Sony Ericsson Unveils First Windows Mobile Handset
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New entries include Walkman and Cyber-shot handsets, plus an Xperia with a custom interface concealing Microsoft's usual look.
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The world's fourth largest mobile  phone maker Sony Ericsson unveiled seven new mobile phone  models on Sunday, including one high-end cellphone using  Microsoft's Windows Mobile software.
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(InfoWorld) - High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC), the largest maker of handsets that use Microsoft software, has launched four new smart phones including one that'sÂ designed to rival the BlackBerry. The HTC S620, formerly code-named Excalibur, is a slender 12.8 millimeters (mm) thick and weighs 130g. It's designed to promote the push e-mail function of Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 software and to compete with Research In Motion's popular BlackBerry device. The phone has a navigation bar below the screen which provides easy access to Outlook Mobile, Word Mobile, Powerpoint Mobile and a PDF viewer. It has a 2.4-inch color screen, a full QWERTY keypad and a host of wireless functions, including quad-band GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data GSM Environment), WLAN (wireless-LAN) and Bluetooth. The S620 is due to be offered by phone operators throughout Europe in October, when prices will be announced. Some models will be customized for certain network operators. The other phones also run Windows Mobile 5.0, and all four of them come with a mobile version of Microsoft Office, which includes most of the Office applications except for Excel. All of the phones are being offered initially in Europe, with the U.S. and possibly Asia to follow. The HTC P3300 is a smart phone that combines the functions of a PDA (personal digital assistant) with a GPS (global positioning system) device. It marks the start of a new partnership for HTC, which teamed up with TomTom International BV, an Amsterdam-based maker of personal navigation products. The P3300 comes with TomTom's Navigator 6 software and a 2.8-inch color screen to view a set of preinstalled maps for Western Europe. The handset runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 and other Microsoft applications. HTC and TomTom will probably work together on other devices in the future, they said. For users who want a 3G smart phone with high-speed Internet connectivity, HTC developed the P3600. The handset, which also uses Windows Mobile 5.0, features e-mail, calendar and word processing software. It also has a 2.0 megapixel camera and comes ready to run on HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) networks. It's due to be available in Europe from September. The last of the new handsets, the HTC S310, is a small, candy-bar style quad band mobile phone designed primarily for messaging. It also runs on Windows Mobile 5.0 and will be available throughout Europe in September. HTC has already lined up some major European mobile phone operators to sell the devices. For example, T-Mobile International plans to launch a customized version of the HTC P3300 in several European markets, HTC said.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft announced some new Windows Live applications for mobile phones on Monday, including programs that offer search and mapping capabilities. Live Search for Windows Mobile 6 and Live Search will both be available shortly through operators in the U.S. and the U.K., Microsoft announced at the 3GSM World Congress show in Barcelona. The search software includes category-based searching, which lets people find things without having to type search terms into their phone. They could search for a list of restaurants or hotels in their local area, for example. It can also map local information using Microsoft's Virtual Earth, and provide real-time traffic reports for 25 U.S. cities, including Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The Live Search software is available for Windows Mobile devices, Nokia Series 40 and Series 60 devices, Motorola's Razr and SLVR devices, and some phones from LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics. People interested in the software can find a list of supported devices here or download the software for free from their mobile phone here. Microsoft also announced the availability of Windows Live for Windows Mobile, which includes productivity tools such as messaging and e-mail software, as well as Live Spaces, Microsoft's blogging and photo service. The applications are debuting ahead of the expected mid-year release ofÂ Windows Mobile 6, which Microsoft will demonstrate at 3GSM. 3GSM World Congress runs through Thursday.
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Microsoft has released details about a new version of Windows Mobile, the software behemoth's operating system designed for devices such as smartphones and PDAs. The OS, called Windows Mobile 6, will be available in the second quarter of 2007, offering an interface that resembles the recently launched Windows Vista.
