Just had this email through, though the writing has been on the wall since the announcement of Windows Phone 7 in 2009 (post-Photon/WinMo 7 development), it looks like Microsoft are ready to call it a day with WinMo:



Shut-down of Windows Marketplace for Mobile Web Site and MyPhone Service Notification
June 8, 2011

Dear Windows Mobile 6.x customer:

Microsoft will be discontinuing the My Phone service for Windows Mobile 6.x. We will also be discontinuing the Windows Marketplace for Mobile web site. Because you may be affected, please review the details below:

Windows Marketplace for Mobile Web Site To Be Discontinued
The Windows Marketplace for Mobile web site at http://marketplace.windowsphone.com will no longer be available starting on July 15, 2011. After July 15, 2011, you will no longer be able to browse, buy or download applications for Windows Mobile 6.x phones via the Windows Marketplace for Mobile web site.

The Windows Marketplace for Mobile service will continue to be available on your phone, however. You will continue to be able to browse, buy and download applications for Windows Mobile 6.x on your phone.

Microsoft MyPhone To Be Discontinued
On August 7, 2011, the My Phone service will stop saving content from phones to the My Phone service. If you rely on the My Phone service to back-up the content on your Windows Mobile 6.x phone, you will be affected.

Starting on August 7, 2011, Microsoft will begin moving your My Phone content to Windows Live SkyDrive. SkyDrive is Microsoft's free online storage service that helps you access and share your files such as photos and Microsoft Office documents. Contacts, calendar entries, text messages and photos will be moved to SkyDrive for you. Once moved, you will be able to access this content by logging into SkyDrive using the Windows Live ID that you used to register for the My Phone service.

Other content types, including videos, music, documents and favorites will not be moved from My Phone to SkyDrive for you. If you want this content, you must save it from the My Phone service to your local PC.

On October 6, 2011, the My Phone web site at http://www.microsoft.com/myphone will no longer be available. On this date, you will no longer be able to log in to the My Phone service to access your content stored to the My Phone service. Microsoft will continue to store your My Phone content for one (1) year. Physical copies of your content can be shipped to you upon request until October 5, 2012.

Take Action
To learn more about the My Phone service shut-down, including information about your content moving to Windows Live SkyDrive and how to save other content to your local PC, please visit this web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2557520

Microsoft is committed to making this transition easy. In the meantime, we want to sincerely thank you for your use of Windows Mobile 6.x.

-The Windows Phone Team

Maybe the move to live skydive is for the better?

Surely there will be a firmware update as to not have useless apps on the phones?

I've never had a win based mobile so I'm unsure how they operate.

Nope, theres been no more updates of any kind since 6.5.3 made it - thats despite the fact that 6.5.5 BETA was a vastly improved version of 6.5.3.

I think the last major handset release was the HD2, and that was like 18 months ago - there has been some since, but nothing that has stood out (in addition, it is the only WinMo handset ever created with a capacitive touch-screen, as WinMo don't support it natively). It's generally classed as HTC's tribute handset to WinMo, having utilized WinMo almost exclusively for 10 years, until Android came along.

Can see it from Microsofts point of view, Windows Mobile is ultra-stable and ultra-reliable (in its core-form), and Windows Phone is certainly their future (and will be much better for past WinMo users when Mango is released this October), to keep ploughing resources into WinMo would be questionable, however there will be an increasing number of unhappy people (a lot of corporate customers too), especially as Windows Mobile was supposed to be part of the Windows Phone 7 Series (when it was called that) as Windows Phone Classic, with the WinMo 7 photon build supposedly replacing 6.5 (and running on the CE 6 kernel).