Windows Mobile

With Microsoft's Kin not exactly flying off store shelves, Verizon has cut the prices of the youth-oriented social-networking phone.

Despite a significant TV ad campaign, the phones have gotten comparatively scant attention since their launch. The Kin, designed to target a similar demographic as the Sidekick, has faced steep competition from the iPhone and other smartphones, which don't cost any more per month and offer the ability to run thousands of applications.

Over the weekend, Verizon quietly cut the price of both Kins. The lower-end Kin One dropped from $49 to $29, while the Kin Two went from $… Read more

The technology icon stands before a crowd, holding in his hands a prototype that embodies his vision for the future of computing. It's a touch-screen tablet that is thinner than a magazine, has all-day battery life, and sells for less than $800.

But the icon wasn't Steve Jobs and the tablet wasn't the iPad. It was Bill Gates, speaking in 2005 to a crowd of Windows hardware makers in Seattle. The technology enabling such a device was still a few years off, Gates said, but it was time to start working toward that vision.

A year later, … Read more

If Microsoft is hurting for mobile customers, it's certainly not because it has a lack of different mobile operating systems.

The company already has Windows Embedded Compact (formerly Windows CE), Windows Mobile 6.5, and the forthcoming Windows Phone 7. The new Windows Phone is based, like previous versions of Windows Mobile, on the Windows CE core, but Phone 7 won't be able to run programs written for earlier Windows Phones. There's also the Kin, which runs its own flavor of the Windows Phone software.

Now, Microsoft is putting another brand in the mix, adding something called Windows Embedded Handheld. … Read more

So far, developers wanting to write programs for Windows Phone 7 have had to rely on a software emulator to see how their programs will run. Starting next month, though, the first group of developers will get their hands on actual devices.

While Microsoft says it won't have enough phones for all developers, it is working to make sure that the devices aren't limited to just the big software developers.

Microsoft is putting the final touches on Windows Phone 7, a major overhaul of its phone operating system. (Check out our behind-the-scenes story on that effort). The company … Read more

Editor's note: this is the first in an occasional series of stories on the behind-the-scenes efforts by Microsoft to bring Windows Phone 7 to market.

REDMOND, Wash.--The first Windows Phone 7 devices won't hit the market until the holidays. But in various conference rooms here on this Thursday in late May, it's already crunch time.

Microsoft has only a few weeks to get a near-final version of its code ready so various wireless carriers can begin the months of testing required before they'll start selling a new device.

In Studio F, one of three newer … Read more

Among the flurry of news from Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote speech was the announcement that Bing will become a search option on the iPhone. Microsoft is expected to announce later on Monday that Bing will also be an option on the Mac and Windows versions of Safari.

Bing joins Yahoo as an option, but Google remains the default search engine, as a source told CNET last week was a possibility. Mehdi said it is nonetheless a big step for the Microsoft search engine.

"Apple today announced that Bing will be included as one of the search engine choices … Read more

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif.--HTC chief Peter Chou said on Thursday that the company doesn't have to pick sides in the battle between Windows Mobile and Android.

"We are actually committed to both," he said, speaking at the D: All Things Digital conference. "People are different. Different people like different things."

Windows has a lot of legacy users, Chou said. "We understand the value of Windows. Windows has a lot of value."

Android, he said, offers a good Internet experience combined with Google's Web services, making it more geared to the social-networking … Read more

Microsoft is preparing to revamp the team that oversees its consumer gadgets division, as it falls farther behind Apple and Google in the market for mobile phones and other devices, according to a news report.

Citing unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal said the software giant could announce "major organizational changes at its Entertainment & Devices Division as early as this week." The Journal said those changes would include J Allard relinquishing his role as the chief experience officer and chief technology officer of the division. Allard had been overseeing a recently aborted tablet PC project. The unit … Read more

While others have torn down the Kin in their reviews, the folks at Chipworks have done an actual teardown of the Microsoft smartphone.

For those who missed it, the Kin is Microsoft's effort to tailor a phone to the always-connected crowd. The device comes in two flavors, the squat, squarish Kin One and the longer, slightly more powerful Kin Two. The phone was developed and designed by Microsoft, manufactured by Sharp, and is sold in the U.S. on Verizon's network. It runs a variant of Windows Mobile, though not quite the same version being used in the … Read more