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Sony Ericsson will begin selling its first phone using Windows Mobile software this year, Microsoft was due to announce on Sunday, just ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.Until now, Sony Ericsson has primarily used the Symbian operating system to power its smart phones. Its Windows Mobile phone will have a touch screen with a slide-out keyboard and a camera, said Brian Arbogast, vice president of mobile services at Microsoft.While Apple&#39;s iPhone has spurred wider interest in touch-screen phones, Sony Ericsson has been selling touch-screen phones for years. It uses the UIQ user interface on its Symbian phones. UIQ competes with Series 60, the user interface Nokia developed to run on its Symbian phones.Sony Ericsson joins HTC, Motorola, Palm, Samsung, and others selling phones that use Windows Mobile.Microsoft said the Sony Ericsson device should be available to end-users this year, and that examples of it will be on display at the conference in Barcelona. Sony Ericsson was not available to offer more details. It has scheduled a conference call Monday to discuss the announcement.&quot;We&#39;re excited about them bringing their entertainment expertise and experience and brand to a device that has all the benefits of Windows Mobile,&quot; Arbogast said.Sony Ericsson will likely continue to sell Symbian phones in addition to the Windows Mobile handset, a common practice among mobile-phone developers. For example, Motorola sells Windows Mobile, Symbian and Linux phones, while Palm sells Windows Mobile phones as well as handsets that use its own operating system.Nokia, the number-one handset maker in the world, does not make Windows Mobile phones, but it uses Linux to power handheld computers, in addition to its wide use of Symbian.The Sony Ericsson phones could help Microsoft further a recent effort to position Windows Mobile phones, which are primarily seen as tools for business users and attractive to consumers. Sony Ericsson makes phones with its Walkman music players and Cybershot cameras, featuring brands that are well-known to consumers.Rumors circulated late last year that the handset maker had begun manufacturing a Windows Mobile phone that would ship in the second half of this year. At the time, Sony Ericsson would not confirm the plans.Windows Mobile is in a distant second place behind Symbian in market share among mobile operating systems. In the fourth quarter 2007, Symbian was used in 65 percent of smart phones sold worldwide, according to recent research from Canalys. Microsoft had 12 percent of phones sold, followed by Research In Motion with 11 percent.The Mobile World Congress, formerly called 3GSM, starts Monday in Barcelona.
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InfoWorld - Some of the first Windows Mobile 6.0 phones to hit the market will include Opera Software ASA&#39;s mobile browser, in addition to Microsoft Corp.&#39;s browser.
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Verizon Wireless announces the availability the Samsung SCH-i760 Windows Mobile smartphone.
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Along with a slew of other cell phones, Sony Ericsson introduces the Sony Ericsson Z770 at GSMA (3GSM) 2008, a clamshell cell phone optimized for the Web.
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America calling Mobile World Congress Why has Sony Ericsson succumbed to Microsoft?â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Taiwanese handset maker High Tech ComputerÂ (HTC) is racing to put out the first smartphone based onÂ Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 OS, a company representative said Wednesday. HTC announced the S710 at theÂ 3GSM World CongressÂ in Barcelona as its first Windows Mobile 6 handset and likely one of the first globally. But the competition is on, and HTC believes that rivals such as Samsung Electronics could beat it to the punch. A loss in the race to market by HTC could be viewed as a victory for Microsoft. For years, HTC has championed Windows Mobile software on its smartphones, while other companies eschewed the OS as too slow or bulky. But HTC's sales have taken off over the past few years, attracting the notice of a number of rivals, which have started marketing Windows Mobile-based handsets. The steady development of the OS and its tie-ins to Microsoft's desktop software are strong reasons for adoption of the OS on mobile devices. In the latest generation of the software, Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft has improved the speed of its direct e-mail push technology to better compete with Research In Motion's popular BlackBerry service. Microsoft has also ensured Windows Mobile 6 takes advantage of features of Exchange Server 2007, including allowing users to search through a greater number of e-mails and allowing a remote user to wipe all Exchange Server-fed data from a device if it is lost or stolen. Windows Mobile 6 is the first mobile OS to take advantage of these features. Other features make Windows Mobile 6 work better with Microsoft Outlook. HTC hopes to ship the S710 handset to Europe in the first quarter, but the timing of the launch could be the second quarter, an HTC representative said. Earlier, the company said it was targeting shipments in the first half of this year. The HTC S710 has a numeric keypad and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and has a 2.4-inch color TFT-LCD (thin-film transistor liquid crystal display) screen. Thanks to brisk sales of Microsoft Windows Mobile handsets, HTC's revenue rose 46 percent year-on-year last year to NT$106.1 billion ($3.26 billion as of Dec. 31, 2006, the last day of the period reported). Â
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InfoWorld - Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications will launch late Thursday in Berlin six new phones, including a high-end Walkman-branded handset with around 9G bytes of internal Flash memory, according to a company spokeswoman.
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Taking on Nokia's Communicators Mobile World Congress Sony Ericsson last night announced a new smartphone range. Dubbed Xperia, the series' flagship is the X1, featuring a Windows Mobile-based handset with a slide-out Qwerty keyboard and 3in, 800 x 480 display.â¦
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Microsoft  unveiled on  Thursday a new version of its Windows operating system for  mobile devices, making it look more like Windows Vista and  adding features previously only available on personal  computers.
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Microsoft built a custom Windows Mobile user interface for a new phone that T-Mobile USA expects to announce on Monday, evidence that Microsoft may be getting more serious about pursuing the consumer mobile market.
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Microsoft unveiled on Thursday a new  version of its Windows operating system for mobile devices,  making it look more like Windows Vista and adding features  previously only available on personal computers.
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Some of the first Windows Mobile 6.0 phones to hit the market will include Opera Software ASA's mobile browser, in addition to Microsoft Corp.'s browser.