Remember when the "baby Internet" was all you could access on your mobile phone? That wasn't all that long ago, although mobile technology has come a long way in just a few short years. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs has reminded us on more than one occasion, people don't want the "baby Internet"—they want the real deal on their mobile devices. Microsoft apparently agrees, as the company announced today that it plans to roll out a "desktop-grade" web browser for Windows Mobile devices later this year.

The announcement came during CITA Wireless 2008, where Microsoft said that phone manufacturers would have access to the new browser by the third quarter of 2008. This would make the first phones with the improved IE preinstalled available to consumers by the end of the year.

The browser will keep the Internet Explorer Mobile moniker, according to Microsoft, and will be able to take advantage of technologies like H.264, Silverlight, and Flash (ice burn, iPhone users).

Still, the news comes at a time when the nine-month-old iPhone continues to gain browser share over Windows Mobile on the web. According to data from Net Applications, the iPhone accounted for 0.15 percent of all browsers on the web in March of this year, while Windows CE/Mobile only made up 0.06 percent (StatCounter says that mobile Safari accounts for 0.23 percent of all browser traffic). Google also recently said that, according to its own data, searches by iPhone users were 50 times more numerous than any other mobile handset. Although the numbers can vary greatly between stat services, one thing is clear: the public has spoken about its desire to surf the "real Internet" on their smartphones.

In addition to Internet Explorer Mobile, Microsoft also announced the long-expected update to Windows Mobile. Version 6.1 adds a number of new features to the operating system, such as the ability to copy and paste text on a device without a touchscreen (something that some iPhone users still wish they had), a threaded view of text messages, the ability to play and pause music from the home screen, and Exchange server autodiscovery, to name a few. The relatively minor update preps Windows Mobile fans for version 7.0, which some believe will deliver even more competition to the iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry. Windows Mobile 7.0 is rumored to be on the horizon for some time in 2009, but Microsoft has not officially announced a release date.