Internet Explorer Mobile 6 to be available on new WM 6.1 smartphones!

Windows Mobile 6.5 has been the talk of the WinMo-town of late. With an arguably more finger-friendly UI and its full-featured Internet Explorer Mobile 6 promising to deliver a more desktop-like browsing experience, Windows Mobile 6.5 is the de facto “next-big-thing” in the Windows Mobile camp. Unfortunately, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has taken a non-upgrade stance on the new WinMo OS - Windows Mobile 6.5 will only be available on new devices; there will be no updates for current Windows Mobile smartphones.

But, that doesn’t mean current WinMo fans are going to be left out of the IE Mobile 6 party. We’re just learning that Microsoft is looking to give its installed Windows Mobile user-base the same IE Mobile 6 web browsing experience that WinMo 6.5 users will be enjoying soon enough (hopefully sooner, rather than later). It seems that Microsoft wanted to avoid updating current-generation WM-based handsets with the 6.5 update because the sheer size of the .cab file proved problematic. So, to appease its customers, Microsoft will be rolling out Windows Mobile 6.1 AKU 1.4, bundled with IE Mobile 6, on all new Windows Mobile smartphones released from now until 6.5 goes lives.

So, there you have it folks. Microsoft won’t be giving Windows Mobile 6.1 users any sort of update to Windows Mobile 6.5, again, due to the enormous size of the WM6.5 file. But if you happen to be buying a new Windows Mobile handset soon, IE Mobile 6 is in the cards. Of course, there are going to be plenty of cooked WM 6.1 AKU 1.4 ROMs floating around in due time…