Steve B at CES said that Mobile World Congress is where they’ll be talking about Windows Mobile 7 then there was the invite received by enthusiast Long Zheng, this might be one of the many announcements to be made at MWC 2010 regarding Microsoft’s push. Robbie Bach has confirmed that the Zune Marketplace which now provides content to the PC & the Xbox 360 will start feeding content to phones. In an interview he said:
That is why we moved Zune to Xbox, that’s why we have Zune on the PC. I think it’s been very successful on Xbox. That’s a place where we can start to grow the brand. One of the biggest issues we have with Zune HD is not that the brand is bad, it’s that the brand is not well known. It’s hard to spend enough money to be more well known, considering what Apple has already done with iPod and which they now leverage with iPhone and iTouch. So, we have to find broad markets where we can expand, and certainly bringing Zune to Xbox is an example of that. But it’s very clear that the portable music and video marketplace will end up being part of the phone. So that creates a new opportunity for everyone to introduce those things into phones, and the thing that has held it back has been battery life. And that’s changing. Screen resolution has also been holding it back a bit and technology is catching up on all those things.
As of now you can sync your Zune Pass content to your Windows Mobile phone using a combination of Zune 4 desktop & Windows Media Player. (thanks Taimur for the link.)
According to a recent job posting dated 29th December 2009, Microsoft is looking for a Business Development Manager who will work with the Entertainment & Devices division (Robbie Bach’s division) and will facilitate content acquisition, music specifically. The job description states:
This individual will work within this organization and have the following specific responsibilities:
While the news of Zune Marketplace making it to Windows mobile surfaced back in 2007 and Zune software was “confirmed” to be coming to Windows Mobile, nothing happened. With Windows Mobile 7 this might just happen. Or not.