New naming scheme for Windows Mobile 6

By Werner Ruotsalainen, Submitted Thursday, February 8, 2007

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Do you remember the Pocket PC -> Windows Mobile change? Do you see people (erroneously) referring to Pocket PC 2002 as Windows Mobile 2002 (or vice versa: as Pocket PC 5 when referring to WM5)? Do you want even more confusion? ;-)

Did you ever have a WM2003 device with either the Professional or the Standard version? Do you remember the difference?

If your answer is "yes" particularly to the second question, you may not really welcome the official name changes (which Microsoft has just given us the green light to publicly publish), which are as follows:

Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone => Windows Mobile 6 Standard
Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC Phone Edition => Windows Mobile 6 Professional
Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC => Windows Mobile 6 Classic

That is, essentially, WM6 Professional will become what Pocket PC Phone Edition has been before (that is, a PDA phone with a touch screen), while the new Standard will become the traditional touch screen-less, previously as Microsoft Smartphone-based devices referred to, devices. (Did I tell you the new naming scheme will really be confusing for long-time Pocket PC users?). Finally, "Classic" devices will be the ones that lack a built-in phone.

(I, personally, as a tech writer, don't really welcome the changes because it'll cause me a lot of additional work, as was the case with previous name changes. So far, I've always referred to, for example, Messaging and Inbox, Pocket Word and Word Mobile or Pocket Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer Mobile when referring to the same program under different operating system version (Please see this article for more information on these name changes.) Now, it seems, I can't just use for example "PPC PE" to refer to Phone Edition devices because it may not be understood by some readers that have started their Windows Mobile-career with a WM6 device. I couldn't just use "WM Pro" to refer to the new, phone + touch screen PDA combos either because it'd confuse people that knew what "WM Pro" (as opposed to "Standard") stated for in previous Windows Mobile operating system versions but still havenâ€™t heard of the new WM6 naming convention.)

Note that the change will "only" apply to the new, WM6 (Crossbow) operating system, not to previous ones. That is, WM5 PPC PE still remains WM5 PPC Phone Edition and not WM5 Pro.

UPDATE (02/11/2007): this PPCT thread is also worth reading

Submitted by David Shier on February 8, 2007 - 12:15pm.

It's worth noting that the name changes for WM6 are "internal" names used for the OS licenses the device makers buy from Microsoft. At this point, Microsoft is not requiring the names be used on the public side. So a company is free to call their new WM6 Classic device a "Pocket PC" and their WM6 Pro device a "Pocket PC Phone" if they so choose.

Submitted by Werner Ruotsalainen on February 9, 2007 - 1:50am.

Pathologo, yup, this is what I've been afraid of - now, my articles will become even more convoluted because every time I refer to, say, MS Smartphones (WM6 Standard), I'll need to enter both names to be absolutely clear.

And, this issue aside, the customer confusion will be also pretty high.