WM6 applications won’t work on Windows Phone 7

With the upcoming MIX conference, tongues are certainly wagging, and rumours are starting to take shape. Charlie Kindel confirms that Windows Mobile applications won’t be compatible with Windows Phone 7 Series.

When Microsoft presented their new Windows Phone 7 Series OS, they took delight in displaying the new function brought with the interface (themed hubs). Nothing was mentioned about the underlying structure though, with this to be unveiled during the MIX developer’s conference that will take place between the 15th and 17th of March.

Despite this, Microsoft made it known that everything had been redone in their mobile OS, with this also being applied to the way that the mobile platform functions. Rumours quickly spread that current applications would be incompatible with the new system.


The applications will also have to start back at zero
This aspect has been confirmed through a posting made by Charlie Kindel, programming and applications development manager for the Windows Phone, explaining why the new mobile platform is so different on all points from Windows Mobile "to allow what we have seen in the Windows Phone 7 Series demos until now, we had to make a clean break with the past. To be able to bring the anticipated changes to the development program, we have had to change the way that applications are written.

One of the consequences of all of this is that existing Windows Mobile applications won’t work on Windows Phone 7 Series handsets."

This doesn’t mean that Microsoft won’t continue to support Windows Mobile 6.5 as the company is looking to maintain the two different mobile platforms, but it does mean that they will completely cut off a base of thousands of applications, forcing developers to turn towards Windows Phone 7 Series.

Charlie Kindel states that this simply means developers will have to adapt, with a large part of the current knowledge already being relevant for creating applications on the new platform, notably for the development of .NET.

This would also be a good occasion to attract those developing programs under Silverlight and XNA, as these technologies will be supported by Windows Phone 7 Series. It appears that some interesting announcements are promised for the MIX conference.