Motorola Says "No Thanks" To Windows Mobile 6.5

There is more evidence this week that Windows Mobile faces a very unpleasant -- and perhaps very short -- future.InformationWeek reported yesterday that Motorola will not ship smartphones using Microsoft's recently released Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. Instead, the company is investing heavily in support for Android, including new developer tools and custom applications designed for Android-powered smartphones.

At this point, Motorola offers just one Android smartphone with a second model slated for release by the end of the year. According to CEO Sanjay Jha, however, the company plans to scale up its Android offerings to "multiple tens of products."

It looks like most of those devices will target the high-end consumer market. Inevitably, these inexpensive but feature-rich models will also attract a lot of attention from cost-conscious small businesses.

Microsoft added a number of new features to WinMo 6.5 designed to integrate smartphones with Microsoft enterprise and business productivity apps. In spite of this, many reviewers have slammed the release for simply treading water in a fast-moving market. In fact, some reviews are downright scathing, including those that focus on WinMo's continuing inability to fix even basic usability problems.

Motorola did throw a bone to Redmond, stating that it would wait for Windows Mobile 7 to launch new WinMo smartphones. I suspect that's a halfhearted promise -- and in any case, it represents yet another blow to Microsoft's efforts to prop up WinMo's sickly market share.

Last month, bMighty's Paul Korzeniowski observed that Microsoft is already "teetering towards irrelevance" in the mobile phone market. While Google Android's market share surges upward, the iPhone continues its steady gains, and even poor old Palm eyes a comeback with its new, Linux-based WebOS, Windows Mobile's market share has slumped down into the single digits.

Even Microsoft is hedging is bets on WinMo's future: Witness the company's agreement to port the mobile version of Microsoft Office to Nokia's new (and open source!) Symbian mobile OS.

Microsoft promises that WinMo 7 will enjoy strong hardware support when it finally appears late next year. That might be true, but I have to wonder why handset makers would continue to invest in a mobile OS that will be lucky to hold five percent of the market by that point.

If your company plans to stick with Windows Mobile, it will have to bet that handset makers hang around long enough for WinMo 7 to appear late next year. It will also have to hope that Microsoft finally fixes the problems that turned so many WinMo 6.5 reviews into angry flame-fests.

And finally, it will have to hope that Microsoft doesn't decide to quit sinking money and developer resources into a mobile OS that will have to spank a half dozen strong competitors to reclaim its credibility.

You can take that bet, or you can take a hard look at alternatives to Windows Mobile. I know which choice I would make.