MEDC 2005: Keynote
Bill started with the usual Software theme ('software will change the world...') which is very relevant to the mobile industry today. He talked about the future of communication moving from ‘phone number’ based selection of a contact to name based selection, with the 'right' channel being chosen based on local circumstance such as the current device, geography and available connectivity. Interesting Windows Mobile numbers from Bill: 68 operators’ world wide, 48 countries covered, 40 device manufacturers. Interaction with mobile will go more towards natural human interactions like voice and image recognition as CPU power grows.
Bill announced Windows Mobile 5.0 and said its about 3 key things: Productivity, Multi media and OEM differentiation / developer innovation. Windows Mobile 5.0 has support for all next gen networks: 3G, EDGE, EVDO etc. Smartphone has the additional option of landscape mode. Image Update service provides a quick and reliable way of downloading XIP (eXecute In Place) updates and applying them to ROM for new devices although it looks like the model for deploying the update will still reside with the mobile operator – at least for the near future.
Bluetooth was pulled out as an important (and in my opinion, overdue) area for improved experience for developers with a shared source library containing managed code to help dev’s integrate support for BT – more on this later as I went to a breakout specifically about this.
There were a couple of very nice demo’s: the one from Mike Hall was very entertaining, but I think the cool slot was taken by Neil Enns who showed a managed app integrating camera, POOM and the phone libraries in just a few lines of code.
Marcus
