Don't expect Windows Mobile 7 to launch next month at Mobile World Congress, despite what you may have heard in the press and on the rumour mill.

So claim industry sources cited by DigiTimes, and we can't say we're entirely surprised. Instead, Microsoft will released WinMo 6.6, codenamed 'Maldives', they say, to improve the current release, 6.5.

During his Consumer Electronics Show keynote last week, Microsoft CES Steve Ballmer said almost nothing about Windows Mobile, commenting simply that "we will have a lot more to say about phones next month at Mobile World Congress".

That, coupled with statements from some vendors that WinMo 7 smartphones will be out this year, led many pundits to predict the new OS will debut sooner rather than later.

Past roadmaps placed WinMo 7's debut late in 2010, and nothing said so far by Ballmer or the vendors indicates Microsoft isn't working to that timetable, despite hopes from some quarters that a version of the OS better able to compete with the iPhone and Google's Android platform is imminent.

The DigiTimes report merely adds weight to the original timetable, and while we can see Microsoft talking about WinMo 7 at MWC, we're not entirely convinced it will be launched there.

There's no doubt that Microsoft does need to move quickly if it's not to lose any more market share to its rivals. But if it really was about to release such a key revamp, it would have done so on the watched-by-the-world stage at CES than the rather less spectacular and media haunted MWC? ®