Microsoft backs enterprise mobile services company
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When Microsoft realized that enterprises needed help deploying and&#160;managing mobile phones, it turned to a partner it first found in the 1980s.Microsoft approached Mort Rosenthal recently with the idea of starting a company that could help enterprises design, deploy, and manage Windows Mobile mobile phones and services, Rosenthal said. He plans to formally launch the company, called Enterprise Mobile, on Tuesday at the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment conference in San Francisco. Microsoft is a minority stakeholder in the Watertown, Massachusetts, company, which has quietly been doing business since June.Rosenthal began working with Microsoft in the 1980s when he founded Corporate Software, a company that resold software to large companies and offered them technical service and support.The enterprise mobile market looks similar to the software market at that time, when software was largely sold through retail stores without channels or support for enterprises, he said.&quot;What comes from the [mobile] market is consumer-driven devices,&quot; he said. &quot;We&#39;re about turning those consumer driven devices into enterprise devices.&quot;Enterprise Mobile will do that by offering a wide range of services to enterprises, starting with development of a vision, through to deployment and then including management and support services.Currently, an enterprise has to work with different types of companies that provide a range of services including security, asset management and expense management, said Kitty Weldon, an analyst at Current Analysis. &quot;What Enterprise Mobile brings is the ability for companies to just say, &#39;phew, I can go to this one set of people and they can do everything&#39;,&quot; she said.Enterprise Mobile will work exclusively with Windows Mobile phones so it won&#39;t serve companies that want to support a variety of devices, including BlackBerrys. However, there&#39;s a large market for companies that are happy to standardize on Windows Mobile and other providers similar to Enterprise Mobile might pop up to serve the heterogeneous companies, Weldon said.Enterprise Mobile customers can pay for the services in a number of ways, including a flat consulting fee for the design of a system and then a monthly per-device fee or a per-incident fee for ongoing support.One of the most attractive parts of the ongoing service offering will be that Enterprise Mobile serves as a single point of contact, Rosenthal said. &quot;Today if you have questions, do you call the operator, Microsoft or the OEM?&quot; he said. &quot;Here, we&#39;re the one throat to choke.&quot;Another problem facing many enterprises is challenges around device procurement. If an administrator is designing a new mobile deployment to launch in a few months, it&#39;s virtually impossible to find out if a chosen device will continue to be available by then. Operators and handset makers aren&#39;t forthcoming with that information, Rosenthal said.That&#39;s different from the PC world, where manufacturers will continue to support and make older models even while they introduce new ones.Enterprise Mobile hopes to help solve this problem by working closely with operators and phone makers and possibly even to create its own inventory of devices in order to maintain availability longer, Rosenthal said.Currently, Enterprise Mobile doesn&#39;t have much competition, Weldon said. Companies such as IBM, Accenture, and Electronic Data Systems do help enterprises deploy and manage mobile phones, but they often do so only in tandem with other large jobs, and they may outsource the work to various companies with expertise in different components, she said.However, Microsoft expects to partner with other companies like Enterprise Mobile that might emerge. &quot;We&#39;re kick-starting a new level of engagement&quot; with Enterprise Mobile, said John O&#39;Rourke, general manager of Microsoft&#39;s mobile communications business.Enterprise Mobile has implemented beta versions of Systems Center Mobile Device Manager 2008, mobile device management software that Microsoft plans to introduce on Tuesday.
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Microsoft Corp. announced a partnership with Singapore-based Flextronics International Ltd. on Monday to market a new range of high-specification phones, running Windows Mobile, to handset makers and network operators worldwide.
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Mobile services are one of the costliest items in the enterprise IT budget, so it is no surprise that businesses take note when telecoms operators that do not themselves offer mobile services promise more efficient and cost-effective mobile plans.
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Continuing its push into the mobile consumer market, Microsoft announced that it plans to acquire Danger, the developer of software and services that run the Sidekick.Danger&#39;s operating system and applications work in tandem with backend servers to offer such services as games, social networking, Internet access, Web e-mail, and instant messaging. T-Mobile&#39;s Sidekick, manufactured by Sharp, is perhaps the best known Danger device.Microsoft did not disclose financial terms of the deal or say if it planned to continue to support the Danger mobile operating system as Microsoft has its own mobile operating system in Windows Mobile.However, Microsoft indicated that it has plans for Danger&#39;s technology beyond mobile phones. In a statement, Microsoft suggested it could combine Danger&#39;s services with MSN, Xbox, Zune, Windows Live, and Windows Mobile. In addition, Microsoft said that Danger would join its Entertainment and Devices Division, not specifically the Windows Mobile group, which is in that division.Danger, based in Palo Alto, California, was founded by Andy Rubin, who later went on to start a company called Android that Google bought.&#160;Google&#39;s Android is a Linux-based mobile phone operating system.While Danger has a loyal following, the company hasn&#39;t turned a profit. In late 2007, it filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to execute a public offering, which may have been an indication that it needed money.Sidekick fans have a mixed reaction to the news of the Microsoft acquisition. In an online forum, some people wrote that they were excited that Danger would have better financial backing in order to further its research and development. Others said they feared that Microsoft was essentially buying out the competition and would soon discontinue Danger&#39;s products and services.Microsoft has recently indicated that it is trying to attract more consumers to Windows Mobile, which the market views as primarily a business tool. It recently hired a new executive to focus on consumer marketing, and the Danger buy could help it acquire consumer customers.
