Microsoft is trying to popularise its established software products
in the mobile telephony market and has unveiled some of the first
solutions to compete against arch-rival Symbian, writes Antony
Savvas.
At the opening of a European mobile solutions centre in
Stockholm this week, Microsoft demonstrated a number of its Pocket
PC products running versions of its Office software suite. This
software was also run on several mobile phones from various
manufacturers.
Microsoft is also trying to get a grip on the burgeoning
smartcard market with the recent introduction of Windows for
Smartcards.
One of the solutions on show, which will be commercially
available by the end of the year, was an Ericsson phone running a
cut-down version of Outlook.
SIM Outlook allows users to access their calendars and contacts
book from a remote location and receive alerts on the phone when an
appointment is about to come up. So far, the system has not been
tweaked to offer Outlook e-mail, but this will come later.
In addition, Microsoft has entered into a partnership with
mobile telecoms provider One2One, aimed at allowing users to hear
their e-mail being read over a phone using voice recognition
software.
n Microsoft is to change the structure of the code which
controls its users' Hotmail e-mail accounts, to allow them to be
downloaded onto phones and PDA's (personal digital assistants). At
present Hotmail does not conform to the POP3 standard that makes
this possible.
More on mobile computing can be found at itnetwork.com