Opera Software launched the Opera Mini 5 beta for Windows Mobile 5.x and 6.x smartphones March 4. The new browser doesn't need Java, apparently, which makes it optimized for Windows Mobile devices.

In addition, the company claims that Opera Mini compresses data traffic by up to 90 percent, which in turn translates into reduced costs in the event that a phone roams or is locked into a pay-per-usage plan.

"Windows Mobile deserves a mobile browser that looks better, handles better and delivers better than the default browser," Dag Olav Norem, Opera's vice president of products and evidently not someone to mince words, wrote in a March 4 statement. "We are pleased to offer the world's most popular mobile Web browser as a native Windows Mobile application."

My question is this: With Windows Phone 7 Series coming by the end of the year, and indications that devices currently running Windows Mobile won't be upgradable to the new smartphone operating system, how much longer will we be seeing announcements like this?

Microsoft has claimed, repeatedly, that it'll continue to support Windows Mobile in parallel with Windows Phone 7 Series. If businesses choose to stick with Mobile out of a concern for legacy applications (not to mention the cost of a total mobile-IT-infrastructure revamp), then I could see developers and companies like Opera providing support for quite some time. But then that'll run contrary to Microsoft's inevitable impulse to get everyone onto Windows Phone 7 (similar to what it's doing to try and move everyone using either XP or Vista onto Windows 7).

I guess the question becomes, How seriously will Microsoft support Windows Mobile once the new smartphone OS comes out? I'm interested in hearing how you think the inevitable rough dance between third-party developers, Microsoft and legacy consumers will play out in the mobile space circa early 2011.