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Microsoft Mobile Communications Business is now the Windows Phone Division

By | June 16, 2011, 11:26am PDT

Summary: Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business (MCB) is no more. The group itself still exists, but is known officially, as of this week, as the “Windows Phone Division.”

Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business (MCB) is no more. The group itself still exists, but is known officially, as of this week, as the “Windows Phone Division.”

I noticed the change on the bio page for the division President Andy Lees. (Until yesterday, Lees was listed as President of MCB. He’s now President of the Windows Phone Division.)

A Microsoft spokesperson said that only the name of the unit has changed and that there’s no change in the unit’s responsibilities or charter.

As Microsoft continues to phase out its Windows Mobile 6.x product line and is using “Windows Phone” to refer to its current line of smart phones, the new name makes sense.

In other Windows Phone-related news, Microsoft is gearing up to provide some of its “serious” Windows Phone developers with phones running the “Mango” release of the Windows Phone operating system, as of next week. That means, one would assume, that the Mango update — the one with an HTML5 browser, Twitter integration, new Bing search functionality, better SkyDrive integration and more — is done or close to done.

Microsoft has said that new phones will get the Mango update later this fall. There’s no telling how long it may take carriers and handset makers to finish testing Mango so that Microsoft can push it out to existing Windows Phone users.

Speaking of delays in getting Windows Phone updates into users’ hands and phones, Microsoft provided its usual, weekly update regarding its Windows Phone “NoDo” update rollout this week. HTC Surround phones on AT&T are now in the “scheduling” phase — meaning it could begin to start pushing out the update for those users any time in the next 10 days. (And then the actual delivery can take weeks once it begins.)

Things aren’t as rosy for some Samsung WP7 users. From a new blog post on the Windows Phone Blog:

“We’ve worked through the last of the technical hurdles with AT&T and Samsung, and are now actively scheduling the final set of tests and the subsequent roll out of updates to Focus handsets with the alternate memory. I don’t have hard dates yet.

“Finally, we’re still working with Orange to resume update deliveries to Omnia 7 phones. I know some of you are frustrated—and I’m sorry about the delay. The team truly thought they were close last week—and are working to close on a schedule.”

Update: One more Windows Phone tidbit (that also points to Mango being nearly done). Microsoft is launching an IE Mobile test drive site, similar to its IE Test Drive site for checking IE performance on Windows Phones.

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Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.

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RE: Microsoft Mobile Communications Business is now the Windows Phone Division
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Makes sense, the Windows division isn't called the "Operating System Business Division"
If there was any doubt about how serious MSFT is about Windows Phone, this just removed all of it.

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james347 Updated - 17th Jun
@james347
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RE: Microsoft Mobile Communications Business is now the Windows Phone Division
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