MoDaCo Says Windows Mobile 6 Will Be Official By Valentine's Day

[Paul Martin]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=251651' target='_blank'>http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=251651</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Crossbow... Windows Mobile 6... the most leaked operating system in the world is still under wraps officially at least... but it looks like those predicting the cat will be let out of the bag at 3GSM could be right! Nestling on the 'MSDN Events and Webcasts' page, you'll find a 14th February session entitled 'MSDN Webcast: MSDN geekSpeak: Windows Mobile 6 with Jim Wilson (Level 200)'. [Well, you WERE able to find that... until Microsoft hastily renamed the session.]"</i><br /><br />MoDaCo is hosting a screenshot of the upcoming lineup of MSDN Webcasts that mentions "Windows Mobile 6". The original listing, and now even the Google cache of the list only says "Windows Mobile". So, will there be some Windows Mobile 6 love for Valentine's Day? What do you think?

[JPD6825]

So now it makes sense why Dell went back and finally got the X50v team to fix that WM5 version... So they would not be swamped with a whole new wave of complaints based on that old SNAFU, prompted by the release of WM6? No, so they would have a pretext / a cover for leaving the X50v out of the WM6 upgrade plan! Should I just let go of that grudge...?

[daS]

So now it makes sense why Dell went back and finally got the X50v team to fix that WM5 version... So they would not be swamped with a whole new wave of complaints based on that old SNAFU, prompted by the release of WM6? No, so they would have a pretext / a cover for leaving the X50v out of the WM6 upgrade plan! Should I just let go of that grudge...?
In fairness to Dell, other than good will, there's really nothing in it for a device provider to offer OS upgrades. They have to spend resources on customizing the release for each device and those resources generally can provide greater profit by working on new products. Plus with each upgrade comes a high cost of technical support.

Of course, there's certainly something to be said for the value of the good will that comes with providing upgrades. But you also need to consider the very small percentage of overall users (participants in these forums being the obvious exceptions) that actually go for an upgrade. The vast majority of buyers use the devices as they come out of the box and never add third-party applications or look for upgrades. That fact makes upgrades even less attractive to the companies.

Finally, add to the mix the general rule that older hardware typically doesn't perform as well with the newer version of the OS and you can see that it's not good to expect an upgrade to be offered. Assume it won't be and rejoice if and when it happens. 8)