Live Software for Smart Phones

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“.)