Microsoft Moves to Add Phone Calls to Its E-Mail Program
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Analysts said businesses would not throw away their reliable office phone systems until the software makerâs tools were just as good.
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Mobile phones play an important role in Microsoft&#39;s software plus services vision, CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday.Microsoft&#39;s software strategy a few years ago revolved around software that was either embedded on devices or burned onto CDs and shipped to users, he said. Today, however, software works in tandem with the Internet, which can back up and update the software.&quot;There&#39;s no better way then the cell networks of the world to make this model happen,&quot; he said, speaking during the opening presentation at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment conference in San Francisco. He envisions a time when software is wirelessly updated and works in tandem with services hosted on the Internet.But the software plus services concept won&#39;t be different for the PC and the mobile phone, he said. At the top of Microsoft&#39;s innovation agenda is unifying a variety of devices and applications. Microsoft is focused on enabling developers to create single applications that take advantage of phones, desktop computers, the enterprise environment, and the online environment, he said.Microsoft is enabling that in part by offering a consistent platform that developers can use to create applications for the PC and mobile phones. For example, a developer can write a thin client for mobile phones using HTML, Ajax, and, in the future, Silverlight. Microsoft&#39;s .Net and Visual Studio can be used to write rich applications for mobile phones. Microsoft also offers a compact version of SQL so that developers can write applications for Windows Mobile phones for database manipulation.The phone is particularly important in achieving Microsoft&#39;s unified view, he said. &quot;The PC is the most powerful device, but the phone is the most popular,&quot; he said. Particularly in the developing world where PC&#39;s may be cost prohibitive, cell phones may be more widespread.Microsoft is focused on providing software for partners to use and it is working carefully not to compete with them, he said. Unlike Google, Microsoft won&#39;t be participating in the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction. &quot;What would it buy us to own a piece of spectrum?&quot; he said. &quot;It would probably do a lot to alienate the telecom industry. It does not do a lot to advance our goal, which is to take some exciting technology and spread it.&quot;Windows Mobile is a big opportunity financially for Microsoft from two perspectives, he said. If Windows Mobile runs hundreds of millions of devices, that&#39;s a great business for Microsoft, he said. &quot;Also, I don&#39;t think we can serve our customers&#39; broad desire to bring together desktops, devices, enterprise, and online if we ignore the mobile area,&quot; he said.
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Microsoft update should allow Exchange Server 2007 to receive e-mail from Apple's iPhone.
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ISP's customers have a new option for obtaining their e-mail on the go.
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Yahoo Inc said on Sunday it was  giving its e-mail users more ways to reach friends and online  contacts by allowing them to trade messages with mobile phone  users.
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Microsoft on Monday released its promised desktop search application, focusing on adding local e-mail and file search into MSN&#39;s browser toolbar, Outlook and the Windows operating system.
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Funambol and Amobee are introducing technology that would let mobile operators offer ad-supported e-mail to users.
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Microsoft is releasing a new application for delivering &quot;snippets&quot; of data to Windows Mobile devices, one of several announcements planned for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday.Microsoft plans to announce that it will offer software for Windows Mobile users based on MSN Direct, a service it developed to deliver data snippets to watches. The new application displays small bits of information like weather, stocks and news on the home screen of the phone. &quot;This is an innovative take on how to get information in a glanceable way on handsets,&quot; said Brian Arbogast, vice president of mobile services at Microsoft.Windows Mobile users can download the application, which will initially be offered as a beta.Microsoft and its competitors Yahoo and Google are jockeying for lead position in the mobile market. Each is working to draw mobile users to their services in hopes of ultimately establishing a revenue stream from mobile advertising. So far, the market is relatively open.Microsoft also said it is offering a new software development kit that will give developers access to additional Microsoft mobile services protocols. With the new tools, Microsoft&#39;s software vendor partners will be able to build richer clients that access additional Windows Live for mobile capabilities. For example, a developer could make an application that lets a user click to record a voice clip and send it to an MSN Messenger buddy, even if the sender is using a Windows Mobile phone and the recipient has a Nokia S60 phone.&quot;These are rich and fun and engaging features in Messenger that we had on some of our top-end platforms that are now opened up through this protocol,&quot; said Arbogast.Microsoft also introduced a new program, Windows Live @mobile, aimed at making it easier for operators to quickly begin offering Windows Live and MSN mobile services across their device portfolios.While Windows Mobile has been seen primarily as a product for business users, Microsoft is increasingly trying to push it into the consumer market. &quot;This is about us really extending our focus to be, instead of predominantly on the work part of life, to be about delivering phones for your entire life,&quot; said Arbogast.Microsoft also recently hired a new marketing executive tasked with positioning Windows Mobile to appeal more to consumers.Still, Microsoft isn&#39;t shifting away from its business customer focus. It is stepping up its efforts to sell mobile products to small businesses. Through a new partnership, Brightstar and TechData will sell Windows Mobile phones to small and medium businesses in Europe. The companies will offer a portfolio of products and services to customers, including servers, devices, services and support.In the U.S., Microsoft said that Cbeyond, a provider of communications services for small businesses, will offer a new hosted Exchange e-mail service that supports mobile devices for small and medium businesses.
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Analyst says wireless synchronization with Exchange e-mail software may make it more attractive to corporate IT departments, which usually favor devices based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system.
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Microsoft has released a beta of the new free e-mail program, along with new Messenger and Writer betas.
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Startup launches service that merges e-mail with VoIP calls and instant messaging.
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Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is adding its considerable weight to the growing Internet-based communications market, introducing an addition to the Office Live Communications Server (LCS) that promises to integrate messaging, telephony and PC-based voice and video applications.
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New subscription service links Web mail with the desktop e-mail client.
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Microsoft Corp., the world's largest  software maker, has expanded its flagship MSN Hotmail internet  email service to include European and Japanese domain names, it  said on Friday.
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By adding POP support to its Gmail service, Google is enabling customers to download messages to Microsoft Outlook and other applications.
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Microsoft Corp., the world&#39;s largest software maker, has expanded its flagship MSN Hotmail internet email service to include European and Japanese domain names, it said on Friday.
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Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has taken another step to bolster its Web e-mail service, MSN Hotmail, by tying it with its popular desktop application Outlook. For a US&#36;59.95 yearly subscription fee, customers can use Outlook Live when accessing their Hotmail accounts. The company is offering a reduced introductory price of &#36;44.95 through April 19th.