Microsoft Move Into Cellphones Worries Some in Telecom
This is an article from yesterday's WSJ. Their web site requires a subscription so I'll try to provide the salient points here.
Most of the 500 million handsets sold each year still rely primarily on software written inhouse by cellphone makers.
Currently, Microsoft only provides software for the segment of handsets known as smartphones. As you can readily see from the table below, this segment is dominated by Symbian Ltd., a consortium based in London consisting of Nokia Corp. and the cellphone manufacturers.
This table show the software used by the top manufacturers of smartphones and total units shipped in 2003:
| |
software |
phones shipped
(millions) |
| Nokia |
Symbian |
5.45 |
| Sony Erisson |
Symbian |
0.82 |
| Motorola |
Symbian, Microsoft, Linux |
0.78 |
| RIM |
RIM |
0.49 |
| Samsung |
Symbian, Microsoft, Palm |
0.28 |
Microsoft is now seen as gaining in this market because of its alliance with Motorola, the world's second-largest cellphone maker. AT&T Wireless, Orange, and Verizon Wireless have also released phones using Microsoft's software.
Bill Gates recently announced a new mobile-tracking technology called MapPoint Location Server to expand the functionality to smartphones.
However, complaints have been filed by the Washington, D.C.-based Computer & Communications Industry Assoc. to the European Commission alleging that Microsoft's e-mail server, Exchange 2003, was designed to work better with Microsoft smartphones than with those using different operating systems. Some fear that corporate accounts for smartphones will desire the best compatibility with their enterprise or single-use applications.
3:56:18 AM 
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