Microsoft Shares Updated Windows Mobile Timeline

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Microsofts Mobile and Embedded Devices division is moving toward more of an annual refresh schedule for its operating system releases.

According to a recent Microsoft executives presentation, Microsoft is readying the next two releases, code-named Crossbow and Photon, of its Windows Mobile operating system.

Crossbow, which Microsoft is endeavoring to deliver to cell phone and PDA providers by Q4 2006, will launch officially in the first or second calendar quarter of 2007.

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Crossbow will be the first operating system update to Windows Mobile 5.0, the product formerly code-named Magneto, which Microsoft delivered in 2005.

(Crossbow is not just a Windows Mobile code name. It also is the code name for technology under development by members of the companys developer division that is designed to bridge Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation, or “Avalon,” Windows user interface subsystem.)

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Microsoft is working to deliver Photon, the successor to Crossbow, to cell phone and PDA providers by Q4 2007, and launch it officially in the first or second calendar quarter of 2008, according to slides from a Microsoft officials March TechDays presentation.

Photon will include a “new flexible shell, modular containers and the Yamazaki Windows CE kernel,” according to information on the slides.

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