Microsoft launched Windows Mobile 6.5 officially today. Microsoft itself sees WinMo 6.5 as a transitional release to pass the time to Windows Mobile 7 that is supposed to come in 2010.
The Windows Mobile 6.5 reviews on Gizmodo and Engadget for instance hightlight that Microsoft did not really change much in this release and it is more a 6.2 release. How is it possible that Microsoft dropped the ball on their mobile OS? Palm's brand new webOS or of course Apple's iPhone OS just make it look old.
If HTC and others didn't put their custom User Interfaces on top of WinMo it would really look very bad for Microsoft in the mobile sector. These companies are also supporting Google's Android more and more.
Windows Mobile 7 needs to be a dead on hit or Microsoft's smartphone marketshare will crumble dramatically.