Day: October 3, 2007

Quickoffice, Inc., the leading global provider of mobile Office productivity software, today announced the latest version of its award-winning software suite, Quickoffice Premier v4.5, is now fully integrated with Mail for Exchange 2.0 (MfE), recently announced by Nokia. This latest release delivers the first integrated mobile email and attachment handling solution for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint® files on S60 3rd Edition phones.Currently, mobile professionals using Mail for Exchange 2.0 can access and synchronize with their Microsoft Exchange email accounts while away from the office. With this release of Quickoffice Premier, users have seamless access to attachments through a new ‘Mail for Exchange’ view directly inside the Quickoffice application, allowing them to easily retrieve, view, edit and save any Office document attachment in their mailbox. A new and intuitive top-level menu interface in each Quickoffice application significantly reduces the number of steps normally required for users to edit and respond with email attachments on their smartphone. “Providing Mail for Exchange on our latest devices aligns with our goal to offer multi-vendor application support, which is important for meeting the needs of the market today as well as in the future,” said Mark Thomas, director, business development, Mobility Solutions, Enterprise Solutions, Nokia. “Nokia mobile devices provide an excellent and intuitive voice and messaging user interface and now, Quickoffice has further simplified attachment handling which is an important step in enhancing the email user experience on mobile devices.”“We believe this greatly enhances the mobile email experience and will increase productivity for busy mobile professionals, empowering them with quick and easy access to their Office attachments while away from the office,” said Paul Moreton, vice president of product management at Quickoffice. “We are pleased to have jointly created this innovative functionality in both Mail for Exchange 2.0 and Quickoffice Premier.” The Quickoffice Premier suite enables users to benefit from optimized handling of all Office document files and now offers a wide-range of robust features, which include multi-lingual spell check and superior document ‘round-trip’ capabilities to retain file formatting and maintain data integrity. This latest release of Quickoffice Premier will be available as a free upgrade to existing users of Quickoffice Premier v4 or later via Quickmanager™, the secure on-device portal. For more details please visit www.quickoffice.com/MFE.

“HTC reports it has sold 800,000 of its Touch mobile phones since they went on sale on July 22nd. In roughly the same period of time (2.3 months) the iPhone sold 1 million units, although that was restricted to the US while the Touch was in multiple countries. Still, 800,000 isn’t for a company with no brand name, and indicates that higher-end devices are beginning to gain the attention of buyers. I think the hype around the iPhone had a lot to do with generating that interest, rather than Apple getting lucky and releasing the iPhone at the right time. HTC has beaten Apple to the launch of the next version of its handset (which is unsurprising considering it is a handset manufacturer and used to the market) with the Touch Dual phone. “France Telecom’s mobile arm Orange will be the first operator to sell the phone – which can run on a 3.5G/HSDPA network – in the U.K., France, Romania and Poland, starting in October. The phone – which like Apple’s iPhone has a two-megapixel camera, touch screen and the ability to rotate images – will be provided free in the U.K. to Orange customers on a 35 pound-a-month tariff” reports Dow Jones. “via moconews.net

Motorola Inc. today introduced a new version of its flagship MC70 mobile computer, featuring integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) capability. This new option of Motorola’s fastest-selling rugged mobile computer will allow organisations with field-based employees, such as postal companies, to track and manage dynamic, real-time tasking, as well as verify specific locations of activities and provide mobile workers with pinpoint navigation support to improve location-based productivity.The MC70 has been widely embraced for its lightweight, ergonomic design and ability to withstand the rigours of everyday use in harsh environments. Protected against a variety of environmental risks, including frequent drops to concrete, and exposure to water, dust and extreme temperatures, the MC70 is optimised for both indoor and outdoor applications. With over a quarter of a million MC70 devices being used by mobile workers each day, this device is already allowing enterprises to seamlessly connect their workers to their back office systems leading to increased productivity and customer service. Now with new locationing capabilities, Motorola’s MC70 is once again connecting people and products to information resources, and transforming businesses – making them more efficient and responsive to customers to gain a competitive advantage“Enterprise customers today have come to expect seamless information exchange with their service providers, and this relies fundamentally upon accurate, real-time information from field workers” said David Picton, industry director for logistics, Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility business. “For example, mail and express enterprises need to know exactly where their packages and workers are in order to operate in a highly-competitive market. The GPS locationing functionality in the MC70 will allow them to ensure that their pickup and deliveries occur at the right place at the right time – the essence of enterprise mobility.”The MC70 EDA delivers flexibility and global coverage with converged voice and data capture. Utilising SIRF III technology, the MC70 GPS-enabled EDA will continue to provide feature rich functionality including barcode data and signature capture in addition to wide area connectivity with support for high-speed EDGE networks, wireless 802.11a/b/g networks and Bluetooth. One company that has created software compatible with the Motorola MC70 is ALK Technologies, with its award-winning CoPilot® Live navigation system. CoPilot Live takes full advantage of the device’s in-built GPS receiver and mobile Internet connectivity to provide business-specific satellite navigation with integrated fleet management – all in one data centric device.“We are already witnessing how professional satellite navigation can help improve the efficiency of mobile work forces of all sizes by reducing driver stress and significantly decreasing wasted mileage between appointments,” said Dan Popkin, sales director of ALK Technologies Ltd. “In addition, integrated fleet management improves communication with field workers and helps businesses demonstrate their Duty of Care to their mobile employees.” The GPS-enabled MC70 will be showcased in Barcelona at Post Expo 2007 and at the IT Convergence Show in Paris in October 2007. The MC70 GPS version will be available for sale worldwide in the first quarter of 2008.

“Palm’s CEO Ed Colligan made a number of comments on the next generation linux-based operating system currently under development at Palm. Colligan made a series of comments on its progress, potential and estimated delivery during remarks at today’s Q1 FY08 investor conference call. Colligan told investors in his opening remarks that the Centro systems team and all Foleo engineers are now totally focused on delivering the next generation platform. He also put a concrete timeframe on its debut, stating they expect it to be “available” by the end of next calendar year. After years of lingering rumors, Colligan first confirmed the project at an analyst even in April. The OS is widely expected to be the long awaited replacement to the Palm OS. This Linux based OS has been largely developed at Palm and is not to be confused with ACCESS Inc’s mobile Linux project, ALP. Colligan further remarked that part of the focus on the new OS is that Palm does not lose the ease of use and developer support they have had for more than a decade with the Palm OS and will extend Palm’s rich heritage of innovation. Later in the Q&A section of the conference call questions about the new OS came up a number of times and Colligan made further remarks on the issue. When asked about how progress was coming along and if Palm was meeting its milestones on the new OS Ed remarked that the development has “gone as well as possibly could be expected” and he felt that it was coming along on schedule. He also stated that there was much more excitement around it internally at Palm as developers at Palm are now starting to see it working on devices. When asked where things stood on the Foleo project post cancellation, Colligan again touched on the next-gen OS saying that the future system will enable Palm to deliver a whole range of different products in various form factors including a Foleo like device, all using the same Palm platform. Further on in another question Colligan remarked that Palm is not ceding the high end of the smartphone market to anybody, and that the next generation device will deliver more revolutionary device types. Click the audio player below to listen to a couple of selected quotes from the conference call. You will be able to find an archive of the call on Palm’s Investor Relations site sometime soon. ” via palminfocenter.com