Remember the pickpocketed HTC phone from last week? A senior exec with an Australian phone company was testing out one of HTC's latest handsets, loaded with a super-secret copy of Windows Mobile 6.5, when a thief snatched it from him on a Barcelona street.

We pointed out at the time how very unlikely it was, assuming this was a random pickpocketing and not a targeted theft, that the thief would realize what he had taken, let alone know what to do with the software. Sure enough, there haven't been any Window Mobile 6.5 binaries popping up on pirate sites since the incident. It turns out, according to a Microsoft source, that the company issued a remote kill order that erased any traces of the operating system from the phone, securing the company's intellectual property.

Just like how Apple can remotely disable applications on its iPhones that it later deems to be dangerous, Microsoft has written similar functionality into its code, but securing the entire operating system as well as any user-saved data. We don't know if this is something that's part of a standard installation, potentially protecting your data if you ever need to report a stolen phone, or if it was some quality forethought on Microsoft's part, not trusting a pre-release copy out in the open without some extra security measures.

Of course, the thief still has an unreleased smartphone on his hands, but that's apparently not as grave a concern to HTC and Microsoft as the WinMo software leaking would have been.

One side note to take from all of this: maybe Cuba's concern over Microsoft being able to remotely fiddle with its software might have some validity to it after all.

This story around the web: