Microsoft is making a clean break with their new Windows 7 operating system for mobile phones to such an extent that current applications will not work. Is this level of incompatibility a good thing?
Charlie Kindel who is a member of Microsoft’s Windows 7 development team says it is in order to allow the new operating system, which is due out later this year, to be as user friendly as possible.
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“For us, the cost of going from good to great is a clean break from the past” said Kindel.
“It’s different from what we’ve done in the phone space before and it’s different from other phones” he says.
It’s an ambitious but risky move on Microsoft’s part but then again I suppose if they want to stand out from the crowd and compete on a serious level in the increasingly popular SmartPhone world they have to do something different, which they have, they started from scratch.
“Different is often good. Especially when it’s different for good reasons” said Kindel.
“Windows Phone 7 Series is different because we reset everything we were doing to focus on end user experience. This extends directly to the developer platform.”
“If you are a Silverlight or XNA developer today you’re gonna be really happy” says Kindel.
That may be so but talking about developers, current 6.5 developers will surely be wondering whether they should ditch 6.5 and start developing for Windows Mobile 7 instead.
Microsoft has said they won’t be abandoning Windows Mobile 6.5 and it will remain in their portfolio (who knows for how long) but with a shiny new operating system supposedly just around the corner Windows 6.5 might be considered just a tad outdated will it not?
Anyway, when the new operating system does arrive later this year forget about backwards compatibility there are some real treats in store for users.
Microsoft are planning to offer games that can be played across multiple devices which means you could start your game on your Xbox and then when you have to go out you could continue your game on your Windows Mobile.
Not only that but if you take your laptop with you then you could play it on that too. What we’re talking about here is one single game that can be played on three different systems, on the Xbox, on Windows and on Windows Mobile.
Now that is cool!
