Originally Microsoft planned to charge a $99 fee every time a developer provided an upgrade to their application. They have realized this probably was not in everyone's best interest and have now decided to waive the fee.
As it stands right now the Windows Mobile Marketplace will only be compatible with phones running Windows Mobile 6.5 and later. This is bad news for the millions of people that have the most current release which is 6.1. This is a big problem because of the way the operating system is upgraded on Windows Mobile Phones. In a nutshell it is up to each individual phone provider if and when they will provide an upgrade to the operating system. This makes for a very clumsy and uncertain upgrade path for millions of Windows Mobile phone owners.
In order for Microsoft to compete in this space they are going to have to make some changes and having more options for their users to upgrade to the latest release of their operating system seems like a no brainer to me.
There are always pros and cons with each gadget we love. We are counting on Microsoft to make some innovative changes to enable the millions of people that love their Windows Mobile phones to upgrade their phone operating systems without having to wait on each individual phone manufacturer. Come on Microsoft, we know you can do it--and besides it makes a great deal of business sense to enable your customers and potential customers that might be on the fence about purchasing a phone with Windows Mobile.
I suspect that at some point Microsoft is going to have to manufacture or outsource the production of their own hardware just like they do with the Xbox 360. It just makes sense. Microsoft has the development environment (Visual Studio) and programming languages (Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++), the SDK's (Windows Mobile, XNA, etc) and the only thing holding them back from making serious gains in the marketplace is the control of the hardware component. While this is not the traditional play for Microsoft, I think they will come around and make this happen.
I love my Palm Treo Pro running Windows Mobile 6.1 and I know it will be even better with 6.5. Fortunately Sprint is very good about providing the latest updates and upgrades, so even if Microsoft doesn't figure out a way for 6.1 users to take advantage of the new Windows Mobile Marketplace (not likely) then I am hopeful Sprint is on the ball.
You can get a sneak preview of the upcoming release of the Windows Mobile Marketplace right now with this video below.
If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.
Tim
