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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DiViT who wrote (42232)	6/18/1999 3:56:00 PM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

Win CE To Improve Remote Access techweb.com (06/18/99, 12:59 p.m. ET) By Jeffrey Schwartz, InternetWeek Microsoft recently detailed its plans for the next release of its portable operatingsystem, called Windows CE 3.0, which is slated to ship by early next year. The company is also releasing a separate version of Windows CE for embedded devices such as cell phones, cable-TV set-top boxes, and other fixed-function appliances. At its recent Windows CE developers' conference in Denver, Microsoft said it would release two versions of CE: H/PC for handheld devices and H/PC Pro for scaled-down notebook computers. For both versions, Microsoft is improving remote-access services and data synchronization, and providing an updated programming tool called Platform Builder 2.12. The release will allow live Web browsing, said Frank Varela, manager of handheld product marketing at Compaq. Current users of Pocket Internet Explorer have to subscribe to Web-based channels, download them, and view them offline. Microsoft doesn't offer a full Web browser, such as Internet Explorer 4.0, as it is planning with the embedded version of Windows CE, because with handhelds, everything is in ROM. "It's hard to do the upgrades,"said Microsoft group product manager Phil Holden. "The OEMs don't want to 'rev' their products on a regular basis." "We like to get as much functionality in as we can, but the more you put in there, the more requirement it puts on the hardware," Compaq's Varela said. In June, Compaq released a subnotebook computer that runs Windows CE, called the Aero 8000, a sub-$1,000 device that among other things, supports optional smart cards for security. But Gartner Group analyst Ken Dulaney questioned why a corporate user would opt for that instead of a subnotebook PC running Windows 98. "When users look at these systems, they say, 'What do I get with Windows CE? It doesn't run all of the applications, and there are other laptops that run Windows 9x,'" Dulaney said. Compaq's Ben Williams, director of displays and peripherals, said substantially longer battery life and the ability to boot instantly are appealing to executives who run only a few applications, and for users such as insurance agents tied to specific tasks. "For them, size and cost are key," Williams said. But Microsoft has a long way to go before Windows CE is ready for corporate users, said Tim Bajarin, president of consultancy Creative Strategies. "The No. 1 reason is that the applications provided with it are so weak that it doesn't give corporations a reason to buy it," Bajarin said. The new synchronization technology, called ActiveSynch 3.0, promises to simplify connectivity to desktop systems, Bajarin said. An improved GUI, code-named Rapier, is designed to simplify the complex interface for palm devices, he said. Microsoft's Holden would only say that the GUI is a future product.