When discussing how they should go about discerning Windows Mobile versions, they give a nod to Windows Mobile 7 as seen here:

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Contoso is a fictitious company name used by Microsoft to represent anything from non-existent products to examples for how to use products already on the market. As such, the Contoso Alpha and Contoso Zeta phones mentioned are purely fictitious. Again, though it isn’t much, this is just another non-public mention of Windows Mobile 7 by Microsoft. I suppose the next step will actually be a build in between 6.5 and 7, though. As always, I’ll be sure to post whatever I can dig up!

Source: Windows Phone Cobrand Guidelines on Microsoft’s Website

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

As you can obviously tell, I’ve been spending an exorbitant amount of time scouring LinkedIn for Windows Mobile 7 information, and it sure has been fruitful! The information in this post should help to paint a fairly decent picture of some of what we can expect for Windows Mobile 7 and its devices. Though much of this information has been floating around out there in one form or another, Microsoft has been tight-lipped about Windows Mobile 7. Because of that, the next best thing I’ve found to getting confirmation straight from Microsoft is getting it in bits and pieces from current and former employees (or, better yet, employees of other companies working with WM7)! That’s what this post is. I’ll chime in when I have something to add, but the majority of what is to follow will be direct quotes from LinkedIn profiles. Admittedly, I don’t keep up with the mobile scene much, so hopefully you mobile-junkies will be able to glean something decent from this.

Developer for the WM7 Handwriting Recognition system. Source

I am responsible for designing and developing the Multimedia subsystem development for Tegra (APX2500) on Windows platforms including latest OS Windows Mobile 7. Source

Planned, designed, architected and implemented MEMS sensor capabilities in Windows Mobile 7-based platform, including accelerometer and compass. Source (Hey, I thought this guy made karate movies! lol. =B )

Owned the testing of the Nickname Cache feature and Windows Live ID feature implemented by the Exchange Mobile Client team to be included in the Windows Mobile 7 release. Source

Sr. SW Dev. Engineer – Symbian S60 & WM7 (2008 to 2009), System Integration & “Bring Up” Flow, using diff. Design Platforms (Linux/Java, Symbian/S60 and WM6/WM7) Source

Responsible for the integration of BCM4325 wlan chip on Caesar Platform (OMAP3430) on WM7 as a native host driver. Source

Oversaw development of the Rich Video Call(AT&T Video Share) UI, session control, and porting of the IP Multimedia Subsystem stack to Windows Mobile 7. Source

Working on creating and maintining automation software used for automated testing of ActiveSync in Windows Mobile 7. Source

(Premium Mobile Experience Group) RIL, GPS, WiFi, and USB on Windows Mobile 7. Source

Managed Test Automation for Windows Mobile 7 Outlook Mobile syncing. Source

Low level programming (database/sync management) for Outlook in Win Mobile 7. Source

Windows Mobile 7 Board Support Package for Freescale chipset. Bootloader development, NAND and OneNAND Flash Memory drivers. Source

Development of Test automation for Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Mobile 7, the next generation of Mobile Operating System. Source (Most likely at IE8 now)

Last assignment was as consulting Dev PM/Lead on the Windows Mobile Platform Team (MESE Dogfood). Working to help make Windows Mobile 7 rock on Motorola and Samsung devices. Source

Develop Windows Mobile 7 BSP for Freescale ICs. Source

Collect requirements from internal teams and create a long term deployment plan for Windows Mobile 7 Labs. Design and direct the creation of self servicing lab spaces for three Windows Mobile 7 add on projects. Oversee the public launch of one of the Windows Mobile 7 add on projects. Source

Windows Mobile 7 integration on TI chipset platform. Source

Now, I’m leading a team, responsibility for Qualcomm platform and Windows Mobile 7. Source

Working on the (then) next generation Windows Mobile 7 Messaging Application. Focusing on Messaging functionality and interface. Source

As a researcher, gathered requirements from the project team and formed the test task list and test document of WM7 IME, Live
Video Search, and Mobile Search usability test. Source

Microsoft UX Team Project Manager for the Mobile Insights Panel
• Drove progress for this $2 million instrumented mobile phone research project to collect user activity data from 400+ users to improve the Windows Mobile software experience.
• Worked with the Windows Mobile team to create special data collection software for the MIP devices. The WM team is looking to include parts of this software in the production release of WM 7.
Source

Creating feature prototypes for Windows Mobile 7 in Silverlight. Source

If any of the aforementioned quotes are no longer on their respective pages, then those people were probably asked to remove their references of Windows Mobile 7. At the time of this writing, it’s all there. Also, if you find information in this post news-worthy, please give credit where credit is due. I spent a lot of time gathering all of this information and posting it. Thanks.

