Microsoft Says Less Phones Will Have WinMo in the Future [Windows Mobile]

With increasing competition—most recently from Android and Palm's promising new WebOS, how is Microsoft planning on helping WinMo survive in the mobile operating system world? By putting it on less devices, naturally.

Todd Peters, VP of marketing for the Windows Mobile Division said that while Microsoft was looking into beefing up WinMo's features, its strategy for the new year was to limit the number of devces using the OS.

Right now about 140 cellphones use WinMo. Peters said Microsoft is hoping to shrink that number in order to not "have its efforts diluted over too many devices."

I'd rather have fewer devices and be more focused," he said. That way "we get better integration" between phone and operating system.

Peters wasn't clear about the criteria Microsoft was going to use to limit Windows Mobile roll-outs. Will they restrict it to more powerful phones that are capable of running WinMo without the lag (kind of like that Vista ready label, only... actually ready) or is it Microsoft making more of an effort to actually design the OS to every specific phone its licensed on? [New York Times]