A few months ago, Microsoft announced it would be upgrading Internet Explorer Mobile to greatly enhance the web browsing experience for Windows Mobile users by the close of 2008. Yeah! Unfortunately, the company just revealed the only way for you to enjoy version 6 of the wireless browser when it does become available will be to upgrade to a new smartphone. Boo!

So while Microsoft says it will finally "provide a high-quality browsing experience on your device that more closely resembles a desktop browsing," you or your company will have to lay out a lot of cash and go through the hassle of changing smartphones take advantage of the advancements proffered in the new and improved edition of Internet Explorer Mobile.

The bad news appeared in a posting on Microsoft's Windows Mobile blog. According Redmond, there are good reasons for not allowing folks to upgrade their smartphones:

Regarding making IE Mobile available as a separate download or update, the rich media experiences that IE Mobile 6 enables require more powerful, advanced devices. That is why it will not be available as an upgrade or direct download for current phones, but rather will be made available on new phones.

Features in Internet Explorer Mobile 6 include:

 

Improved fidelity (support for full fidelity desktop rendering)

 

Layout fixes to accommodate a mobile screen (text wrap)

 

Enhanced Script and AJAX support (Jscript v5.7 from Internet Explorer 8)

 

Improved multimedia experience (Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 for Adobe Flash content)

 

Deeper integration with search

 

Enhanced cursor navigation model

 

Touch and gesture support – pan support

 

Multiple zoom levels

 

Easy switching between mobile / desktop versions of sites by specifying UA strings.

You'd think that the new P565 from Asus with its 800MHz processor would be power enough for an upgrade. Also, the Skyfire browser delivers all the features of Internet Explorer Mobile 6 and more for today's Windows Mobile devices, so why can't Microsoft?