Hi all, I've been wondering if there are any beta programs available for Windows Mobile on HTC PDA devices....

Welcome CRC !

What sort of software are you looking for?

Just released is Yahoo! Go 3.0 Beta

 

I'm actually looking at newer builds of Windows Mobile itself, not 3rd party software. I'm very familiar with the workings of WM5/6/6.1 including disassembling ROMs and debugging components. I'd be very interested in the base components in building ROMs for various devices - OEM kits if you will.

Unfortunately, there is no public Windows Mobile Beta.

If you read, for example, Jason Langridge's blog (Microsoft Windows Mobile team)
http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonlan/
you can get to know that Microsoft and some OEM's are doing the R&D job sometimes tight and sometimes completely offline, but certainly never external.

Based on the expertise You obviously have, I guess You know all relevant developers' web sites and communities where You can get upfront and in-depth background information, often including early bits and pieces of software.
All that might be good for testing, but does not grant for going into final releases and may often even be puzzled together from different sources.
So, very likely not what You are looking for anyway, right?

Hi Franz, Yeah, I've been cobbling various WM6.1 builds for HTC Hermes for a number of months, from early betas to newer releases. Currently, the stable version I have runs Build 19199, however I'm having issues with newer builds. This may be due to device capabilities, or even porting issues. I was hoping there would be a closer in community I could get in touch with to troubleshoot issues (XIP and ROM structure questions mainly) as well as pick brains on why some devices work perfectly with newer builds (19209 for example) while some of the same devices have lots of hard resets.

It's awesome to have experts like you guys on the site. So thank you!

We've got some good news: Your interest in beta testing has been communicated directly to Microsoft's Windows Mobile team, and we're hoping to have some more information for you soon about what to do and where to go to learn more about beta testing. Stay tuned...!

 Awesome! Thanks Bill.

I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but certainly a novice on the way to becoming more knowledgable... I've been spending the best part of 2 days trying to get a newer build to boot, let alone do anything else :)

Then again, after it's booting, everything else is a cakewalk 

 Hey, I'd be also interested in testing the beta/future versions of WM, too :)

Currently I own a Samsung i780 (WM6.0) and waiting for the official 6.1 update.