Debunked: Motorola not dropping WM after all

There has recently been rumours that Motorola would be dropping half of their development team and solely focusing on Android. We cant speak to possible Motorola job losses, but the news that Motorola would drop Windows Mobile was news to Brian Viscount, vice president of marketing for mobile enterprise computing at Motorola.

In a recent telephone interview with ComputerWorld.com he insisted that despite some recent rumors by bloggers, Motorola’s enterprise division “remains 100% committed to Windows Mobile.”

Viscount was speaking on the occasion of Motorola’s announcement of their Snap-on Mobile Payment Device for their enterprise-class wireless handhelds, the MC-70 and the MC-75 at the National Retail Federal conference in New York.

The $655 device clips on to both handhelds and includes a slot used to swipe and read credit cards for payments. The MC-75, which includes a cellular radio, sells for more than $3,000, with 600 000 devices having been shipped and allows retailers to process credit cards well outside of a normal check-out location.

These direct sales to enterprise, while very profitable to OEM’s, usually do not get counted by the bean counters at IDC, which often results in a disconnect between Microsoft’s announced sales and the figures released by the analysts. Microsoft has recently announced at CES that 20 million devices were sold in 2008, outselling the iPhone, usually assumed to be more popular.