Our friends over at Pocket PC Thoughts have been reporting on Dell's semi-official announcement that there will be no upgrades to Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for the Dell Axim line of Pocket PCs. Naturally enough - and justifiably - users are feeling angry and betrayed. The latest is that users are using Dell's own support forums as a platform to petition for the update.

"As an existing Axim X5 user myself I am not at all happy with Dell about this. I know a lot of you feel the same way and I would like to encourage you to contact Dell directly and tell them so, as well as signing this petition on the Dell Forums. There are signs that Dell may be reconsidering their initial unwise decision, especially in the light of HP and Toshiba not only offering the Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition updates to existing users, but offering them for free as well!  Dell have been apparently been upgrading X3is at MDC after users sign a waver and NDA, so the upgrade capability clearly is there."

Read their story in full, and get the link to the petition, here!

In related news, Pocket PC Addict are reporting that there is now a petition for hp iPAQ 1940/1945 Pocket PC owners to demand the upgrade to Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for their device. It was previously reported that this device would not be upgraded.

"Without upgrades from Hewlett Packard, users are relegated to purchasing brand new Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC devices at great expense. Since the IPAQ 1940/1945 is still offered, even brand new IPAQ 1940/1945 owners would soon have an outdated device.

As such, we users of IPAQ 1940/1945 computing devices are requesting that Hewlett Packard offer a reasonable commercial Windows Mobile 2003 Second edition for Pocket PC upgrade service or software package for the IPAQ 1940/1945 handheld computers."

Read the story in full, and get the link to this petition, here!

I tend to take the view that if it came with Windows Mobile 2003 OR a subsequent upgrade to the platform was provided ... it would not be unreasonable to expect an upgrade to Second Edition - even if as a paid upgrade.

I doubt you'll see anyone provide a Second Edition upgrade to the original XDA/MDA/QTek 1010. Certainly not O2 Asia! But given the popularity of the second version of the Pocket PC Phone, I don't think they will be silly enough to refuse to provide an upgrade to XDA II/i-mate Pocket PC Phone/QTek 2020 users, whether a paid upgrade or otherwise.

Given that the next ROM update for the XDA II platform will include the RIM Blackberry client (at least for UK users), it's clear that O2 have plans to keep improving the platform for a while to come at least, and I'm sure Carrier Devices is likely to follow suit. After all, their hardware is still largely underutilised - it is one powerful device, and will still have the capability to compete with upcoming Pocket PC Phones (even the Motorola MPx) even in spite of the lack of inbuild Wi-Fi. After all, if the XDA III were to offer the same features but with inbuilt Wi-Fi, I find it hard to think that anyone would consider upgrading to it when they could add Wi-Fi to the XDA II for much less.

I've certainly heard some information already that indicates an update to Second Edition will be offered for the XDA II / i-mate - but no word on whether we need to pay for the privilege or not.

In terms of the i-mate Smartphone2, O2 XPhone, Orange SPV e200 ... tricky. There's no precedent as yet for a wide-spread update to the next version of OS - certainly you won't be likely to see a Motorola MPx200 update to Second Edition (and it's still dubious as to whether one will ever be publicly released to update to the original Windows Mobile 2003). Each distributor for the device will make their own decision for an upgrade, and let's hope it's  the right one. I suspect, however, that the general answer will be "no".