A client-based version of Live Search is available for Windows Mobile and Java-based smart phones. In addition, Microsoft is offering carriers and phone OEMs a suite of client software that will integrate Windows Live services into the Windows Mobile 6 interface. Announced at the Feb. 2007 3GSM conference, these clients are intended to bring mobile users to Microsoft's online services, where they will see advertisements. The clients could also provide a revenue opportunity to carriers in the form of increased data transfer charges or other fees.

Windows Mobile 6, also announced at 3GSM, is the next version of Microsoft's software platform for smart phones and PDAs, and it includes features such as support for HTML e-mail, new e-mail management options, automatic "push" delivery of information from Exchange (such as calendar entries), and a new version of Mobile Office with better support for Office document formatting. Phones with the new platform will be available in the second quarter of 2007 from carriers Orange, Softbank, and T-Mobile, and other OEM and carrier partners are signed up to deliver the platform later in the year. (For more details, see "Windows Mobile 6 Ushers in New Devices".)

Live Search Client

A client-based version of Live Search is now available as a free download for Windows Mobile (versions 5 or 6) and J2ME-based smart phones, including Nokia's Series 40 and 60 devices and Motorola's RAZR and SLVR family of devices.

Mobile phone users can already access Live Search by entering a URL into a mobile Web browser, where they can conduct Web searches, get maps and driving directions, and perform other search-related functions.

The Live Search clients, which have been in beta-testing since Dec. 2006, make these features more easily accessible and offer the following new features:

• Preset search categories (e.g., hotels or restaurants), which return results near the user's location, reducing the need for users to enter text queries
• The ability to map all results on one map
• Traffic information for more than 25 cities in the United States.

Windows Mobile users also get the ability to view satellite images on maps.

The Live Search clients come in specialized versions for the United States or United Kingdom and users can download them for free through mobile phone browsers at wls.live.com. Carriers may impose additional data charges.

Windows Live for Windows Mobile

Microsoft is offering carriers and phone OEMs a suite of client software for Windows Mobile 6 phones that will integrate several Windows Live services—Contacts, Hotmail, Messenger, Search, and Spaces—into the Windows Mobile interface.

As with Live Search, users can already access these services via a mobile Web browser. However, this set of integrated services, known as Windows Live for Windows Mobile, provides the following benefits:

• Access to these services via icons on the Windows Mobile home screen
• Integration of Windows Live Contacts (automatically collected from Hotmail and Messenger) into the Windows Mobile contacts list alongside contacts from other sources (e.g., Outlook, Exchange); users can see presence information (e.g. "online," "busy") for these contacts and initiate an instant message session by clicking a contact's icon
• New Hotmail messages are automatically pushed to the user's inbox, eliminating the need to check messages manually
• Users can post photos taken on a mobile phone to a Spaces blog with two clicks.

Windows Live for Windows Mobile is conceptually similar to Pocket MSN, downloadable client software that enables Windows Mobile users to access versions of Hotmail, Messenger, and selected MSN Web sites tailored for older Windows Mobile platforms. However, while any Windows Mobile phone user can get Pocket MSN by paying a one-time fee of US$20, Windows Live for Windows Mobile will initially be available only through carriers and OEMs, which might charge an extra subscription or per-message fee (in addition to data charges). No partners have yet been announced. Eventually, Microsoft might make Windows Live for Windows Mobile available universally, as it has done with the Live Search and Pocket MSN clients.