CTIA: Microsoft backs enterprise mobile services company
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When Microsoft realized that companies needed help deploying and managing mobile phones, it turned to a partner it first found in the 1980s.
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Ziff Davis - The enterprise makes way for mobile video as WiMax advances, Palm's new Treo 650 and Windows mobile productivity all share the stage at the CTIA Wireless show in San Francisco.
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French telecommunications company AlcatelÂ has signed a deal with MicrosoftÂ to help develop applications that allow users to make phone calls from their computers, it said Thursday.
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Software giant Microsoft Corp. and UK-based cell phone maker Sendo Holdings plc. on Monday reached a settlement to their intellectual property dispute over a failed smart-phone partnership between the two companies.
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Sometimes it pays to befriend an enemy. Longtime foes palmOne Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Tuesday announced a licensing deal that will allow the next generation of palmOne's Treo smart phones to work directly with Microsoft's Exchange e-mail system.
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Users of the Treo smartphone will get out-of-the-box compatibility with Microsoft&#39;s Exchange Server, thanks to a licensing deal between Milpitas, Calif.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft has fixed a problem that made it difficult for users of the most recent Windows Mobile devices to synch with PCs running Vista.
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Microsoft&#39;s new Mobile Device Manager faces a shortcoming because it is exclusive to Windows Mobile devices, but that might change, an executive said on Tuesday.Scott Horn, general manager at Microsoft&#39;s mobile and embedded device group, left the door open to potential future support for non-Windows Mobile devices.&quot;Today, we have nothing to announce,&quot; he said. &quot;But we&#39;re looking at it, we&#39;re thinking about it. Who knows what the future brings?&quot; Horn spoke during a press lunch at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.He mentioned that Microsoft has in the past licensed ActiveSync as a way to extend services to non-Microsoft devices.Microsoft introduced System Center Mobile Device Manager&#160;at the conference. The software lets IT administrators manage and secure Windows Mobile phones. Unlike some other management products on the market, including Nokia&#39;s Intellisync, it is compatible only with phones running the Windows Mobile operating system.AT&amp;T, which is supporting Mobile Device Manager, said there is inertia among IT administrators. IT managers are worried about security and management issues, said Mike Woodward, vice business marketing for AT&amp;T. He thinks that the software as well as the services from a new company,&#160;Enterprise Mobile, will spur more enterprise use of mobile phones. Woodward could not offer specifics about how it will support Mobile Device Manager or how exactly it will work with Enterprise Mobile.For now, the new software and the services from Enterprise Mobile, which help enterprises deploy and manage mobile phones, are designed for large businesses. Mobile Device Manager, expected to come out next year, could support as many as 5,000 users. Enterprise Mobile doesn&#39;t expect to begin thinking about serving smaller businesses for another 12 to 18 months because it will be focused on making sure it knows what large enterprises need, said Steve Moore, president of Enterprise Mobile.
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Voice over IP service releases beta client that accommodates Windows Mobile handsets.
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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.The company, i-mate, unveiled its Ultimate series of four GSM phones at Showstoppers, a product showcase held alongside the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment show happening this week in San Francisco. They will start hitting the market worldwide in the middle of next month.The devices all are about the size of a typical smartphone, run Microsoft&#39;s Windows Mobile 6 operating system, and come with the Office Mobile suite. Two have touchscreens, and two have QWERTY keyboards, one of them using a &quot;slider&quot; design with a larger keyboard and a screen that can be viewed horizontally. They are aimed at markets ranging from small business to larger midsize enterprises.One thing that sets i-mate apart is its business model: It will sell the phones in the U.S. through resellers and retail channels, bypassing mobile operators and the subsidies they typically offer. The i-mate phones will range in price from about $600 to $800, said Nicole Buchanan, vice president of sales and marketing (Americas) at i-mate. The company isn&#39;t averse to carrier distribution if it can make a deal: It will sell devices through Telstra in Australia, Buchanan said.Although carriers dominate the U.S. handset business, a few device makers are starting to take matters into their own hands. Nokia sells phones through its own retail stores and makes some high-end devices available through alternative distributors like Brightpoint, which i-mate will also use. The trend allows businesses to make their handset choices without worrying about what carrier to use or how long the mobile operator will continue offering the device they want.The traditional mobile handset business, in which carriers dictate the timing of handset and service rollouts based on their own business plans, doesn&#39;t match up with typically long enterprise planning cycles, IDC analyst Shiv Bakhshi said Monday at the show. Enterprises often can&#39;t find out what phones will be available when they carry out their mobile strategies or whether their current phone models will still be available in the future. Although hardware makers are starting to gain some autonomy, with the prominent example of Apple and its iPhone, they have a long way to go, Bakhshi said.The i-mate phones come with built-in software for securing and managing the devices. The Secure i-Q software lets users or IT support people lock down a lost or stolen device or wipe the data from it over the air. They can then configure a replacement device with all the appropriate applications over the air, Buchanan said. Custom i-Q allows for customization of each device with applications, e-mail settings, and features over the air.i-mate&#39;s only previous product was a digital picture frame with Wi-Fi. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange. It developed the i-Q software and designed the Ultimate phones, which are built by contract manufacturers. All the devices use an XScale PXA 520MHz processor and have storage expandable to 2GB. They come with features typical of high-end phones, including Bluetooth and cameras. Three of the models have a front-facing camera that can be used for videoconferencing, according to i-mate. One feature that makes the devices stand out is XGA output, which lets a user plug the handset into a full-size display or projector.The Ultimate 6150 and 8150 touch-screen phones and 8502 QWERTY phone are due to ship worldwide in mid-November. The 9502 slider phone will ship around the end of the year, i-mate said.
