Beyond Windows Phone 7: More on other pieces of Microsoft's mobile portfolio

The Windows Phone 7.0 operating system and Windows Phone 7 Series devices aren't the only new (and newly named) pieces of Microsoft's mobile portflio. There are others still in the wings, a few of which are still known only by their codenames.

Phones running the Windows Mobile 6.5 and 6.5.3 operating systems have been rechristened with the "Classic" brand, according to istartedsomething blogger Long Zheng. So there will be Windows Phone Classic models out there for a year, maybe two.

Then there's something known as Windows Mobile 6 Starter Edition that may be unveiled as early as February 16, according to Neowin.net.

Update: Neowin was on the money. Just minutes after I posted this, Neowin's Tom Warren found and tweeted the link to the Windows Mobile 6 Starter Edition announcement from Bsquare.

Like its PC counterpart, the mobile Starter sounds as though it is a stripped- down version of the operating system aimed primarily at partners and users in emerging markets. (I'll be curious to see how and if Windows Mobile 6 Starter is connected to Microsoft's OneApp offering. OneApp, the product formerly codenamed Kojax/Kirana, is technology designed to enable feature phones (as opposed to smartphones) run applications like Facebook and Twitter.)

Neowin is reporting that there will be one version of Windows Mobile 6 Starter that bundles in Office Mobile. I asked Microsoft officials whether this might be Office 2010 Starter Edition or something else and was told Microsoft had nothing to say about Mobile Starter.

Speaking of Office Mobile 2010, I'm going to be curious how and when Microsoft adapts it to run on Windows Phone 7 devices. Last I heard, Office Mobile 2010 was designed to run on Windows Mobile 6.5 (and, one would assume, 6.5.3) phones. Given that it sounds like Windows Mobile 6.x apps won't run on Windows Phone 7 devices -- according to informed speculation, not directly from Microsoft -- I'm curious about Office Mobile 2010's platform support.

One other still-unannounced family of products are the Pink phones -- the teen/twenty-something-targeted devices that are being made for Microsoft by Sharp but which may carry a Microsoft logo. As several blogs reported over the past weekend, Sharp has filed plans with the Federal Communication Commission for two Pink phones, codenamed "Turtle" and "Pure." Details of those filings will be made public right around the time of the CTIA wireless conference in late March.

"Conflipper" has unearthed more info about the Pink phones and has been tweeting his findings. There are also CDMA versions of the Pink phones, Conflipper claims, codenamed "Lion" and "Pride."

One reader who said he's looked at some of the files for these Pink phones sent along this info:

"Pure and Lion are the higher end devices for these right now. HVGA display, CE OS6, Silverlight, and Brand new. I am looking at 561 *.dll files that make up the 100MB ROM. A lot of center around Zune in the Registry.

"Looks like Home screen has different feeds," the reader said. The Pink devices "will be provided with firmware updates OTA (over the air."

Microsoft officials still won't say anything about Pink. (I tried asking again yesterday.) Last I heard, Microsoft was considering holding a separate event for a Pink unveiling some time in April.

On a related note, here are a couple of Windows Phone 7 posts that I missed in my first pass of reading yesterday, but are worth a look if you haven't seen them:

Redmond Pie: Good chart comparing the iPhone (current version) to Windows Phone 7 devices (what we know so far)

Riagenic: Windows Mobile 7: The meh release (interesting critique from former Microsoft Rich Platform Product Manager Scott Barnes)