Windows Mobile 6.5 to be Known as Windows Phone Starter Edition

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Just last week Microsoft launched its latest mobile platform, the Windows Phone 7 Series. Following the official announcement at MWC 2010 we heard that the former version of Windows Mobile, Windows Mobile 6.5 will be referred to as the Classic, although there’s nothing really classic about it, is there?

Windows Mobile 6.5 was a temporary solution which Redmond needed in order to have a break from consumers while it was developing Windows Phone 7. Windows Mobile 6.5 although clearly superior to Windows Mobile 6.1 and 6.0 was nowhere near the OS people wanted Microsoft to launch and although we did some very nice smartphone running version 6.5, the OS failed to become a bestseller last year.

But there are plenty of Windows Mobile 6.5 phones out there and these are not going to disappear come this holiday season. Most of them will not be upgradeable to Windows Phone 7 so Microsoft will have to keep its previous mobile OS versions alive for a couple of years.

And now it looks like Windows Mobile 6.5 will not be called “Classic” anymore as it will be referred to as Windows Phone Starter Edition. That’s a better name for the OS although you can call Windows Mobile 6.5 whatever you want, Microsoft, but that doesn’t mean we’ll like it a lot more now.

It looks like Windows Phone Starter Edition will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and it will be destined to hit developing and emerging markets. Will that approach convince even more consumers to buy Windows Mobile-powered smartphones in the following months?

We’ll just have to wait and see how Windows Phone Starter Edition will perform as we expect it to be some sort of an upgraded Windows Mobile 6.5 version. We might also see Microsoft keep the Windows Phone Classic name although at this time only Windows Phone Starter Edition has been confirmed.