My stories of Windows Mobile’s death are greatly exaggerated

Now, after Mix 2010, the Windows Phone narrative continues with a new wave of developer tools for Windows Phone.

Basically, it seems all links to its predecessors are virtually cut. With the developer tools apparently not allowing interop with the underlying platform, it’s a dream for service providers and hardware manufacturers. You can’t do with the device what they can do and you cannot "tinker" with the radio stack, remove craplets or work around what comes down through WAP push configuration.

Will enterprises and developers of non-recreational software jump ship and switch to a mobile platform that again provides native access?

Maybe not yet. Rumor has it, Microsoft is going to keep Windows Mobile (6.5.3) on life support as Windows Phone Classic.

But I doubt that

• Silverlight will be ported,
• Compact Framework will be serviced,
• documentation will be clarified or extended
• security and applications will be updated,
• new devices will be introduced.

There may be a native story coming after WP7 devices start shipping and once users develop mixed emotions with software on their devices they can’t easily switch off or change.

We will see if and how manufacturers and service providers find their chances to differentiate on the Windows Phone platform and whether smartphones can really be nothing but sensor-laden cloud service terminals and portable game consoles.

I would not think that the new Microsoft phone platform is anything but DOA. I would even argue that, in addition, it will choke Windows Mobile to death.

But then again, history has not proven me right too many times…