In conjunction with the retail release of the full desktop version of Office 2010, Office Mobile 2010 bringing comprehensive Word, Excel, and PowerPoint editing capabilities to the pocket — on Windows Mobile 6.5.

The new version has SharePoint integration for grabbing documents from the office, a nifty Bluetooth controller mode for PowerPoint presentations, and so on…

Keen to try?  Download it from the Marketplace now.

The big new feature is full voice-prompt text-to-speech navigation. Yes, it tells you the names of the roads you should turn on and even tells you which side of the street your destination is on.  The video is bellow.

And according to Financial Time, HTC is looking for even more sales in Q2 with another 50% growth.  With the new handsets like Legend, Desire, HD Mini, Smart and many others, HTC will be enjoying the high increase of sales.

Chief Financial Officer Cheng Hui-ming of HTC was giving credits to the ability to frequently and consistently bring fresh devices to the market:

“our product refresh cycle is faster than our competitors . . . if your plan was made two years before you launch your phone, then the design and pricing probably will not match the changes in the market”

[via engadget]

[via xda-developers]

Device like HD2 has a snapdragon CPU with high resolution capacity touch screen, 5MP camera and enough RAM seems to be one of the devices that qualified for Windows Phone 7 hardware requirement and likely to receive Windows Phone 7 upgrade.

However, here is a piece of bad news from Microsoft, officially.  Natasha Kwan, General Manager for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business in the Asia-Pacific region, said that the HD2 “doesn’t qualify because it doesn’t have the three buttons”.

“Because we have very specific requirements for Windows Phone 7 Series the current phones we have right now will not be upgradable”, Kwan explained.

And it sounds like all existing Windows Mobile devices in the market will not be upgradeable to Windows Phone 7 and now we have to put our hope to the hackers from XDA-Developers

[via apcmag]

Waiting to buy the new HTC phones that were announced during MWC?  The UK online retailer expansys has published the prices and availability date for the 3 new phones from HTC.

HTC Desire will cost you 439.99 Sterling Pound (USD 680), Legend will cost 389.99 (USD600), and the HD mini will cost 339.99 (USD525).  And they are due on 12th of April.

So start saving and your count down to the date.

[via expansys]

It is packed with everything you would expect to have, expect with a slower processor and smaller screen.  The HD mini comes with a 600Mhz CPU and HVGA (320 x480) screen.  It has 512Mb ROM and 386Mb RAM.  And it is loaded with Windows Mobile 6.5.3 with HTC Sense.

The phone will also come with G-Sensor, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, 5P camera, bluetooth, wifi, GPS and 3 microSF expansion slot.

We can find more information of HD mini now from HTC’s web site here.

According to Engadget, by looking at the decoration and banners, Microsoft seems to be ready to push the Windows Phone’s brand name in the event.  And guess what, Steve Ballmer will be there for the event.  And hopefully Microsoft is ready for the Windows Mobile 7 announcement.

MWC 2010 is going to be an interest event as we will be expecting quite a number of new products launch.

[via engadget]

According to PPCGeeks, Windows Mobile 7 will feature a Zune like interface and there will be no multitasking support for third party apps on the phone!  Microsoft will control the Windows Mobile 7 about the same way Apple controls the iPhoneOS, except that Microsoft will not make the phone.  The manufacturers will build the phone but Microsoft will control the user experience tightly.

Here is the list that PPCGeeks lists:

• The User Interface is based upon codename “METRO”. It will be very similar to the Zune HD User Interface with a complete revamp of the “Start” screen. The UI is “Very Clean”, “Soulful” and “Alive”
• Unfortunately there will be no Flash support at the get go as there was not enough time to implement these features.
• Windows Phone 7 will only support application installation through service based delivery. (i.e Marketplace). Application installation via storage card will not be possible.
• No Multi-Task support. Applications will “Pause” when in the background, however will support notifications via push notifications.
• Marketplace will now support “try before you buy” as well as an API
• No NETCF backwards compatibility. This means the original rumor of no backward compatibility for applications holds to be true. That being said, there are high hopes of porting the NetCF to the newer platform easily.
• Microsoft is confident that devices will be ready by September 2010
• Full Zune Integration
• Windows Mobile Device Center will no longer be used. Zune software to take over syncing via PC.
• OEM Interfaces will not be allowed to run on the device. Say goodbye to Sense UI / SPB Mobile Shell / Point UI / Infinity, etc, etc
• Full XBOX Gaming Integration (Gamer tag, achievements, friends, avatars, merchandising, etc)
• Full support for social networking

Microsoft is clearly learning the experience from its previous Windows Mobile release and obviously also from Apple’s iPhone.  Will this make sense to Microsoft as well as the existing hardware partners like HTC and Samsung?  May be that’s why HTC goes to Android camp and Samsung created a new Bada OS.

Will this be too late for Microsoft?  We will see when Windows Mobile is finally released to market.

[via PPCGeeks]

According to the statement, the new OMS version supports things like SVG and voice recognition and the comany also claims that “Windows Mobile API” are now part of this update.  And what exactly does this support of Windows Mobile API mean?  Does it create a binary layer that will run the Windows Mobile apps directly on the OMS device without any modification or does it have a SDK to allow developers of Windows Mobile apps to port the apps to OMS platform easily?

Well, the press release is included after the break and we shall wait for more interesting information from them.

[via mobiletechworld]

BEIJING, Feb 02, 2010 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) —
China Mobile Ltd. (SEHK: 0941; NYSE: CHL) has upgraded its OMS (Open Mobile System) to 2.0 version, which is compatible with technologies such as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), Windows Mobile
API, and voice recognition and generation.

OMS is a proprietary smartphone operating system developed by China Mobile using source codes of Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating)’s Android platform. It is regarded as a secondary development on the basis of Android. Mobile phones based on OMS are called OPhones.

Android has had many different versions after it was created in 2008. As a result, OMS has been upgrading itself since its release, trying to catch up the pace of Android.

Because Android’s codes are open to all developers, the R&D team of OMS embedded China Mobile’s services like instant messaging and messengers client Fetion into OMS while making changes to Android.

The latest version of OMS is able to provide support for the next-generation mobile Internet and communications technologies and stronger and more efficient technology R&D for family services.

Aspen is a business oriented phone with the front QWERTY keyboard and candy bar form factor like Blackberry.  It has a 2.4-inch QVGA TFT touchscreen LCD, 3.2 megapixel camera, A-GPS with Google Maps, 3.5-mm audio jack, WiFi, and microSD expansion.

The most important thing is that it will come with Windows Mobile 6.5.3.  Although it sounds like a minor upgrade from version 6.5, it actually completes the UI improvement from Microsoft to a completely finger friendly interface.  The new version also support capacitive touch screen and multitouch support is enabled.  Microsoft has also improved browser performance with faster page load times and better memory management.

The original Sony Ericsson announcement is here.