Windows Mobile: we didn't mean it like that...

So following the conflicting news about what the strategy for Windows Mobile would be, some learned folks followed up and quizzed Microsoft. So here's what they said:

Microsoft will be focusing on building out the quality of the Windows Mobile experience, investing more in working with its partners to ensure the best hardware-software integration. While this may result in fewer phone models, Microsoft will continue working with our partners to innovate on the Windows Mobile platform.

Microsoft is committed to continued innovation of the Windows Mobile platform. Our goal continues to be working together with you to deliver exciting experiences to end users. The implication in The New York Times that Microsoft will limit the number of Windows Mobile devices is not accurate. In an interview with the paper, Todd Peters stated that Microsoft would be focusing on building out the quality of the Windows Mobile experience, investing more in working with its partners to ensure the best hardware-software integration.

So, there you have it. Despite it still being awkward that Todd Peters and Steve Ballmer would make such contradicting on the same day, the above would suggest that Microsoft has a couple of iPhone test devices running and now tries to catch up with the smooth overall end-to-end user experience (see also here) (or how would you read the first paragraph of the above?). With Windows 7 supposedly pushing into a tighter/more intuitive desktop-web integration, this would appear to being in line with an overall push to improve performance on this end.