Ballmer: Windows Mobile 6.5 An Unsatisfying Stopgap

Yesterday Microsoft warlord Steve Ballmer surprised the Public Sector CIO Summit crowd with a little truthin': he admitted that the forthcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 had never been on the company's roadmap and that while it's an important update, it is also "not the full release [Microsoft] wanted," and suggested that Windows Mobile 7 would be pushed back a full year to 2010.

"But I think with Windows Mobile 6.5, there will be phones in market this year. We still don't get some of the things that people want on the highest-end phones. Those will come on Windows Mobile 7 next year. Certainly I'm not, um -- there's opportunities for us to accelerate our execution in this area, and we've done a lot of work to really make sure we have a team that's going to be able to accelerate.

"With that said, we did sell more Windows Mobile devices last year than Apple did iPhones -- just an important factoid to have. 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 you with that challenge."

Ballmer's remarks followed on the heels of attendee criticism that Windows Mobile is growing increasingly hard to defend, especially with employees bringing in shiny new feature-laden iPhones and Android-powered T-Mobile G1s and cooing over the functionality.

Ballmer: Microsoft needs to make faster Windows Mobile advances [TechFlash]