Windows Phone 6.5 – Launch Day!

Back in February of this year, Microsoft stood on the stage at Mobile World Congress and made public their intentions to bring Windows Mobile 6.5 to market with the help of their partners. Along with the new mobile operating system comes a new name. From this point forward, it will be referred to as Windows Phone running Windows Mobile 6.5 or whatever the version of Windows Mobile is used to power the device. Today, Microsoft along side its partners, are celebrating the general availability of this new mobile OS.

Devices powered by Windows Mobile 6.5 offer new and updated features, functionality, and services that significantly enhance and improve the user experience. The most notable of these improvements can be found on the new Lock Screen, Home Screen, Start Menu Screen, and Internet Explorer Mobile (based on the rendering engine from Internet Explorer 6).

Along with the improvements to the core features in Windows Mobile, Microsoft has added key services – My Phone and Windows Marketplace for Mobile. The My Phone service has been available for a couple months already, but has just gone through an update to correspond with the release of Windows Mobile 6.5. The original service lets users access, manage, and backup their personal information to the cloud. The updated release will add the ability to remotely wipe or display a message on the screen of the device to assist in recovering a lost or stolen device. The Marketplace for Mobile will allow customers to browse, buy, download, and manage mobile applications for their device. Marketplace for Mobile is currently available for new Windows Phones running Windows Mobile 6.5, but will be coming soon to devices powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 and 6.0.

Since the majority of the enhancements in 6.5 are directly related to touch enabled devices, you won’t be finding them on devices running Windows Mobile Standard. However, you will find services like Marketplace for Mobile and My Phone.

Key partners have already announced support for Windows Mobile 6.5 powered Windows Phones. Both HTC and Samsung have committed to releasing updated ROMs for some of their existing devices. More details on when these will be available should be coming in the days following today’s announcement.