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There are more signs that Microsoft is in a state of crisis over its mobile activities. Even as it plans to launch its Silverlight rich media plug-in platform for Linux systems like Intel Moblin, as well as for Windows Mobile, its CEO Steve Ballmer has been caught bemoaning the slow progress of WinMo, while the software giant has also cancelled a project to bring various business applications to its mobile OS.

Bloggers who went to Microsoft's Venture Capital Summit reported that Ballmer said Microsoft "screwed up with Windows Mobile" and said he had reshuffled the WinMo team as he tried to stem losses. Venture capitalist Paul Josefak sent messages from the event by Twitter, which were picked up by news site Techworld.com. According to the tweet, Ballmer told VCs that he wished WinMo 7 were already here - that release is widely seen as Microsoft's last chance to make a serious impact against Symbian and Android. But so far, WinMo 6.5 has not even launched, though it is expected, largely as a stopgap release, next month. Earlier this year, Ballmer told public sector CIOs that Windows Mobile 6.5 was not "the full release we wanted to have this year".

Another tweet said Ballmer had pronounced that "this won't happen again" and hence had reorganized the WinMo team.

In more negative mobile news, Microsoft has axed the handset versions of its Dynamics ERP (enterprise resource planning) application, which was originally supposed to be the first step in a launch of most of the Dynamics series for mobility.

Dynamics AX Mobile Sales was introduced in 2007 and let salespeople place and track orders, query sales histories and manage ad campaigns remotely from Windows Mobile devices. Microsoft also provided tools for businesses to build their own mobile apps based on Dynamics. But handset access to Dynamics has now been discontinued.

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