No Windows Mobile 5.0 upgrade for smartphones?

[Alexander Turcic]

We already know that a couple of vendors (Dell, HP, Fujitsu) will offer ROM upgrades to Windows Mobile 5.0 for some existing PDAs sometime in Q3 2005. That's the good news. According to msmobiles, however, current Windows-based smartphone users are out of luck:

Interestingly ROM images with Windows Mobile 5.0 exist for HTC Typhoon (Orange SPV C500, Audiovox SMT 5600, etc), for HTC Blue Angel and other models, but they will not be available for customers, because operators and distributors want you to buy new phones with Windows Mobile 5.0 instead of upgrading new ones...We have also got information from other sources that there will be no upgrades to Windows Mobile 5.0 for existing Windows Mobile phones.