Windows Phone Thoughts: Welcome to Windows Phone Thoughts!

With apologies to the Great Bard, a site by any other name still smells as sweet, does it not? Welcome to Windows Phone Thoughts, the site with a new name, new logo, but all the same great content from Pocket PC Thoughts and Smartphone Thoughts!

Over the years as the Windows Mobile Professional and Windows Mobile Standard platforms have gotten closer and closer together, I've looked forward to merging Pocket PC Thoughts and Smartphone Thoughts into a single site. Many of you have no doubt noticed over the past year especially that the content on Smartphone Thoughts has been largely mirrored from Pocket PC Thoughts. So much of the news about the platform is the same, only the application development for each platform - and the hardware differences - kept them apart. I've wanted to merge these two sites together under a single site name - a site name that reflects the current Microsoft branding - for quite some time, and it's been painful to have my flagship site bear the name of a brand (Pocket PC) no longer in use...yet I held off merging the sites, waiting for the day when Microsoft finally had only one mobile brand. Well, the Windows Phone brand is about as close to that as I can get today, so I'm taking this opportunity.

I'm also going to commit to re-energizing my efforts in the Windows Phone realm - we're going to staff up here at the site (stay tuned for the public call for volunteers), focus on expanding our review team to review more phones, software, and accessories, and strive to be even better at publishing the latest Windows Phone-related news and commentary. I want Windows Phone Thoughts to be the first place that you'll come to for the latest and greatest news and views about Windows Phones and the Windows Mobile platform. Let's be honest - right now it's hard to be a Windows Mobile enthusiast, but I believe that the best is yet to come from Microsoft in this space and I want to continue to support their efforts here - and, of course, speak openly when I think they're screwing up.

It will be hard retiring the name Pocket PC Thoughts - a site that has existed for longer than any other online property I've ever created - but all the great content, and you, the great community behind it, will live on under a new name. The same goes for Smartphone Thoughts - I'll miss that eye-catching orange design, but that core of what made that site great was the community and the fantastic volunteer Contributing Editors that have poured their efforts into it over the years. All that will continue to exist as I move the content from the old forum locations into the new forums. I should also add that more than a few things will be a bit...broken over the next few days as we fix glitches here and there - some things can't be fully completed until after everything goes live.

I welcome you to Windows Phone Thoughts!