LG doesn't know software, and to get a phone platform going, they've needed an outside OS for quite awhile to become a real player in the smartphone game. But with Android out there, the fact they're going Windows Mobile is both a good sign for them and a good sign for Microsoft. Fifty phones! I don't know why they wouldn't juist make ONE good, high profile phone, but anyhow, Good Job! [NYT]

4:02 PM: OK, it's wrap. Windows Mobile 6.5 looks nice, people. The UI is very nice. I'm off to get some food and wine. I'm sure it will look even better in 10 minutes.

4:01 PM: Steve is replying, but you can tell he wants to crack this guy's head open. They just announced Windows Mobile 6.5 and this guy is asking about 7 already?

4:00 PM: "When is Windows 7 coming out?" some smart guy asks.

3:59 PM: People with weird accents asking weird useless questions. I think Steve Ballmer is going to start rampaging around. I bet he had a lot of iberian ham sandwiches for breakfast. Stuffed with babies.

3:52 PM: Questions now: Why the delay in the new Mobile Explorer and has this hurt Windows-in favor of Opera? "We did the rendering in 6.1, and 6.5 has the same user experience of the PC."

3:50 PM: Steve is back on stage. He is saying that they are bringing the same tenacity and vision of Windows 7 and Windows Live to Windows Mobile.

3:47 PM: Ives Maitre, from Orange, coming now on stage. He's going to tell us a secret. I can't understand him. His accent is even worse than mine, but it's some kind of joke about Steve Ballmer. Whatever.

3:43 PM: Skott Ahn, president of LG, now on stage for another session of karaoke improv. They are talking about a new partnership between MS and LG. "We will create joint R&D and marketing teams".

3:40 PM: Peter Chou keeps talking. If you buy the new HTCs now, you will be able to get Windows Mobile 6.5 available for free. Some people applaud. The rest are sleeping. I'm still looking for my sandwich.

3:38 PM: Steve Ballmer is back on stage, welcoming the HTC CEO-the guys who spilt Windows Mobile 6.5 today. I think Steve can actually eat this guy alive in one bite.

3:36 PM: Blah blah blah. Loads of corpospeak on the video. I need an iberian ham baguette. Where's my iberian ham baguette?

3:33 PM: Talking Windows Market now. Not many details here. Time for a video with companies endorsing the whole Windows Mobile ecosystem. Samsung, HTC, LG, Toshiba... all these people talk Engrish, like me.

3:31 PM: The new contact screen shows photos of the people.

3:29 PM: Now they are demonstrating the synching of the phone with Microsoft's MyPhone backend, which is like a fugly version of Apple's Me.com. Syncs photos, images, contacts... in fact, all data is backed up to MyPhone.

3:27 PM: From the phone they started a chat, with multiple people. First they added someone using a PC, then they bugged someone who was playing Gears of War in an Xbox 360.

3:25 PM: They are stressing the fact that the experience is the same as the Windows PC. They are now talking about how Windows Mobile 6.5 has Flash built-in.

3:23 PM: All Windows phones will now have a physical start button, with the Windows flag on it. It will give you access to the Start screen. The Start screen is different than the first home Zune-like screen.

3:20 PM: "All the info you need is all on the home screen." It's quite cool: There's a long list and by sweeping your finger over the titles, you can see information about that category. So if you pass your finger over "Mail", you see a summary of what's pending, and you can access full mail on one click.

3:19 PM: They are now explaining the changes in the Windows Mobile 6.5 interface. The home screen looks like Zune, with a list of categories, "with all the info yhou really need to access quickly in your phone". Very simple and nice. I like it.

They also claim, quite reasonably, that although some manufacturers will have phones out by Q3, most will see Q4 or later releases, seeing as many cellphone operators (Sprint, Verizon) require customization and app development on smartphone platforms. [Digitimes via Into Mobile]

If you really want to taste Windows Mobile 6.5 now, the guys on XDA Developers have a home-cooked ROM for pretty old HTC BlueAngel phones (O2 XDA IIs, Qtek 9090, T-Mobile MDA III) devices that add some, but not all, of the new operating system's features. There's:

* MSTOUCH(UPDATE)
* TouchRecognizer
* Touch LockScreen
* IE6[IE Mobile8.12Pro]2009 Only for 6.5
* CMHome For WM6.5PRO
* Live For WM6.5

And video of it is above.

[XDA Developers via Neowin]

Now, we built the Zune hardware with the Zune software—and what you’ll see more and more over time is that the Zune software will also be ported to and be more important not just with the hardware but on the PC, on Windows Mobile devices, etc.

We're really hoping "etc" means a whole bunch of phones, including other smartphone platforms and even the iPhone, but it's more likely that the UPS man will drop off a million dollars RIGHT NOW as we type this. Now. Now? Now? How about now? [CIO.co.uk via WM Power User]

—Cher Wang is a former Oakland, CA, resident and UC Berkeley Alum. She started as a music major and finished in economics.
—HTC made 1 out of every 6 phones sold in the US this year, most of them branded by other companies
—Two years ago, they started branding their devices.
—Cher got the idea for HTC when working at computer part maker FIC. As she hauled parts she hoped to sell, she wondered what it would be like when computers were not as heavy.

[NYTimes]

[PPCSG via Slashphone]

Based on what he heard at Microsoft, the target release date seems to be mid to late 2009. He's got no problem with the technology in WM7—he says it basically addresses everything wrong with WM6 today—but the fact that it's not going to be released until a year and a half from now is troublesome. How can Microsoft compete when the iPhone will already been out for two and a half years, and iPhone clones have been out for more than one? It's tough.

And it's not like Microsoft can do anything about it. After they finish the OS, they have to send it out to OEMs and carriers and third-party companies in order to test and embed and develop on it. That's the problem with creating only an OS, instead of making an all-in-one OS and hardware product. But that's where Brandon thinks Microsoft has bomb to drop.

There's a possibility that Microsoft will take the recently acquired Danger (the makers of the T-Mobile Sidekick) and put them to work on hardware made expressly for Windows Mobile 7. Just think about how well Apple's done by integrating software onto hardware they built themselves. The same could be true with Microsoft. [PocketNow - Image Credit]