MS chief talks Win Mo 7, Sidekick, Courier

Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer today provided a handful of minor revelations for his company's strategy in an interview today. In his discussion with Engadget, the executive has now all but confirmed that Windows Mobile 7 will "come hard" with elements of the Zune interface; previously, the company had only made indirect allusions to the software appearing in a future update. Most anticipate the release moving the phone OS towards a more touch-friendly platform as well as to give it stronger media playback.

Ballmer is less forthcoming regarding the causes of the Sidekick data outage but partly blames it on lagging upgrades. Microsoft should have "more rapidly accelerated" porting Danger's Sidekick data service over to Microsoft-made technology, he says. Bing and Hotmail are used as examples where Microsoft has successfully run cloud services for very long periods with backups in the event of a failure.

When asked about the rumored Courier tablet book, Ballmer claims to have never seen the video and to only have heard details of the rumor. He does, however, hint at possible inside knowledge of the dual-screen, multi-touch device.

"I hope somebody does stuff like that," he says.

By Electronista Staff