A few days ago, Motorola’s head of mobile slipped a mention of a previously unheard of Windows Mobile 6.5 into an interview with PC Mag. As could be expected, intertube dwellers began speculating immediately. Many chalked it up as a mistake, deciding it was either an accidental leak, or that he instead meant to say 6.1.

While the former may be true, Steve Ballmer has just dispelled the latter possibility. At the Telstra Briefing 2008 in Australia, Ballmer said:

With releases we’ll make this year – releases we’ll make with 6.5 next year, Windows Mobile 7, I think we have a pretty interesting roadmap.

While it looks like it’ll still be a while before we start seeing 6.5 handsets, that’s just about the most solid confirmation you can get short of a press release. Now that we know it’s real, we look forward to the speculation as to what it does to justify the extra four tenths of a version number.

[Phonescoop via Unwired View]