One of the common threads of the WinExtra on Windows podcasts that Paul and I do together is the idea that Microsoft needs to be looking, and treating their enterprise and consumer efforts as two different types of markets. Well if this news about Microsoft’s moile plans is any indication they may really be coming around to that line of thought.
Steve Ballmer is quoted in saying in a recent video appearance during the launch of Motorola enterprise smartphone on Thursday
“In the next six months we will release a new embedded OS called Windows Embedded Handheld, based on Windows Mobile 6.5 technologies … [and] in the second half of 2011, we will release a version of Windows Embedded Handheld based on Windows Phone 7 technology,”
According to Motorola’s president of enterprise mobile solutions, Gene Delaney, the newly launched smartphone, the ES400, is meant to address specific needs of larger businesses. One of the examples used by Sascha Segan in a PC Mag post
For instance, your average consumer handheld isn’t going to have a “push to scan” button – a dedicated button next to the navigation key which activates a barcode scanner. The camera on the ES400 is in the middle of the back, and incorporates a red LED to let you center it for scanning.
So it seems that this time around the consumer is coming first and when the Windows Phone 7 does launch for the enterprise market there will be differences between it and its consumer minded brother.
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