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Business News From CTIA '99: Feb. 9, 1999
Microsoft Boosts Wireless Offensive
Microsoft Corp. created a major buzz Monday at Wireless '99, announcing
a new partnership, demonstrating its free microbrowser and detailing its
vision for the future of wireless data.
Paul Maritz, a Microsoft group vice president, also backed away from
saying the software giant's browser for mobile devices will be completely
compatible with the Wireless Application Protocol. Maritz said Microsoft
first wants to make its browser compatible with "existing standards," and
WAP devices are not expected to be marketed until later this year.
Maritz said Microsoft has four elements in its wireless data strategy: seeking
industry partners, promoting open standards, developing an end-to-end
platform that works for both wireless and wireline communications, and
providing value-added services that consumers want and need.
Maritz formally announced plans, reported last week by Wireless Week, by
British Telecommunications plc for using Microsoft's BackOffice and
Exchange technology to create a network solution for wireless access to
corporate data. BT and its wireless subsidiary will establish a system similar
to WirelessKnowledge LLC, he said.
WirelessKnowledge, formed by Microsoft and Qualcomm Inc. last fall,
provides remote access to enterprise data through a network operations
center. The joint venture has signed up nine U.S. carriers who are expected
to begin offering the service in the next few months.
BT executive Andy Green said the British telecom giant has 13 million
customers who will be the initial target market, but BT plans on offering the
service globally through any carrier that wants it. He said the carrier plans a
deliberate rollout with a series of trials with corporate customers.
Microsoft also demonstrated the use of its microbrowser via the
WirelessKnowledge NOC to access the Internet and to tunnel through a
corporate firewall to get e-mail. Both applications showed how the
microbrowser worked on the recently introduced Qualcomm QCP1960
"Thin Phone."
Maritz emphasized in the demonstration that the Internet content--from the
MSNBC news site--came from the same site and used the same hypertext
markup language as that on a laptop computer. The microbrowser
essentially strips away graphics and other bandwidth-intensive Internet
content.
He said Microsoft planned to make the microbrowser available as a
"source code kit" so that any company that wanted to use it could do so.
He said there would a "small one-time fee" for the kit but that it was
basically free because Microsoft wanted to see it spread in the wireless
data industry.
Microsoft will make its money with the use of its Windows CE operating
system and other software, Maritz said.
Although some analysts believed Microsoft might open its arms to the
WAP technology, Maritz seemed to pull back from complete compatibility.
He implied Microsoft's microbrowser may be compatible with WAP at the
transport layer but that it may not at the key application layer. He said
Microsoft was "not ready" to join WAP, which is a forum of about 100
companies seeking a protocol to design specific Internet content for access
by smart phones and other mobile devices.
He also said Microsoft would be "happy" to provide its microbrowser to
Symbian Ltd., a joint venture to use the Psion operating system for mobile
connectivity. Symbian is viewed as a Microsoft competitor in the handheld
device markets.
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