Ballmer: The challenge for Windows Mobile

In a mobile device market being driven by capacitive touch-optimized operating systems, Windows Mobile has been forfeiting stature, and the enterprise sector has taken note. At the annual US Public Sector Chief Information Officer summit yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked up the forthcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 release, and almost immediately pushed it to the side.

"We have a significant release coming this year -- not the full release we wanted to have this year -- but we have a significant release coming this year with Windows Mobile 6.5...we still don't get some of the things that people want on the highest end phones. Those will come with Windows Mobile 7 next year."

This statement came as the answer to a question from the CIO of NASA's Ames Research Center who said that it's getting tough to stand behind the OS and infrastructure when "users don't want Windows Mobile phones."

"We did sell more Windows Mobile devices last year than Apple did iPhones. That's an important factoid to have." Ballmer said, "BlackBerry was a little bit ahead, and Google was nowhere to be seen, except in Silicon Valley, I'm sure. But we'll do our best to help with that challenge."

Quite a challenge it is, because Ballmer has laid out quite a hazardous roadmap for Windows Mobile in answering these questions: Windows Mobile 6.5 will be released too late and with too few features to suit users' needs, and the responsibility of addressing those needs will be pawned off on the next OS release, which will not even begin to take shape until 2010.