TechEd 2004 Europe news : the future of Windows Mobile
June 29, 2004 [General] | By Edward J. R.
Mark Spain - Director Developer Programs - Mobile and Embedded Division - Microsoft:
... as well as some other mobility related speakers during the TechEd were talking about future developments of Windows Mobile. By "future" is meant "after Windows Mobile Second Edition" that has just been released and is already used commercially by some hardware manufacturers. Let's summarize what's coming, particularly from the point of view of developers, but it may be interesting also for non-developers:
- Microsoft invests 6.8 billion of US dollars yearly into Research and Development (R&D) - and while this money goes to various divisions, the Windows Mobile devices are considered too with the new developments and other, non-mobile, Microsoft products bring easy interoperability with Windows Mobile devices. This is not a small money that Microsoft spends on R&D and even if only small part of it, is directly invested in mobility, it means that Microsoft's mobility technologies have vast resources for improving itself.
- Windows Mobile momentum has been achieved:
... what means that pioneering times are coming to an end and now massive popularization and spreading of Windows Mobile devices will start, and not only in narrow geeky market of PDA owners but in a huge, massive, market of cell phone users! On slide below, you can see the achievements of Windows Mobile and by simple projections you can see that now new wave of Windows Mobile popularity is coming!
- Mobile Webservices - Microsoft will offer services especially designed for Windows Mobile clients
- Location-based services - with MapPoint Location Server and with several existing and upcoming agreements with cellular network operators Microsoft creates situation in which developing location based applications for Windows Mobile becomes extremely easy from the point of view of enterprise - they just buy location service from Microsoft and Microsoft agrees with operators. In this way enterprise customers don't have to worry about what cellular operator is being used by their final end customers! Implementing complex location-based services thanks to MapPoint Location Server and Microsoft's deals with operators, will become a bliss for enterprises.
- future (after Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition) will feature:
- Windows Mobile APIs and programmability - things like camera APIs and more APIs for features that now are programmable only with proprietary, vendor-specific, libraries
- .NET Compact Framework 2.0 - improved .NET technology combined with extended set of APIs that will do more things in secure "managed code" rather than in "native code" that is called artificially with p-invoke from within .NET
- Visual Studio .NET 2005 (a construct formerly known as "Whidbey") - that allows for extremely user friendly programming - forms can be designed and tested without the need to launch the emulator - the soft buttons of smartphone work directly in the forms designer in the Visual Studio .NET 2005
- investments in Mobile2Market like
- extending set of partners to 3: PowerByHand (PocketGear.com and Smartphone.net), Handango and Cellmaina
- bringing out new techology for mobile software delivery, the "Mobile Catalog":
... that is something similar to Handango's "InHand" software for browsing and purchasing software but goes further: developer can deploy their applications (in CAB form) directly to the Mobile2Market repository and then customers can buy them with "Mobile Catalog" client-slide application for Microsoft Smartphone that can work also in off-line mode! Third party shops like Handango and PowerByHand will be then using this mobile software delivery technology made available for them by Microsoft.
- RDBMS (Relational DataBase Management Systems) for Windows Mobile: the "SQL Mobile" product is coming that contrary to former "SQL CE" solution will be available and preinstalled in ROM in both Pocket PC and Microsoft Smartphone devices! In this way owners of Microosft Smartphone devices will no longer feel database-wise handicapped.
Conclusion: Microsoft's main strength - offering an integrated total solution - will be further expanded and developers will be able to develop complex applications simply and achieve some unseen productivity and new features thanks to building-in by Microsoft new programmable features and thanks to the power and simplicty (=effectivenes) of .NET technology, that clearly exceeds anything that wireless Java can offer. The keyword to success of Microsoft in cell phone industry is here "close integration" - so that everything works with each other flawlessly and enterprises/developers/users don't have to put several weakly integrated components from various vendors to achieve some function. Embedding .NET in ROM of Windows Mobile devices and ease of connecting of Windows Mobile devices to Microsoft Exchange servers, are just some of the few examples. Nobody from the Microsoft's competition in cell phone industry can offer such a close integration of mobile devices with many many other systems and parts of the infrastructure.
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