| Carriers holding browser upgrade hostage? |
Nov. 21, 2008
 Microsoft's new Windows Mobile web browser will apparently be released in China first. And -- to the consternation of many enthusiasts -- Internet Explorer Mobile 6 (left) will be available only on new phones, not as a downloadable upgrade to existing devices, the company is presently saying.
(Click here for a larger view of Microsoft's Internet Explorer Mobile 6)
 News of the Chinese connection came earlier this week from the Mobile Asia Congress, held in Macau. Announcing a new partnership with China Mobile, Microsoft Mobile Communications Group Manager Scott Rockfeld (right) reportedly said Internet Explorer Mobile 6 will make its debut on the carrier's forthcoming version of Samsung's Omnia smartphone.
 
Chinese buyers of Samsung's Omnia (left) will get Internet Explorer Mobile 6 (right) first
(Click either image for further information)
Rockfeld is quoted by ZDNet Asia as saying, "Our target is not to convert existing users of the competing phones like the iPhone or Google's Android. We want to grow faster than the market.
"We want to have users in [emerging markets] get their first online experience with Windows Mobile," he is said to have added.
The announcement appears to be great news for China Mobile and its subscribers -- 443,309 of them, according to data released by the carrier at the end of October. However, it adds fuel to a fire Microsoft first ignited last week, when it released downloadable test versions of IE6 for Windows Mobile via its Windows Mobile Team blog.
 
Shown using our sister site eWEEK.com, Microsoft's Internet Explorer Mobile 6 allows switching from mobile (left) to standard (right) versions of a web page
(Click to enlarge)
The test software, shown in action above, runs via Microsoft's Windows Mobile emulator software, not on actual phones. Naturally, this immediately raised the question of how Windows Mobile device users would be able to obtain the upgrade.
Posting a response on the blog, a Windows Mobile team member described only as Khush wrote, "IE Mobile 6 is expected to show up in devices at the end of 2008 or early 2009." But, he or she added, "The rich media experiences that IE Mobile 6 enables require more powerful, advanced devices. That is why it will not be available as an upgrade or direct download for current phones, but rather will be made available on new phones."
Khush's comments touched off an immediate furor in the blogosphere. For example, on his jkOnTheRun blog, James Kendrick writes, "This is the perfect example of how broken the Windows Mobile ecosystem is today. Microsoft is so beholden to the partners who produce the devices that they leave important decisions like who gets an upgrade to those partners. This shoots the existing customer in the foot every single time and it's getting very old indeed."
IE Mobile 6, shown rendering a story about itself
(Click image to enlarge) |
In WindowsForDevices's own tests (pictured, right) IE Mobile 6 has run adequately, and on par with other Windows Mobile Web browsers, even though our platform for the emulator is a feeble 1.7GHz Pentium M system with just 1GB of RAM. In addition, hackers posting on the xda-developers forum report being able to extract the ROM image -- known as Windows Mobile 6.1.4 -- from the emulator and port it to actual devices. IE Mobile 6 is rumored to have been run successfully on phones with clock speeds as low as 200MHz.
Avoiding a PR debacle?
If we had to hazard a guess, we'd say Microsoft will eventually find a way to supply IE Mobile 6 to existing Windows Mobile 6 device users: if not as a simple downloadable .CAB file, then as a ROM upgrade that can be distributed through carriers. Just today, after all, Apple -- considered an arch-rival by the media if not by Microsoft itself -- released iPhone 2.2 firmware that brings an enhanced web browser and other new features to 100 percent of its existing customers.
With April's release of Windows Mobile 6.1, Microsoft provided minor tweaks for IE Mobile, including claimed faster operation, plus a Zoom Out button that lets users see the overall layout of a web page, then zoom in to a desired portion of it. At that time, the company promised additional enhancements to IE, saying a new version would be available to mobile phone partners in the third quarter of 2008, and to the public by the end of the year.
And, when it released the Internet Explorer Mobile 6 ("6 on 6") emulator last week, Microsoft touted the following new features:- Support for "full fidelity desktop rendering"
- The ability to view web pages full-screen, without menu bars and other "chrome"
- Touch and gesture support
- Multiple zoom levels
- Easy switching between mobile/desktop versions of sites by specifying UA (user agent) string
- Text wrapping that better accommodates mobile screens
- Enhanced scripting and AJAX support, including compatibility with JScript 5.7
- Adobe Flash Lite 3.1
- Deeper integration with search
- An "enhanced cursor navigation model"
Many of these features are already available from other Windows Mobile web browsers, including Access's NetFront, Torch Mobile's Iris Browser, Opera Software's Opera Mobile 9.5, Skyfire Labs' Skyfire, and Mozilla's imminent Firefox Mobile. In particular, device manufacturers and carriers who apparently consider the current IE Mobile to be obsolescent have been shipping phones with preinstalled copies of Opera Mobile. Recent examples include this week's Verizon/Samsung Saga announced earlier this week, and last week's AT&T/HTC Fuze.
Further information
To obtain the Internet Explorer Mobile 6 emulator and read related blog postings, see the Windows Mobile Team blog, here.
To read more about how Windows Mobile 6.1.4 ROMs have been hacked onto actual devices, see the xda-developers forum, here. To read James Kendrick's comments on jkOnTheRun, go here.
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