Microsoft Corp has taken another step towards warmer relations with the mobile communications community, announcing its Mobile Explorer services platform for handheld devices and mobile carriers and a joint-venture which LM Ericsson Telfon AB, a key shareholder in Symbian Ltd. Microsoft had originally hoped to get the news of its new Mobile Explorer products out ahead of the announcement of its joint-venture with Ericsson, but leaks to the financial press yesterday unsettled the Swedish mobile equipment maker’s share price. Ericsson was forced to release news of the strategic partnership with Microsoft ahead of the planned official announcement.
The joint-venture has yet to be named, but Ericsson said in a statement that the companies have agreed to work together on end-to-end solutions for the wireless internet. This cooperation will include a commitment by Ericsson to use Mobile Explorer for feature phones, a version of Microsoft’s new mobile platform that requires Windows CE to be running on a client device. Ericsson also said it will work with Microsoft to build, market and deploy systems based on Microsoft Windows NT, Exchange Server, and Microsoft Universal Plug and Play technology.
The breadth of Ericsson’s agreement with Microsoft inevitably raises questions about the future of Symbian, the handheld device operating systems developer in which Ericsson is a key shareholder, along with Nokia, Motorola and Matsushita. But the Swedish company said it is still committed to Symbian. It said the joint-venture and partnership with Microsoft is a an important addition to Ericsson’s strategic work with Bluetooth, Symbian and WAP.
For Microsoft, the key news was its unveiling of a new product set which represents, possibly, a new life for the company in a market which has so far failed to be successful for it. Microsoft Mobile Explorer is described as a modular wireless applications and services platform, which will initially be made available (in the first quarter of 2000) in two flavors. Microsoft Mobile Explorer for feature phones is a dual-mode microbrowser that will support delivery of email, personal information manager (PIM) and internet data in both HTML and WAP 1.1. Rebecca Thompson, product manager for Microsoft’s Redmond-based appliances division, said the microbrowser is an operating system-independent services platform, designed for devices that will depend on internet connection for accessing their applications and content.
Microsoft Explorer for smartphones, however, is Microsoft’s latest attempt to shoot back at Symbian and Palm with an operating system for a communications-oriented personal digital assistant. It assumes the presence of a full 32-bit operating system, Thompson explained, in this case a slimline module of Windows CE which will support applications that give users real- time access to data on their own PCs, as well as to internet- derived content and services.
The Microsoft Mobile Explorer announcement represents the first product announcement built around technologies which Microsoft acquired with the purchase of STNC Ltd (CI No 3708), a UK feature phone system developer, and Sendit AB (CI No 3,696), the Swedish manufacturer of smartphone server systems that is now part of the company’s mobile products division. Sendit technology is now at the heart of Exchange Server and, and STNC’s technology and staff are now a major part of the company’s microbrowser development effort.
