MSN Mobile Deals with Platform Providers

Recent deals between MSN Mobile and two providers of mobile phone software, Openwave and Qualcomm, illustrate Microsoft’s multipronged approach to the mobile phone market: Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Devices (MED) Group oversees the Windows Mobile platform and is focused on business users, while MSN Mobile offers a mixture of services for consumers on a broad range of phones, including phones based on non-Microsoft technology. The two groups will probably continue to operate autonomously unless the MED Group achieves greater platform success.

What Is MSN Mobile?

MSN Mobile is the brand name for a set of Microsoft-hosted services for wireless phones. It began with Microsoft’s 1999 acquisition of Omnibrowse, a provider of one-way data such as news alerts, stock quotes, and sports scores to mobile phones or pagers. Today, MSN Mobile services include personalized headlines; news, sports, stock, and other alerts; one-way (receive-only) and two-way access to Hotmail and the .NET Messenger service (sometimes known as MSN Messenger); and access to other content from MSN and partners.