Windows Mobile 6 unveiled: Mini-Vista

New Windows Mobile 6 to Be Presented at 3GSM in Barcelona.

First details about Microsoft’s new operating system for mobile phones have emerged on the Web, with analysts saying it is a Vista in miniature.

Windows Mobile 6, code-named Crossbow, brings a new Vista-like interface and a lot of improvements concerning interoperability with other services crafted at Redmond. The new mobile OS will be available in the second half of 2007, and its newest features will be presented next week at the 3GSM conference that takes place in Barcelona, Spain.

Suzan DelBene, vice president for the company’s mobile-device marketing, said that she expects the OS to be installed on smartphones all over the world in the next few months.

Among the new features included in Windows Mobile are:

• Email in Rich HTML Format.
• Live links to SharePoint sites.
• Windows Live for Mobile included in Windows Mobile 6.
• New Security features such as remote wiping capabilities if your device is lost or stolen.
• Enhanced Windows Vista Synchronization through Windows Mobile Device Center.
• Calendar ribbon gives you your important appoints quickly.
• Contacts with context – call records now attached to individual contact cards in Windows Mobile 6.
• .NET Compact Framework and SQL Server built in to Windows Mobile 6.

According to estimates, Microsoft sold 3 million licenses of Windows Mobile last quarter, up 90 percent from a year earlier, and is now boasting with fruitful partnerships signed with Samsung (for the BlackJack model), T-Mobile (Dash) or Palm’s Treo.

Windows Mobile 6 is built using the same core as the WM5-the Window CE 5- so all applications which run on WM5 should work fine with the new edition. “We hope to be 100 percent compatible,” said John O’Rourke, a general manager in Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded devices unit. “If an application works in Windows Mobile 5, it should work on Windows Mobile 6.”

Windows CE (sometimes abbreviated WinCE) is a variation of Microsoft’s Windows operating system for minimalist computers and embedded systems. Windows CE is a distinctly different kernel, rather than a “trimmed down” version of desktop Windows. Windows CE kernel is built to run even with less than a megabyte of memory. Windows CE 5.0 is the most open Microsoft Operating System to date, though not all of the system is available under shared source agreements.

Since the kernels are similar, users of WM5 will be able to upgrade their OS just like an XP user upgrades for Windows Vista.

All Windows Mobile 6-powered phones will include the previously introduced Direct Push Technology for always up-to-date E-Mail delivery and automatic synchronization of Outlook calendars and contacts through Microsoft Exchange Server.

Windows Mobile 6 will also offer a set of important device security and management features including the ability to remotely wipe all data from a device should it be lost or stolen, ensuring that confidential information remains that way.

Users of Microsoft Office on the PC – of which there are nearly 400 million worldwide – will feel right at home with the new mobile versions of Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint built for all Windows Mobile 6 smartphones. Windows Mobile 6 addresses extensive user feedback and incorporates enhancements from the new Microsoft Office Mobile, making information management easier and more convenient.

The software also offers a new Windows Live search engine that combines Internet search with the ability to find and map nearby locations, DelBene said.

Thus, the Redmond behemoth is trying to surge into Google’s market share, which is about 5 times bigger than Microsoft’s in search engines domain.

The Windows Mobile 6 platform will offer a variety of other security options, giving IT departments the choice of how best to secure a device, from new Exchange Server policies and certificate options, storage card encryption, and continued support for remote and local device wipe.

Organizations using Information Rights Management (IRM) technology to control the viewing, storing and printing of confidential information on PCs will be able to extend those same rights to Windows Mobile 6 devices, a feature not available on any other mobile phone platform.

Powerful, new mobile versions of the .NET Compact Framework and SQL Server are built into Windows Mobile 6 make it even easier to create and access sales tools, inventory tracking, and many other applications from a smartphone.

With another WM6 built-in application users will be able to easily transform their smartphone into a high-speed modem for their laptop (“one-click easy”) with either a Bluetooth wireless or cable connection.

Windows Mobile 6 also makes it easier for operators and device makers to integrate a VoIP solution into a device they’re building.

playfuls.com

Cell phone offerings set to boom: report

The market for content and services on cell phones is expected to grow to $150 billion by 2011, as access to the web while on the move becomes easier and faster, research from Informa Telecoms & Media showed.

The research firm said on Thursday that applications such as messaging led by traditional SMS messaging would still account for a lion’s share of this market, generating over half of this revenue in 2011.