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At 3GSM in Barcelona today, Microsoft announced a preview of its MSN Direct service now available for devices with Windows Mobile, that will put weather, sports scores, business, stocks, and entertainment news on their home screens.
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U.S. software giant Microsoft  is aiming to get its audio and video software into mobile phones before it is beaten to the 650-million-handsets-a-year market by rivals like Apple.
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InfoWorld - Mobile phones play an important role in Microsoft's software plus services vision, CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday.
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InfoWorld - A vendor based in Dubai pounced on the enterprise mobility market Tuesday evening with a set of Windows Mobile 6 phones that come with built-in security and management software and will be sold independent of carriers.
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InfoWorld - When Microsoft realized that enterprises needed help deploying andÂ managing mobile phones, it turned to a partner it first found in the 1980s.
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PalmOne Inc., the leading maker of handheld computers, said Tuesday it licensed Microsoft Corp. software that enables secure delivery of corporate e-mail to portable devices.
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Mobile phones play an important role in Microsoft's software-plus-services vision, CEO Steve Ballmer told the CTIA show in San Francisco today.
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Microsoft Corp. introduced software on  Monday to manage advanced mobile phones much like personal  computers, taking aim at a business dominated by Research in  Motion's BlackBerry.
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When Microsoft Corp. realized that enterprises needed help deploying and managing mobile phones, it turned to a partner it first found in the 1980s.
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(InfoWorld) - For business users who want Microsoft Office on their cell phones, Windows Mobile 6, the upcoming version of Redmond's mobile operating system to be unveiled next week, will be a must-have upgrade. Mobile 6 comes with mobile versions of Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. With the continuing increase in sales of smartphones at the expense of handheld devices, Office makes a lot of sense, especially for synchronizing with desktop files, according to Rob Enderle, principal at the Enderle Group. Carriers and handset manufacturers who believe they can put the limited memory and storage to better use, however, are out of luck. Microsoft Office still comes with Mobile 6. According to John Starkwether, a product manager in the Mobile and Embedded Devices Division at Microsoft, Office is part of the package. Starkwether conjectured that if a vendor really wants to exclude Office from the operating system, an accommodation might be possible. Additional upgrades to the mobile OS include Microsoft's Direct Push Technology with automatic synchronization of Outlook calendars, tasks, and contacts using Exchange Server. For security and management, Mobile 6 will also give mobile network managers the capability of remotely wiping out all data from a device should it be lost or stolen. Other security features include certificate options and storage card encryption. Business users will also be pleased with the inclusion of mobile versions of the .Net Compact Framework and SQL Server in order to access a company's standard line of business applications remotely. The Office applications are the most robust to date for the limited capacities of a cell phone. Spell checking in Word, though, is not included. E-mail viewing will be easier on the eye with formatting, tables, and pictures viewable as originally generated. One-click options for e-mail, such as "reply all", moving a message to a subfolder and "delete" have been added to accommodate the restricted functionality of a small device. Windows Vista users on the desktop will be able to swap music, pictures, movies and Outlook information between the Vista PC and the mobile device. Windows Live will integrate mail, messenger, search, contacts, and spaces. Call history is now placed inside the individual contact card. Enderle said that although there was "a lot of great stuff" in Mobile 6 Microsoft still has to focus on ease of use. "Compared to the Apple iPhone with its simplified interface, Mobile 6 is still complex to use," Enderle said. Devices with Windows Mobile 6 will ship worldwide in the second quarter.
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The software giant may be developing a Windows Mobile OS-based competitor.
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The Enterprise Communications division of German conglomerate Siemens AG is to unveil a fixed-mobile convergence offering for organizations to run themselves, rather than relying on a carrier to provide it as a service.
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Partners at last week's conference are pleased with Microsoft's focus on software and hosted services.