LG Electronics announced on Sept. 3 that it would launch three
smartphones within "the next few weeks" equipped with Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5, and would release 13 Windows phones in total by
the end of 2010. By doing so, LG joined other smartphone makers planning to port
the operating system onto their devices.
Microsoft previously announced that Windows Mobile 6.5
would be available on Oct. 6. The three LG phones will be introduced in
Europe, the United
States and Asia before
expanding globally at a later unspecified date; the models will include "a full
touch-screen device, a touch slider with QWERTY keyboard and a QWERTY bar-type
handset."
The LG phones will also include the LG Application Store, which will
feature 2,000 downloadable applications. There was no word on how that would
interact – or conflict – with Microsoft’s own mobile-applications store, Windows
Marketplace for Mobile.
In what has become a busy week of announcements surrounding Windows
Mobile 6.5, HTC and Sony Ericsson also announced smartphones
for fall 2009 that would feature the new version of the operating
system. Those phones, the
HTC Touch2 and Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X2,
will also include functionality such as Flash-supporting Internet Explorer
Mobile and expanded touch-screen support.
The HTC Touch2 is slated to debut on
Oct. 2, with broad availability in "a variety of European and Asian markets in
early Q4 2009," while no firm date was given for the rollout of the Xperia X2.
Microsoft is taking several steps in an attempt to make headway against
Apple’s iPhone, the Palm Pre, RIM’s BlackBerry line, and other smartphones that
have a substantial foothold on the mobile marketplace. In addition to Windows
Marketplace for Mobile, which will
debut in October with 600 applications for consumers and businesses, Microsoft is
also planning a broad debut of Windows Mobile 6.5 on phones manufactured by
HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard
and Toshiba. Networks that support the operating system will include AT&T,
Bell Mobility, TELUS and Verizon Wireless.
Although Microsoft has updated a number of interface features in Windows
Mobile 6.5, ranging from improved
touch capabilities to customizable widgets, rumors abounded in August that
Redmond was planning yet another release for the fourth quarter of 2010, Windows
Mobile 7, that would include functionality designed to let the operating system
compete against the Apple iPhone and the Palm Pre.
Microsoft also plans on differentiating itself in the market, and perhaps
obtaining more developer loyalty, by suggesting that applications designed for
Windows Mobile be sold at higher prices than the Apps for the Apple
iPhone.
Although smartphone sales increased industrywide by 27 percent in the
second quarter of 2009, Microsoft has found its own share of the smartphone
operating system market steadily eroding, falling during that period to around 9
percent. If its initiatives in the mobile realm fail, the company risks missing
out on an expanding market that may see mobile
application downloads approach nearly 20 billion per year by
2014.
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