Re: Microsoft Venture Adds to Blackberry Woes
- From: Dan <dan@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 10:45:43 -0600
Is anyone supporting a agnostic version of email push to mobile phones
or is it all tied to proprietary infrastructure?
Dan
On 2/12/2006 9:08 PM, Laurence Frost wrote:
By LAURENCE FROST, AP Business Writer
Microsoft Corp. has won backing from major cellular networks for a new
generation of phones designed to transform mobile e-mail from
executive accessory to standard issue for the corporate rank-and-file.
The partnerships, with operators including Vodafone and Cingular, to
be announced Monday at a mobile industry gathering in Spain, could
spell more trouble for the embattled Blackberry and other niche e-mail
technologies, analysts say.
Unlike the Blackberry and its peers, phones running Microsoft's latest
Windows Mobile operating system can receive e-mails "pushed" directly
from servers that handle a company's messaging - without the need for
a separate mobile server or additional license payments.
As costs fall, Microsoft is betting companies will extend mobile
e-mail beyond top management to millions more of their employees.
"We're at the tipping point of seeing exponential growth in this
area," said Pieter Knook, the U.S. software giant's senior vice
president for mobile and embedded devices.
On the opening day of the 3GSM phone show, Hewlett-Packard Co. and
three other handset makers are expected to launch the first Windows
smartphones equipped with the new e-mail technology out of the
box. HP's new iPAQ HW6900 Mobile Messenger also offers Bluetooth and
Wi-Fi connectivity.
Vodafone Group PLC is to sell the phones under its own brand, in a
joint marketing deal, targeting companies that already run Microsoft's
Exchange software on their servers. Exchange is the collaborative glue
behind Microsoft's popular Outlook application, which manages
appointments and electronic address books in addition to e-mail.
Together with Cingular Wireless, Orange and T-Mobile, Vodafone will
also deliver phone software upgrades to subscribers who are already
running the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system on their smart phones.
Microsoft laid the groundwork for its e-mail offensive with an October
update to Exchange -- which led the server software market last year
with 48 percent of global sales, according to technology research firm
Gartner.
Some observers have been predicting that the new technology will hurt
Blackberry's maker, Canada-based Research In Motion Ltd (RIM).
Strand Consult, a Denmark-based IT research house, expects companies
worldwide to invest in much broader mobile e-mail access for their
employees in 2006.
"At the end of the year, many will be asking themselves whether they
really needed a Blackberry handset from RIM to check mail -- and RIM
might be asking themselves what went wrong," Strand wrote in a
research note.
"Microsoft will most probably overtake RIM as the leading mobile
e-mail provider."
Mobile messaging prices are already falling.
In the United States, Cingular last year began bundling an e-mail
service from Blackberry rival Good Technologies Inc. with its
unlimited wireless Internet package, at no extra charge.
Wireless access to e-mail, calendars and contacts -- once the preserve
of jet-setting executives and professionals in law and finance -- is
increasingly seen as a useful tool for a wider array of workers,
keeping them connected wherever they may be.
.
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