Someone over at the XDA Developers website leaked a ROM of Windows Mobile 2005 that several people were able to download before the links were removed. They apparently had the ROM running on a HTC Himalaya (MDA II) device, although it still had issues. I don’t doubt that it had issues since Microsoft is still working on the ROM and it should not be released until sometime this summer. I blurbed on a few improvements we will see in Windows Mobile 2005 on Geek.com back in January when other screenshots were posted online. This January revelation led to many headaches for Microsoft employees as they tried to contain the damage done by the leaked info.
While I understand that Microsoft has to contain this info because manufacturers still have existing devices out there to sell and they don’t want to tick them off, I also believe these types of leaks get the PDA geeks like me excited about what is coming. Us die-hard mobile device fans are going to buy the latest devices anyway and I highly doubt we would hold off from buying a device because by the time the next OS is leaked we have already had the latest device for a few months.