Windows Mobile 7 on track for Q1 release to OEMs, Q3 release to public?

ZDNet Taiwan is reporting that Windows Mobile 7 will be ready to be sent to OEMs in the first quarter of 2010 for testing. If everything goes well, a public launch will take place in the third quarter of 2010, about a year after the release of Windows Mobile 6.5. The OS is facing declining market share as Android has become increasingly popular-especially now that the 2.0 build has been released to very good reviews on the Motorola DROID. As a result, the guys in Redmond have decided to step up the action and the "Maldives" program is sent to the OEMs, seeking feedback and suggestions from them. As we have reported, some screen shots have already appeared to give us an idea of what the interface will look like.

According to the report, the biggest difference between the current Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Mobile 7 is that the latter supports capacitive touch. Yes, the HTC HD2 with Windows Mobile 6.5 does have a capacitive touchscreen and does have multi-touch functions, but only in certain file executions like Office Documents, web browsing and e-mail. With Windows Mobile 7, all functions will be able to support multi-touch.

source: ZDNetTaiwan (translated) via wmpoweruser