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

With PDC 2009 right around the corner, you can probably bet the farm that Windows Mobile 7 will be unveiled there. Every PDC has consisted of major announcements and this one shouldn’t be any different. With Windows 7 out of the door, Office 14 all-but-complete, and Zune HD hitting the shelves soon, Windows Mobile 7 stands as the last really hot item to not be even so much as acknowledged by Microsoft. Well, I’m going to take it one step further and guess that Microsoft is not just going to reveal Windows Mobile 7, but they may even make a pre-release build of Windows Mobile 7 available at PDC. The reason I’m stepping out on that limb is comprised of 3 reasons:

1. Microsoft has a history of putting the bits of the technologies revealed during their keynotes into the hands of attendees at its conferences. If Windows Mobile 7 is revealed there and history is any kind of indicator, some form of the mobile OS will find its way into the hands of attendees.

2. The following Windows Mobile 7 roadmap I posted back in May which verified similar info Mary Jo Foley posted about back in February of Microsoft planning for a release to testers in November (the same month as PDC, no less):

3. The latest work experience status from the following LinkedIn profile of a Motorola employee has a rather interesting mention in it: “Runtime Environment: Windows Mobile 7.0 (Beta)“ Hmm… Does that mean Windows Mobile 7 has already hit an internal stage of Beta 1?

The aforementioned gives me good reason to speculate that Windows Mobile 7 will not only be revealed, but it will also be put into the hands of attendees in *some* capacity. I say, “some” capacity because I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft to strip it of certain features (or disable them) – just as they’ve typically done with the Windows pre-release builds they’ve distributed at past conferences. The only problem I see with that hypothesis of mine is the number of people who could actually do something with those bits. We don’t all exactly have a spare Windows Mobile device hanging around for us to install a build of Windows Mobile 7 on. Actually, that gives me an idea that maybe, “the goods” could include something that would serve the purpose of using a Windows Mobile 7 build… probably not, but it would be cool if so!

With that in mind, I’m also going to guess that Windows Mobile 7 will meet a similar fate as Windows 7 where conference-attendee interaction is concerned: Once it’s announced during a keynote on either day 1 or day 2, there will be a number of Windows Mobile 7-ready devices on-hand for all to see up-close and fiddle with.

How different do you personally think the UI is going to be from Windows Mobile 6.5? Do you think it’s going to resemble the old WM7 prototype images that have been floating around out there for quite a while, or do you think it will be completely revolutionary? I’ve heard rumors from a couple of people that its interface will be the same as the Zune HD’s interface. I guess we will all find out soon enough!

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com

(Follow me on Twitter: msftkitchen)

Another day, another roadmap. Here, we have a roadmap with dates pertaining to Windows Mobile RTT (released to testers) – not device to market dates. This roadmap comes from a Windows Mobile 6.5 presentation given a week and a half ago, so this is about as current as it gets – though the information isn’t as specific as other WM7 information I recently dug up. Another point of mention is the picture inclusion of a phone using the Organic User Interface we’ve seen in some of those conceptual Microsoft videos. Regardless, here’s the roadmap:

-Stephen

(Follow me on Twitter: msftkitchen)

Since I’ve completely missed the boat with the whole Windows Mobile 6.5 thing, I thought I would go ahead and obnoxiously start (you like that huge image up there? Yeahh… I know you like it… yeeeaaahhhh) a post containing some random pictures from presentations I’ve had floating around on my hard drives here. I did a quick 2-page Google Images search – as well as a search on Long Zheng’s blog (since he’s been keeping up with WinMo 6.5 quite nicely) – and didn’t see any of these, so maybe you’ll fancy them as something, “new;” even though these are probably prototypes/mock-ups (which I think is cool, either way). Feel free to let me know if these were posted elsewhere at some point and I’ll be more than happy to give credit where credit is due! Onward to the awesomeness:

-Stephen