Subject: [NEXTEL-1] World's first mobile phone using Microsoft's Pocket PC software

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 16:20:34 -0400

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?story_id=33850803&ID=cnniw&scategory=Telecommunications%3AWireless&

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Online: Mobile matters: Calls that compute: Jack Schofield tests the world's first mobile phone using Microsoft's Pocket PC software

Source: The Guardian

Publication date: 2002-10-24

After three years of struggle, and a year later than expected,
Microsoft's Smartphone finally goes on sale next week. Orange
expects to achieve another world first when the SPV - it stands for
Sound, Pictures and Video - reaches the shops on Monday, priced at
an affordable pounds 170 with contract. And if you don't like the
SPV, Sendo and other handset manufacturers are expected to follow,
including Korea's Samsung.

The SPV has changed a lot since Bill Gates first showed
Microsoft's Stinger reference design at Comdex in 2000. The
Smartphone 2002 software is not a simple port of the PocketPC
operating system familiar from the Compaq iPaq. In most respects,
this is for the good. However, PC and PocketPC users may find the
loss of some features frustrating, such as the ability to
synchronise files between a Smartphone and a desktop PC.

Microsoft now has three versions of the PocketPC suite, based on
Windows CE. It started in the PDA (personal digital assistant)
market, with devices from Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Casio, Toshiba et
al. Next came the PocketPC Phone Edition, used in PDA-phones such as
the Sagem WA3050, Vodafone's HP 928 and O2's xda. The Smartphone
version has been re-engineered for devices that are roughly the same
size and weight as a typical mobile phone.

"It has to be able to replace your existing mobile phone," says
Jonas Hasselberg, the Smartphone product manager from Microsoft
Corporation in Seattle.

PocketPCs require two hands whereas the Smartphone is designed
for one-handed operation. Out go the touch screen, stylus and
handwriting recognition; in come a telephone keypad, a miniature
joystick and T9. The Smartphone's screen has also shrunk from the
PDA's 240 by 320 pixels to 176 x 220, though it still packs in more
information than Palm's standard 160 by 160.

Since this is a phone rather than a pocket computer, the PocketPC
versions of Microsoft Word and Excel have also been dumped, as has
the electronic book reader. However, the phone still has the Outlook
personal organiser, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player,
Microsoft Messenger (instant messaging), and VPN (Virtual Private
Networking) for access to corporate servers. When you include two-
line telephony, SMS messaging, email, Wap browsing, games, GPRS,
stereo headphones, plug-in cameras and so on, the Smartphone has
more than enough features for most people. The only obvious
omissions are MMS multimedia messaging and Java, but Orange's SPV
phone has MMS while Sendo's has Java.

The user interface is dramatically different. Everything fills
the screen: there are no overlapping windows. While there are still
too many pop-up menus, many options are presented as numbered lists.
Two "soft" keys are used to run programs, in typical phone style.
There are also two "hard" keys: one is a back button, and the other
takes you to the home screen, in typical browser style. Given that
the Smartphone is a combination of a computer (Your Mobile Outlook),
a web terminal (Your Mobile Web) and Your Mobile Phone, the
combination of user interface features was probably to be expected.
It is, frankly, a bit of a mess, though you get used to it after a
while.

As you would expect, the Smartphone is good at handling data. I
synchronised a pre-launch review sample with my Thinkpad and had
more than a thousand phone numbers, my appointments, selected
bookmarks and to-do list on board in a few minutes. One bit of
software, the Smartphone Configuration Wizard, enabled me to do some
setting up using the notebook PC's keyboard then simply update the
phone. Oddly, it did not allow me to type in POP3 and SMTP addresses
for my BT Openworld mailbox. However, after entering these on the
phone, I was able to retrieve email immediately. It worked perfectly
first time. This was impressive considering I can't get my PC's copy
of Outlook to perform this simple task - it will only work with
Outlook Express.

Getting on to the web was even easier, using Orange's out-of-the-
box GPRS set-up. All I had to do was select Internet Explorer, pick
a website from my Favorites, and push Go. It worked first time and
every time. The only problem was that all my imported bookmarks
assumed a full-sized PC screen, instead of small-screen devices.

Still, perhaps the most significant thing about the Microsoft
Smartphone is that it is, like Windows, a platform. Anybody can
download the SDK (Software Development Kit) and write programs for
it. In fact, applications can be delivered in three ways: as
"native" code run on the device, wirelessly from a managed server,
or run via the web browser.

Microsoft's mobility marketing director Robbie Ray Wright says
Microsoft is trying to create "an ecosystem around smart phones"
like the one around Windows. Today, it consists of 31 partners, 21
mobile operators, and the 380,000 SDKs distributed so far. There are
already 10,500 PocketPC applications that could be ported to the
Smartphone. "Microsoft is only a small part of that," he says.

Technically, it should be easy for companies to write their own
applications for Smartphones, and users could install their own
games and utilities. Phone operators can add extra features, just as
Orange has added MMS messaging and information services to the SPV.
But the fact that it is a platform does not make it an open
platform. Native applications will only run if they are correctly
certified, so users will have to check on the certificates their
phone requires. Some Smartphones will be locked so they will not run
any applications without the permission of the network operator.
Others could, in theory, be supplied free of restrictions.

How this will work out in practice is anyone's guess. But
Microsoft's Wright claims: "We're on the cusp of changing of
changing the [mobile phone] industry - we think, for the better."

Publication date: 2002-10-24

© 2002, YellowBrix, Inc.

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