Interview: Microsoft’s Ya-Qin Zhang seeks power

The head of research for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software for handheld computers, Ya-Qin Zhang, was in Taipei last week talking up the company’s latest major operating system release, Windows Mobile 5.0.

In an interview, he lamented the slow development of battery technology for mobile devices and offered a glimpse of what Microsoft is already up to for its next major upgrade to the mobile computing OS.

The vice president of Microsoft’s mobile and embedded devices division hopes the current release, out last month, will challenge the popular BlackBerry messaging system and will grab some accolades for its mobile Office upgrades, including a slimmed down version of PowerPoint.

IDGNS: What kind of hardware or bandwidth issues are holding back software development in handhelds for Microsoft?

Zhang: Battery life is the No. 1 limiting factor. Its performance is only improving by 10 percent to 15 percent every year. Footprint [memory for programs, not for storage] is number two: can you increase the footprint? It’s a tough problem because if you add more SDRAM [synchronous dynamic RAM], it requires more power.

The LCD display is also a factor. The No. 1 issue is size. You can increase resolution but you can’t increase the physical size. You want to do more on your phone, but it’s too small, the screen is too small. Also the price is still high. Over the next five years, I think we’re going to see a 50 percent drop in price, but not now.

I think bandwidth will become less of a factor. It’s a big factor right now, but look out two years to five years — it’s still a factor then, but not as much. Processing is more important. We’re looking at 2GHz to 3GHz processing power in five years. Right now, my phone has 400MHz — it’s pretty good for the kind of things we want to do, but we want to do more things, right?

IDGNS: What technologies has Microsoft worked on to help solve the screen problem? Virtual displays?

Zhang: We have worked on virtual display, virtual projector, virtual keyboard — those will help, but in the next few years, I don’t think any of these things will become mainstream.

IDGNS: When can users expect to see some new devices based on Windows Mobile 5.0?

Zhang: We announced 5.0 a little bit over a month ago. Bill Gates made the announcement. We had about 3,000 people attend the conference and there was a lot of enthusiasm in the developer community.

Of course, it will take some time for the actual devices to get to the market, but over the next 12 months, we expect at least 30 new Windows Mobile devices from our manufacturing partners, including one from Samsung Electronics Co. [the SGH-i300] with a 3GB hard drive so you can store 150 to 200 songs, and a 3G [third generation telecommunications] device from High Tech Computer with a full QWERTY keypad and DVD-quality VGA screen.

IDGNS: Have you started on the next major upgrade to Windows Mobile 5.0?

Zhang: We’re already working on the next generation for Windows Mobile 5.0 — we haven’t released a code-name. … We have a pretty good team, about 1,000 engineers, working on it. Right now we still have a couple of teams, 150 to 200 people, still working with partners to make sure 5.0 gets commercialized. Most of the people are working on the next generation already. We’re still in the planning phase, we haven’t started the code stage.

IDGNS: When might that come out?

Zhang: Every 18 months to two years we have a major platform release, like 5.0. The last major release was August 2003. And we have some feature releases in between, installable packages — an update or enhancement. We also have a microrelease, which we use quite effectively to deliver some of the customization operators ask for.

IDGNS: What kind of things are you working on for the next major version of Windows Mobile?

Zhang: For the next generation we will look at three key technical points. First is the user interface. If you look at a phone, it is a very personal device. It has location data, and many phones, at least the ones we tend to address, have cameras. The phones have QWERTY [keyboards], stylus, speech. So one of the key technologies we look at is how we leverage these models and figure out how to create an intuitive, simple user interface. And we are investing a lot in speech recognition, speech to text, voice command, digital inking, location information, and video, image capturing, and near-field communication.

The second thing is seamless connectivity. It’s a fact of life that we’re moving from a single radio environment to a multiradio environment. In the future you’re going to have 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Bluetooth, GPS (Global Positioning System), all that really coexist. So we need technology that can help us roam, detect changes in radio frequency, and handle them seamlessly. A lot of this can be done through software.

The third is the increasing synergy and integration with the PC and the server and the Web. Basically, you want to break down the walls between the PC, server, the Web, and the mobile device — and that’s not easy. The phone is very different. Music, for example. We can move it across the phone, PC, office or home very easily. Photos, you can share with your friends chatting, on MSN, Yahoo, etc.

IDGNS: You said earlier that there are about 18,000 applications available now for Windows Mobile 5.0. What kind of applications do you get the most requests for?

Zhang: The number one apps for phones and handhelds are actually games. The number two are business apps, like inventory management, dispatching, CRM (customer relationship management), and there are also some medical subscription apps. Business apps and gaming are the two most popular ones.

IDGNS: How has Windows Mobile 5.0 been enhanced for games? Are you working on anything like Sony’s PlayStation Portable?

Zhang: We expanded [existing capabilities] to include some of the new capabilities in DirectX [Windows technology for high-speed multimedia and games on the PC], like Direct Sound and Direct3D. Obviously, for a phone, the capabilities of a three dimensional game are different. We did a lot of work to make sure that even in mobiles, you can deliver some compelling experience. For example, we worked to ensure our software can emulate some of the features provided by a graphics coprocessor. Right now most phones don’t have an Nvidia or ATI Technologies coprocessor.

IDGNS: How did that turn out?

Well, it’s fine, for the screen size you have. It’s different from Xbox [laughs], but it’s improving. What we did was just a few simple apps, but I’m sure game developers will think of lots of good stuff that we haven’t thought of.

IDGNS: Will there be slots on newer phones to load games?

Zhang: That I can’t comment on.