HTC Windows Phone a Triple Threat: Windows Mobile, Android, and BlackBerry OSes

The power of Windows Mobile and the sheer community brain power behind XDA-Developers have led to some amazing, powerful, and unique developments and hackery in the Windows Mobile and HTC landscape. The latest trick out your phone hackery will allow uber-geeks to run three operating systems on their phones! I don't think any other OS/software platform can make good use of some powerful hardware that HTC has blessed us with. First, we have the dual-boot solution that allows users to choose to load either Android or Windows Mobile onto their hardware. The latest hack comes via a software patch and will allow Windows Mobile users to run the BlackBerry Application Suite--similar to virtualization technology that allows Windows phones to run the BlackBerry OS in an app--and this is different than the BlackBerry Connect solutions since it is more of a full-fledged BlackBerry OS rather than just running the email protocols for BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Running both the hacks gives you three OSes to choose from: Windows Mobile, Android, and BlackBerry.

The hack debuted and was first featured over at Mobility Digest and was highlighted in our Smartphone Weekly Round-Up for last week's hot topics. Research in Motion had announced that they were working on the BlackBerry Application Suite some time ago for Windows Mobile, but news of that development was elusive since the announcement. Thankfully, someone over at XDA-Developers was able to obtain the file and create some instructions on getting it to register if you have a BES plan provisioned to your account and a BES email; the app was able to generate a BlackBerry PIN for BlackBerry Messaging (BBM) and PIN messaging. According to Mobility Digest, the keyboard and touchscreen works on the Touch Pro2, though you do have to double-tap to launch things if you're using the touch method.



The solution is posted over at XDA-Developers; unfortunately, however, at this time the download link to get the appropriate CAB installer file is dead. Hopefully, if you're interested in running the extensibility and power of Windows Mobile and want to get your BES BlackBerry push email, someone else can re-upload the files at another server.