Windows Mobile 6 to Synchronize App Development

In recent months, Microsoft has invested a tremendous amount of humanpower and resources into an effort not everyone is certain can succeed: a development path that makes the PC into the office's principal communications tool. Some Microsoft charts even have a new abbreviation for the device: the "OC," which no longer just refers to Office Communicator messaging software.

Much of this unification effort is centered around the notion that businesses will want voice-over-IP more, once they come to know more about it and experience it more. You would think VoIP would be the one feature Microsoft wouldn't be able to wedge into a handset device being offered through established communications networks with huge investments in GSM and CDMA, and who are investing billions in UMA and HSDPA. But this is exactly what Microsoft - stubborn as ever - is trying to do.

And to our utter surprise, we learned that at least one major telecommunications carrier on Monday will announce its support not only for WM6 but for the VoIP services that the new operating system will enable.

VoIP on Windows Mobile handsets is not new; what is new is how Microsoft integrates support for VoIP into its applications. As John Starkweather told BetaNews, "If I were on a Windows Mobile 5 device, or if I were on a device from any of the other smart phone providers, a VoIP client would be an application that would be all on its own: It would have its own address book, its own dialer, its own call history, all of these things would each be on its own. Today, there are Skype and Vonage clients, and many other companies have Web clients built for Windows Mobile.

"What we've done in Windows Mobile 6 is open up a lot of the existing applications in our platform so that a VoIP client could be integrated into the rest of the phone," he continued. "It would use the contact store that's on the phone, it could be built right into the dialer that's on the phone, it can access all of those things."

So a user doesn't have to exit Outlook to launch Skype, for instance; and the shared contacts list can link a person's e-mail address to a phone number from which he can be called either conventionally or via VoIP. And because the VoIP support is built into the kernel now, and the kernel is now in the embedded firmware, Starkweather told us, VoIP through Microsoft will consume less handset power than VoIP through a third party.

The VoIP client, however, is not part of WM6; however, the VoIP fundamentals however are. So a manufacturer isn't locked into using Microsoft's VoIP service in order to make a handset VoIP capable. A carrier could, for instance, provide its own client. However, that's not to say that Skype is interchangeable with Microsoft.

"Businesses are making VoIP happen. It's probably slower than a lot of industry insiders had expected, but it is happening," said Starkweather. "Operators are interested in it, [though] they're leery of it in some cases. But it is something that will absolutely happen. This will not be the Year of VoIP, but over the next three years, there will be some incredible changes that happen because of businesses deploying it, and there's big opportunities for developers who come up with the right set of applications and services to win big as this goes mainstream."

There's one more piece of information we just had to know: Could developers today, using the WM6 SDK, develop "multi-touch" functionality such that a touch-screen phone could work similarly to...well, you know which phone I mean.

For now, the answer is no. A manufacturer could conceivably implement multi-touch functionality into a WM6 smart phone, though it would need to work directly with Microsoft to do so. If anyone's interested, they may want to jump in now...because Microsoft might already have a head-start.

"What I will say about touch-screen devices overall is, you'll see a number of new developments from us this year," John Starkweather divulged to BetaNews, "but I think the jury's definitely still out on some of these new technologies, and how they will work and what customer response will be."

There is one other piece of information for which we never got a very clear answer: Has Windows Mobile 6 narrowed the functionality gap between handsets and the UMPC, a form factor whose demand has never really taken off in any country, especially the US and Canada. As many consumers are now asking, what's the point of carrying another small computing device that isn't a communications tool as well? Starkweather told us that it has always been Microsoft's goal, since the Pocket PC program was first launched, to make handsets a little more like PCs with each iteration of the operating system. He believes WM6 takes another big leap in that direction, and that users will appreciate that fact when trying to accomplish computer-scale tasks with keyboards smaller than their own palms, and screens that are no larger than air mail stamps.

It is quite clear, though, as Microsoft's global plan for integrated communication bull-headedly lurches from its starting gate this year, that its grand scheme incorporates servers, clients, and handsets all in the cohesive and homogenous aura of Windows, and that the UMPC is most conspicuously absent from that scheme.