[General Topics] quicksite:
I totally respect where you're coming from, but I disgaree completely with the characterization of the android HTC Hero. I started with Windows Mobile and have used it for past 5years on 2 different T-Mobile phones. If not for my discovery of this site, those phones would have been practically unusable (they WERE unusable), everything from not enough RAM (admittedly, a hardware issue, not an OS issue), to, more impt the inability to use the devices at all while walking, or in a car, even within a mount. The total lack of finger navigability , combined with just ridiculous factors never considered by Windows -- like putting the phone in your pocket, and constant problems of it auto-dialing my last contact, or vice-verse, taking it out of my poicket trying to answer a call, and by the time I'd done that i'd hit buttons or touch surfaces that ended the call -- and bad memory management -- combined to give me a great gizmo for web browsing, and contact management, but almost useless as a phone. UNTIL XDA - who solved all these issues not thought of by Windows Mobile engineers.

Now 3 years later on XDA-Devs, I have been really happy with the total transformations of my last phone the T-Mobile Wing. Moving from ifonz UI shell to the amazing new "androkkid" shell and app launcher, plus essentials like A_C's S2U2, then fingerkeyboard, microfi's nitrogen music player, Dave Shaw's XDAshutdown, supbro's iDialer and then Burt's/AE iCOntact picture edition, Thumbcal, plus all sorts of gizmos for better connectivity to WIFI etc, my WM phone finally enabled me to take it everywhere, and use it reliably. And yes, run all sorts of custom apps too.

But I am very puzzled by your diminishment of the HTC Hero -- the phone I just moved to about 4-5 weeks ago. Multi-tasking so much better, way more responsive UI, great great set of useful out the gate widgets, and phone and connectivity problems all gone, replaced by a super smooth user experience (I have some gripes, but they are hardware, like the un-useful, way too uncontrollable track ball, for exmaple.)

But this idea that

requires some explanation I feel. What apps exactly? what's missing that you cannot find in the Android marketplace re the business and IT related apps & utilities you are referring to?

Now, to be totally fair, I expect that given Ballmer's much talked about admission that they blew it badly by delaying development of windows mobile 7 for too long, and issuing their interim bandaid WindowsMobile 6.5, that WindowsMobile 7 will be robust, smooth, and a complete re-think. However, to me I am betting money that there's no mystery at all about what it will look like. I am willing to bet anyone here $100 that it is principally following the UI scheme that drives the HD Zune... which also matches many of the UI principles appearing in media-rich environments of Windows desktop.

And from the YouTube videos I saw of the HD Zune several months back, it looks like a pretty good scheme they have driving the UI.

Of course I could be wrong and they totally blow us out of the water with a whole new UI never before seen. I rather doubt it though. And as for WM staying competitive in the rapidly exploding marketplace of touchscreen phones, I don't know. When they slipped on their earlier specified Feb 2010 launch of WM 7, and now I believe it is more like June 2010, I think that even with a sudden reversal of stagnation for WM come June 2010, many of their user base will have migrated to Android by then. What Android and google accomplished in one year's time is rather astonishing.

Multi-tasking is amazing: way more than I ever want open seems to remain open in Android with no drain on performance -- and easy widget controls to further control the granularity of memory mgmt by manually closing apps handles this issue long before something ever crashes. In fact, I cannot think of my HTC hero ever crashing yet at all, while easily 6-8 apps are running in b.g..

I think that Windows Mobile 7 will likely be great... As to whether it catapults Windows Mobile back into a top-tier player remains to be seen. Their salvation rests, in my view, principally on the backs of 2 things: one being simply a PERCEPTION OF, and the other being the reality of, various integrations between Windows Desktop apps and WM data, sychronization, etc that make it an essential choice dictated by corporate IT departments as part of company's culture of operation. But surely no one can claim now that Android is lacking push mail, exchange sever integration etc. I may be wrong, but I think tjis is all overblown now, and if companies 6 months from now when WM 7 isout, demand their workers use Windows Mobile only (to integrate with company servers and systems), I think this will be out of laziness of IT departments, or lack of skill, in handling variety in the integration of mobility devices to company's core server-based operations.

Similarly, I find the PERCEPTION that Blackberry is really the only trustworthy push mail solution, and anyone who's really serious about security and redundancy of data networks can only trust Blackberry is a bunch or crap. I would like to hear otherwise, some specifics, of what some enterprise believes can only be handled reliably using Blackberry devices and network -- and could not be handled by WM or Android. If I am wrong, I am happy to stand corrected. But I request specifics: entire use-case scenariois oh how or why blackberry is the only solution for XXXXX situations, or simliarly, how WM is the only reliable solution for XXXXXXX server integration issues.

I can honestly say that I have saved a lot of time on a whole aggregation of tiny little tasks that would be cumbersome or multi-stepped and convoluted in WM that are, conversely, a joy to handle and accomplish on the HTC hero.