Where should I start with this one? I’ve been waiting for this news for months and months and it could be huge. "Windows Mobile to come to Mobile Internet Devices" [ZDnet]
Microsoft has employed Len Kawell (Ex Pepper and mobile computing consultant) and say that Len will be responsible for growing Windows Mobile so that it can be used on MIDs: "Kawell is defining the application model for occasionally connected rich Internet applications in the mobile environment. He is also responsible for scaling Windows Mobile to new kinds of kinds of devices with larger screens and faster processors – also known as Mobile Internet Devices, or MIDs."
What are we to think now? We know Microsoft don’t use the UMPC expression much in their official communications and we know that Origami is basically a project that finished in 2006 and left a team of software engineers building Origami Experience but by using the expression ‘MID’, the acronym that Intel created, are they showing an affiliation with Intel? Will they branch a version of Windows Mobile out to the x86 processor? Or are they just using the momentum of the term to get a leg-up? Len was at the Intel Developer Forum last Fall representing Canonical and the Ubuntu Mobile product so he’s obviously in-the-know where MIDs are concerned so it looks like Microsoft are really pushing forward with a consumer-focused product. I’m going to put my money on an ARM-aligned effort because "larger screens and faster processors" doesn’t sound like "new platforms" to me.
MID-wars starts here. Expect fisticuffs in the later part of 2009.
Via IntoMobile
