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The Fathom will likely be targeted primarily to business customers because of its access to Office, Exchange, and Sharepoint features as the primary selling points. It will be one of a few Windows Mobile 6.5 phones to come out, as the lame duck mobile OS prepares to be replaced by Windows Phone 7, a brand new platform that will not be backwards compatible with Windows Mobile firmware.
The Fathom features a 3.2 inch WGA touchscreen, full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, 3.2 megapixel camera, a micro SDcard slot for up to 16GB of storage, an unspecified GPS unit, and Windows Mobile 6.5.3. It has a video player that supports several formats, along with a one-touch speakerphone system.
Late last year, Microsoft opted to move away from Windows Mobile to the Windows Phone 7 Series. At the Mobile World Congress in February, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer described the new OS as a way for the software company to "take greater accountability for the end user experience."
LG and other manufacturers will introduce phones running the Windows Phone 7 Series operating system by year's end, with Verizon as the carrier, Microsoft said in February. Two Microsoft Kin phones that were released earlier this month already carry a variant of the Windows 7 Series operating system.
The slate blue Fathom is a travel-friendly "world phone," packing both CDMA/EVDO and GSM/UMTS chipsets and supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It will be available online on Thursday and available in stores for $150 after a $100 mail-in-rebate and a two-year contract.
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