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A pair of Taiwanese companies signed a technology agreement to develop 3G (third generation telecommunications) and 3.5G smartphones around the Windows Mobile OS, adding to the growing pool of companies developing mobile phones around the Microsoft Corp. software.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on  Wednesday it will buy privately owned Tellme Networks, a voice  recognition technology company, as it promotes the service for  computer users and customer call centers.
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Cognos adds mobile BI support for Windows Mobile 6 and Nokia devices.
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(InfoWorld) - In an effort to show wide support for its newest Windows Mobile operating system, Microsoft is highlighting several announcements from handset makers on Monday at 3GSM in Barcelona. Device manufacturers including Toshiba and LG Electronics are announcing plans to offer phones based onÂ the new Windows Mobile 6.0. Some operators are also allowing customers to upgrade from the previous Windows Mobile software. T-Mobile USA Inc., for example, plans to announce on Monday that it will offer an upgrade to the new operating system to customers who are using the HTC device running Windows Mobile 5.0 Most of the phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 will become available in March or April. Analysts and competitors have criticized the Windows Mobile platform for being available on a smaller range of phones than other operating systems, specifically Nokia's Symbian S60. But Microsoft argues that it is offering the best choice to users. "We are now promoting 140 different form factors from 48 device makers," said Marianne Roling, director of mobile embedded devices for Europe, Middle East and Africa for Microsoft. "We're seeing lots of traction." British Telecommunications PLC (BT) said Monday that it is taking advantage of Windows Mobile 6.0's built-in VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) capabilities by selling a Hewlett-Packard device running the software to customers of its converged Fusion service. TheÂ HP iPaq 514Â running Windows Mobile 6.0 will be offered to business users of the service, which lets customers make low-cost VOIP-over-Wi-Fi calls as well as standard mobile calls. Users can roam between the two networks without dropping calls. Windows Mobile 6.0 includes support for wireless VOIP but users need to subscribe to a service like BT's Fusion in order to seamlessly move between the networks, Roling said. Microsoft also plans to announce on Monday that The Carphone Warehouse Group will offer a hosted mobile e-mail service to small and medium-size businesses based on a hosted server product from Microsoft. End users, who may use Windows Mobile 6.0 phones, will pay a monthly fee for the service.
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Microsoft plans to announce beefed up remote Windows Mobile phone management capabilities with the introduction of System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 on Tuesday.The software will allow IT administrators to remotely secure and manage mobile phones much the same way they manage PCs and laptops, said John O&#39;Rourke, general manager of Microsoft&#39;s mobile communications business.Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer planned to make the announcement during the opening speech at the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment conference in San Francisco.IT administrators using Mobile Device Manager will be able to remotely do things like turn off a phone&#39;s camera and prevent the use of unauthorized messaging services. That&#39;s important for companies that must comply with regulations requiring them to record information sent from employee devices, O&#39;Rourke said.Mobile Device Manager integrates with Microsoft&#39;s System Center so administrators with that software can use the existing active directory and group policy feature to disseminate policies. For example, an organization may already have a set of policies for a group that contains field sales people so an administrator can choose to set mobile policies for that same group, pushing out changes to all of their Windows Mobile phones at once.The software also supports secure access to corporate information through VPN (virtual private network) connections. That allows phone users to access files that may be behind the corporate firewall and it also lets them use Web-based applications that reside on the corporate intranet, O&#39;Rourke said. Some companies may have internal Web-based expense reporting forms, for example, and the secure connection means that Windows Mobile phone users can use those forms from their phones.Mobile Device Manager comprises client and server software. Windows Mobile users will need to update their phones with the software. That process can happen a number of different ways, including requiring users to connect their phones to a PC and install the new software. Microsoft is working with device makers and operators to coordinate the update, similar to the way that they worked together to update devices to&#160;Windows Mobile 6.0&#160;from the previous version of the software. AT&amp;T is expected to announce at the conference how it will update devices on its network, O&#39;Rourke said.Once phone users have the software, they&#39;ll need to connect to the corporate network and log on before an administrator can start remotely managing the device. That&#39;s a one-time process, similar to one that corporate workers often go through when using a new laptop, he said.Microsoft expects to release System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 in the first half of next year, O&#39;Rourke said. The server software should be able to support as many as 5,000 users, although it&#39;s not complete so the exact number hasn&#39;t been determined, he said.Windows Mobile 6.0 already offers some remote management capabilities. For example, an IT administrator can remotely wipe a Windows Mobile device in case it&#39;s stolen and manage passwords for the device, without Mobile Device Manager.Some Windows Mobile competitors also have similar remote management capabilities. Nokia&#39;s Intellisync device management offering, for example, allows IT administrators to remotely manage a variety of devices, including Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Palm phones, as well as laptops and desktops. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server also includes group-based remote administration and management functions. Microsoft&#39;s Mobile Device Manager will only manage Windows Mobile Devices.
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Microsoft has announced its new version of its Windows operating systems for mobile devices and said it won new Asian partners hoping to gain more market share from competitors, Symbian and Nokia.
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InfoWorld - Mobile phones play an important role in Microsoft's software plus services vision, CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday.