Putting Voices In The Palm Of Your HandPutting Voices In The Palm Of Your Hand

Microsoft is pushing new wireless strategies and software geared to promote the use of its Pocket PC 2002 wireless operating system. Microsoft is selling its new Pocket PC 2002 phone edition software to mobile-device makers. The new software adds voice and calling capabilities to PDAs that use its Pocket PC 2002 operating system. Hewlett-Packard is integrating the software into its new Jornada 928 PDA.

Microsoft and chipset makers like Intel and Texas Instruments are developing a standardized way of using Pocket PC operating system to build PDAs and "smart phones," which combine PDAs with cell-phone functions. Intel is supplying its personal-Internet client architecture, which includes processors that power Pocket PC PDAs, baseband chipsets, and flash memory. Texas Instruments is providing the hardware for smart phones using the Pocket PC operating system. Creating less proprietary cell-phone infrastructures and ways of building phones not only could shorten product development time, it could help the ailing telecom industry shake off its doldrums. Currently, there's no interoperability between cell-phone hardware and applications, Gartner research director Phillip Redman says. "Nothing rides independently on mobiles," he says. "You can't take one mobile application and use it on another hardware."

In related news, Microsoft announced the availability of the mobile information server 2002 enterprise edition, which makes Exchange 2000 server information and corporate intranet data available to mobile users of the Pocket PC 2002 operating system.