[emuelle1]

I doubt Windows Mobile will go away anytime soon, but they'll definitely lose marketshare if Microsoft doesn't make some changes. I had 8 Windows Mobile devices, and only two of them had updated operating systems. One cost me $40 from HP, the other was a free update (WM 6.0 to 6.1) from Samsung.

I'm hardly the voice of Windows Mobile consumers, but if MS wants to win back marketshare, they need to stop copying the iPhone's UI and work on some core improvements. They need to work on stability (who wants to reboot a phone 5 or more times a day just to do common tasks like check email?) They also need to work on getting updates out faster and more often. My last WM phone was a Samsung Epix. I bought it in October of '08. Samsung finally got around to rolling out an update in late April or early May of '09, after I'd given up and switched to the iPhone. One of the updates included a fix to allow syncing of Outlook notes, something the darn phone should have been able to do out of the box. I used it for 6 months without being able to sync Outlook notes.

One more thing I love about the iPhone is the seemless switching. Without paying extra for backup software, every time I reset my WM device, I had to reinstall all of my applications and copy all of my data over. I also had to reset all of my device settings, input my mail accounts, etc. I bought an iPod Touch (1st Gen) in 2008. It went through several updates, then I got the iPhone. I still have data and settings from the day that I bought that Touch that have migrated through several OS updates and across to another device.

MS might need to "reboot" Windows Mobile. Like I said, it probably won't go away, but I'm not likely to go back to it anytime soon.