Informa predicted messaging services comprising SMS, multimedia messaging and instant messaging on cell phones will generate revenues worth $93 billion globally by 2011 from $60 billion last year and an expected $67.4 billion in 2007.

Entertainment services comprising games, music, TV, adult content and gambling would grow to $38 billion by 2011 from around $18.8 billion in 2006, it said.

“Mobile music will be a major contributor to the revenues achieved in the mobile entertainment market in the next five years, although its overall share of the market will fall from 40 percent in 2006 to 36 percent in 2011 as new forms of entertainment such as mobile TV and video services begin to gain consumer interest,” Informa said in its report.

Not all of the explosion in new services, although helped by the availability of broadband speeds on cell phones, would go to cell phone operators.

“The introduction of a whole host of new players into the value chain presents new opportunities for growth in the mobile content and services market, whilst simultaneously posing a threat to mobile operators who face losing control of the billing relationship with their customers,” Informa said.

It also forecast areas such as user-generated content, the rage of the Internet world in 2006, to come into the cell phone world in the years ahead. Informa forecast user-generated content and communities to be worth $13.2 billion by 2011.

Reuters

With lead slipping, Yahoo focuses on wireless

Yahoo Inc. and rival Google Inc. both announced new cell-phone initiatives on Monday, highlighting how these two major Internet players have shifted their battle to the mobile sector.

Yahoo unveiled a new search engine and portal designed exclusively for mobile phones. In addition, both Yahoo and Google Inc. announced Monday that they’ve reached deals to distribute their software on cell phones made by Samsung.

The battle to win the hearts and minds of cell-phone users is intensifying, as the amount of money spent to advertise within these features keeps soaring. This year, there will be $1.5 billion spent on ads that show up on mobile phones, according to various estimates, and that tally will double by 2010.

“There are several reasons why 2007 could be a watershed year for this market,” said Andy Castonguay, a wireless analyst at the Yankee Group, a technology research firm.

What’s more, the amount of growth associated with Internet search and other mainstays on the wired Web, while continuing at a healthy clip, has shown signs of slowing as the numbers of users is beginning to approach saturation levels.

The importance of Yahoo’s mobile push is heightened because of its struggles on the wired side. In November, some Net traffic monitors concluded that MySpace, the upstart social network owned by News Corp. , supplanted Yahoo in the rankings, something that’s expected to have a negative impact.

Arguably the most important of the new wrinkles from Yahoo is oneSearch, an engine designed for mobile phones that recognizes the “intent” of a search to better streamline results in a format better suited for mobile phones, according to Yahoo.

For instance, entering just the name of a sports team can generate scores and schedules, rather than just a listing of Web pages with the teams name on them.

Yahoo also said Monday that it has expanded relationships with two major handset makers.

The company’s features will now be available to owners of BlackBerry devices made by Research In Motion Ltd., which has partnered with Yahoo since 2005 to distribute other mobile versions of its services. Yahoo also reached similar deals with Nokia Corp., the world’s leading handset maker, to add its software to Nokia’s wireless tablet.

Along these lines, Yahoo’s search engine for phones will be the exclusive provider of mobile search via Opera Software’s popular Internet browser for handsets.

Samsung said Monday that it plans to expand the number of its handsets that come preloaded with Yahoo features this year, and already has launched its first such mobile handset, the SGH-E570.

Not to be undone, Google announced a deal with Samsung, which Google describes as a “global cooperation” to provide mobile-phone users with access to Google’s e-mail, search and mapping features.

“Google is dedicated to providing users around the world with easier access information and services when they are mobile,” Google wireless products and strategy director Deep Nishar said in a statement.

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Google and Samsung team up to streamline mobile Internet link

Google and Samsung announced an alliance to make it easier to access the search engine’s Internet services from the South Korean electronic giant’s mobile telephones.

Samsung mobile telephones equipped with Google software applications will enable users worldwide to search the Internet, check email, and map routes, according to the companies.

The mobile telephones will be designed with a Google icon on the option menu to allow single click connection to Google search, G-mail, and maps, the Mountain View, California, search colossus said.

Samsung has already launched, the Ultra Edition 13.8, a camera mobile telephone with Google mobile search and G-mail.

Samsung’s alliance with Google represented a commitment to “a ubiquitous world where mobile enables our consumers to access information about anything, anywhere, anytime,” president of Samsung’s Telecommunication Network Business president Kitae Lee said in a release.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070108/tc_afp/usskoreainternet