I was eating dinner when my colleague, Eric Zeman, pinged me with a text message: Get to a PC and post something about Windows Mobile 6. The news just broke.

As an always-on tech blogger, I ran from my plate of tacos to my laptop to check it out. Lo and behold, he was right. The curtain has finally opened on Microsoft's newest mobile OS. Let's check out the upgrades.

Windows Mobile 6 -- the mobile platform formerly known as Crossbow -- features a number of changes. To start with, the platform once called Pocket PC Phone Edition is now called Windows Mobile 6 Professional and the scaled-down version, Smartphone, is now dubbed Windows Mobile Standard. Pocket PCs are now Windows Mobile Classic.

Windows Mobile 6 is, as you probably guessed, tightly integrated with Vista. The new operating system also is more integrated with Windows Office. For instance, Outlook users can now view e-mail attachments, like photos.

Windows Mobile 6 also features tighter integration with Windows Live services, including Hotmail, Messenger, and push e-mail access.

Engadget broke down the rest of the upgrades:

- HTML support in e-mail
- Windows Live for Windows Mobile
- File transfer capability in Windows Live Messenger
- New versions of mobile Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with rich editing
- Remote wipe capability for stolen and lost devices
- Call history in contact cards
- Tight Vista integration
- "Calendar ribbon" for more easily viewing schedule by day or week
- New versions of .Net Compact Framework and SQL Server built-in

Microsoft will likely reveal more about Windows Mobile 6 next week at 3GSM in Barcelona. Stay tuned.