Today, Microsoft's Partner Group Program Manager Charlie Kindel dropped a bomb on current Windows Mobile users in his latest blog, revealing that applications developed prior to Windows 7 Phone will not work on the new platform. He cited the company as wanting a clean break from the past, to move from "good" to "great."
"To enable the fantastic user experiences you’ve seen in the Windows Phone 7 Series demos so far, we've had to break from the past," Kindel wrote in his blog. "To deliver what developers expect in the developer platform, we’ve had to change how phone apps were written." He added that Windows 7 Phone will support Silverlight and XNA.
But that doesn't mean Microsoft is forgetting its current Windows Mobile-based consumers. "To be clear, we will continue to work with our partners to deliver new devices based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will support those products for many years to come, so it’s not as though one line ends as soon as the other begins," he added.
Kindel isn't kidding when he refers to a "clean break." Apparently Windows 7 Phone will require meatier hardware than what's currently running Windows Mobile 6.5. This means that Windows Mobile 6.x users won't be able to upgrade to Windows 7 Phone on the software front when the OS launches later this year. Instead, users will be required to trade up for a newer, qualified device.
"Because we have very specific requirements for Windows Phone 7 Series the current phones we have right now will not be upgradable," Natasha Kwan, General Manager for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business in the Asia-Pacific region, told APC Monday.
