Day: November 7, 2006

Vodafone has signed an agreement with Microsoft to develop software to enable the speedy and costeffective roll out of new services on mobile phones.Under the terms of the agreement, Vodafone and Microsoft will work in close co-operation aiming to ensure that Vodafone applications and services are tightly integrated with a Windows Mobile experience, resulting in improved mobile phone functionality as well as an enhanced mobile experience for customers. The Microsoft platform will complement Vodafone’s existing terminal platform* portfolio.As the platform proposal with Windows Mobile embraces the wider Microsoft developer community, Vodafone anticipates an increase in the breadth of applications and content created for mobile phones. The partnership will also enable Vodafone to access Microsoft’s considerable expertise to help speed up convergence between mobile devices and computers. Additionally, it is expected to reduce time to market for new products and encourage customers to new services.”We believe that the collaboration between Microsoft Windows Mobile and Vodafone live! will deliver a compelling and unique new alternative in the consumer mobile market,” said Jens Schulte-Bockum, Vodafone’s Global Director of Terminals.”We are very pleased with Vodafone’s decision to adopt Windows Mobile as a preferred software platform for its mobile business,” said Suzan DelBene, Corporate Vice President of Marketing, Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, Microsoft. “Together we will deliver services which we expect will help Vodafone achieve cost-efficiencies, while delivering new propositions to its customers, thus making Windows Mobile an even more compelling platform.”The deal forms part of Vodafone’s wider strategy of streamlining its current platform portfolio to deliver greater cost efficiencies across the Group. Over the next five years, Vodafone expects to focus on supporting three standard terminal platforms across its portfolio of mobile phones: Microsoft Windows Mobile, Symbian/S60 and Linux. The first device to use the software produced under the agreement is planned to be with Samsung and is expected to launch in the first half of 2007.”Samsung has been proactively cooperating with Vodafone and Microsoft to enrich customers’ mobile experience,” said Chulhwan Lee, Senior Vice President of Samsung’s Mobile R&D Team. “Through this cooperation, we hope to provide customers with strong PC connectivity and rich multimedia features that are easy to use, and cost-competitive.””By focusing on these three core terminal platforms, Vodafone expects to be able to reap the benefits of a range of efficiencies such as reduced handset development costs, as well as the quicker and more cost effective roll out of new services,” added Schulte-Bockum. “This initiative aims to ensure that we do not have to create a different set of software to provide services on a wide range of platforms, so that our customers benefit from enhanced yet simple-to-use services and lower costs.”

“The device has the unique RollR trackball control method, although whether this is positive or not, we’ll come to in the ‘in use’ section It also has an abundance of hardware buttons. As well as the usual Green / Red / Soft keys / Start / OK buttons that I expect to see on every Pocket PC nowadays (you hearing me Glofiish?), the device has dedicated keys for your chosen GPS application and Pocket Internet Explorer.GPS on the device is powered by SiRF’s SiRFStar III chipset, the latest and greatest when it comes to low power, high sensitivity GPS chipsets. This is supplemented by ‘Quick GPS’, the A-GPS service that allows for ephemeris download using your mobile data connection, thereby (theoretically) allowing quicker TTFF (time to first fix). The device stacks up to be a considerable navigation companion.” Read this great review here:

“Palm, Inc. today issued the following statement in response to a patent-infringement lawsuit filed against it by patent-holding company NTP Inc. The NTP lawsuit claims that certain Palm products infringe seven NTP patents. All seven of the patents asserted are being re-examined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and have been rejected by the re-examiners as invalid. Palm also noted that the NTP patents disclose a pager-based email service that has nothing in common with the mobile-computing devices invented by Palm. Palm has been in occasional contact with NTP concerning a license to these patents. When Palm last communicated with NTP many months ago, however, each of the patents already was the subject of re-examination proceedings by the PTO. Palm is disappointed that, after many months of silence and repeated rejections of NTP’s claims by the PTO, NTP has chosen to sue on patents of doubtful validity. Palm respects legitimate intellectual property rights, but will defend itself vigorously against the attempted misuse of the patent and judicial systems to extract monetary value for rights to patents that may ultimately have no value at all. “

Sony Ericsson today announced it has reached agreement in principle for acquiring the Swedish software company UIQ Technology AB, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Symbian Ltd. UIQ Technology, which uses Symbian OS, licenses the UIQ user interface and application development platform to mobile phone vendors worldwide.Sony Ericsson is already a licensee of UIQ Technology, and has been working closely with the company on UIQ version 3.0, which is included in Sony Ericsson’s P990 smartphone, M600 messaging phone and W950 Walkman phone. “UIQ offers excellent technical flexibility enabling us to provide compelling features such as push email, internet browsing, end user personalization, and enhanced music applications” explains Mats Lindoff, Chief Technology Officer at Sony Ericsson. “By acquiring UIQ Technology we will further invest and exploit the full potential of UIQ on Symbian OS for phone vendors, mobile operators, developers and consumers.”Following completion of the acquisition, UIQ Technology will operate as a separate business subsidiary of Sony Ericsson under its current management team. UIQ on Symbian OS will continue to be openly available, licensed on equal terms to all its licensees. “We welcome this decision by Sony Ericsson to purchase UIQ Technology as it will give us the additional investment needed to compete in the rapidly expanding software market for advanced phones,” said Johan Sandberg, Chief Executive Officer, UIQ Technology. “This announcement is a positive development as it will strengthen the capabilities and services available for phones based on UIQ and Symbian OS whilst allowing us to focus on the core product development of Symbian OS for the mass market. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Sony Ericsson and UIQ on future phone projects,” said Nigel Clifford, Chief Executive Officer, Symbian.Sony Ericsson expects the transaction to be completed over the next few months, pending regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications serves the global communications market with innovative and feature-rich mobile phones, accessories and PC-cards. Established as a joint venture by Sony and Ericsson in 2001, with global corporate functions located in London, the company employs over 7,000 people worldwide, including R&D sites in Europe, Japan, China and America. Sony Ericsson celebrated the 5th anniversary of the start of the joint venture on 1st October, 2006.Sony Ericsson is the global title sponsor of the Women’s Tennis Association, and works with the Association to promote the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour in over 80 cities during the year. The tour culminates at the Sony Ericsson Championships in Madrid, Spain, from 7 to 12 November. For more information on Sony Ericsson, please visit www.sonyericsson.com

“The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved a navigator by Mitac called MDPNA 470T, which will be released under Medion brand.This GPS navigator is equipped with a touchscreen LCD, an expansion slot for SD/MMC cards. It’s possible to use the navigator as a media player. Besides Medion MDPNA 470T has an integrated support of Bluetooth.” via mobile-review.com