MWC: Microsoft Announces New Mobile OS and App Store

It’s the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain this week and all the world is abuzz with mobile technology news. Microsoft has decided to join in the Apple fun and create an updated mobile OS (Windows Mobile) and create an app store just like Apple’s.

At the MWC, Microsoft stated they have joined with several partners to deliver the next-generation of  Windows phones that will run Windows Mobile 6.5. According to Apple Insider, “The same phones will also debut two new services similar to those offered by rival Apple to users of its iPhone handsets: My Phone, to sync text messages, photos, video, contacts –but not email — to the Web; and Windows Marketplace for Mobile, a new online application shop that will provide direct-to-phone mobile applications and can be accessed from both the phone and the Web.”

The Apple Insider also stated that “the most significant of Microsoft’s announcements are plans to take on Apple’s App Store with a similar service dubbed Windows Marketplace for searching, browsing and purchasing mobile applications from Windows phones or from a PC by using a Windows Live ID. ”

Windows Mobile OS also showed the MWC crowd all what it can bring to the proverbial table: a touch-screen interface with a start screen designed to let your fingers select the application, folder, game or setting quickly and easily.