Microsoft’s Phil Moore, the company’s Head of Mobility UK speaking at the Fifth Annual Global CONNECT conference in London over the weekend, said that Windows Mobile 7 has been delayed once more and won’t be out until ‘late in 2010′.  This comes a short while after another rumuor said that we could be seeing the new operating system as soon as March 2010.

He continued to say that when it finally does arrive, Windows Mobile 7 will ‘give consumers what they want’ and that we’ll get ‘flexibility on a much easier touch UI’.  In a surprisingly frank admission, Mr. Moore also said that Microsoft were ‘playing catch-up’ and that ‘Apple caught us napping’ with the release of their iPhone.

So, far from being a refresh designed to fill the short time before Windows Mobile 7, version 6.5 is looking more like 6.1, in that it’s a relatively minor update set to hang around for a year or more.  We’re aware of several updates to 6.5 waiting in the wings, but they’re only small revisions and unlikely to attract or covert the customers Windows Mobile so desperately needs.

Despite knowing they are some distance behind the competition, delaying the OS which could potentially bring them on par will ensure they stay that way.  Remember, although we have yet to see it, closed testing of Android 2.1 seems to have started, so a Q1 2010 release seems probable, plus the likelihood of the next Apple iPhone coming during the middle of the year is very high – leaving Microsoft’s OS starved of attention.

The only hope is that Microsoft will forget all about the competition and innovate rather than replicate what it sees as popular now.  Windows Mobile 7 can still be fantastic, but it’s going to have to be seriously impressive to regain the market share it will inevitably continue to lose if we have to live with 6.5 for another 12 months.  We know they can do it, proved by the Xbox 360 following the first Xbox, but can they do it in the mobile world?