InsideMicrosoft

Origami Team Moves Onto New Secret Project

The Origami team announced that, with the release of Origami Experience for Windows Vista, the entire team (minus one guy) is moving, intact, onto a new, non-UMPC project. Considering that the team has done an amazing job creating a touch interface for Windows, there is only one logical conclusion: They are either working on a Zune phone or Windows Mobile.

The fact is, Apple isn’t going to be the only country stepping it up in how media players work on mobile phones, and Microsoft knows it either brings its A-game, or admits defeat. My daily MP3 player is a Windows Mobile phone, and I use it out of convenience, nothing else. Windows Mobile is a disaster for media, compared to what little we’ve seen of the iPhone, difficult to control, crashing during other applications, losing its place if you turn off the screen, and an overhaul is in order.

The word about the Zune phone is that it is real, and it does not run Windows Mobile. If that is the real deal, then it is possible the Origami team is handling that, but I doubt it, since the Zune team probably wouldn’t work well by dumping other teams on them. The most likely thing is that the Origmai team is doing what it does best: Designing slick, fast, fun and easy interfaces to work on top of Windows operating systems, and an Origami-like shell for Windows Mobile would render the iPhone largely irrelevant for its price.

I hope to god they are working on media features for WinMobile, something iPhone-like. There are two kinds of Windows Mobile users, business users and consumer users, and Microsoft has completely ignored the second category. They need to play hardball before Apple gets a huge foothold in the category.
(via Mary Jo)

February 6th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | General, Tablet PC, Windows Media, Windows Mobile, Zune, UMPC/Origami | 2 comments
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