Microsoft Puts its Stinger in Phones

Microsoft's newest operating system won't run on your PC, but will appear on PDA-enriched smart phones instead.

The company has unveiled beta software for its upcoming mobile operating system, code-named Stinger, at the GSM World Congress in Cannes this week. Mitsubishi Electronics and Sendo are joining Samsung in planning to manufacture handsets that run the Stinger operating system.

The devices will combine data and voice functions, and will run the types of utilities commonly found on personal digital assistants. However, Stinger devices are fundamentally phones.

Microsoft says all three manufacturers plan to release Stinger phones later this year, but when consumers can get them will depend largely on wireless carriers. Stinger phones will probably cost somewhere between the price of a Pocket PC and a Web-enabled mobile phone, says Phil Holden, director of Microsoft's Mobile Devices Division. That's quite a spread; for comparison, Compaq's iPaq PocketPC costs about $600, and Web-enabled phones can be had for $100.

And although he likes the name, the OS won't be called Stinger when it ships, Holden adds.

"Our goal is to be in operator trials this spring and summer, with U.S. carrier deals expected in a month or so," Holden says. "We're hoping for commercial availability of the phones by the end of the year."

Sendo is expected to demonstrate a final prototype of its Z100 smart phone at the show. The tri-mode phone supports GSM and GPRS and has a color display.

More Phone Than PDA

The Stinger platform puts Pocket PC-style personal digital assistant tools into a mobile phone. But don't expect all the functionality of Pocket PC, Holden warns.

"Essentially, it's a phone for data calls and voice calls," Holden says. "We're doing a lot of work to make the voice and data world merge."

Unlike the Pocket PC, which houses software and data on a device, Stinger phone data is server-based. Still, a wireless connection provides immediate access to your e-mail, calendar, and address book. Unlike a PDA, it does not use a stylus but has alternative input tools.

"You can access corporate e-mail, Web mail, or your ISP e-mail from the phone," Holden says. Stinger supports Mobile Outlook, a version of Microsoft's e-mail client.

Stinger also has a "very functional browser," along the lines of the Pocket PC's Pocket Explorer, Holden says. Both the address book and browser can integrate to some degree with the phone's voice features. For instance, when you highlight an 800 number on a Web page, the phone immediately dials it, Holden says.

As part of its .Net strategy to offer software as a service over the Internet, Microsoft is building server technologies to support the Stinger platform.

Sendo Prototype Beats Palm

The Sendo handset will be the first to appear, if only in prototype, Holden says. He describes it as a "tri-band world phone on the new GPRS network, a 2.5G implementation." The 2.5G (generation) refers to an intermediary phase between today's slow second-generation networks and third-generation networks due in the next two to five years. 3G networks promise high-speed wireless voice, data, and multimedia support. An enhancement of GSM, General Packet Radio Service promises speeds of 150 kbps.

Sendo's 99-gram phone is about 30 percent smaller than the popular Nokia 6 series phones on the market today, Holden says. "And it has a decent-size color screen with more pixels than a Palm."

Smart Competition

Microsoft faces some established competition in the smart phone space, namely from its chief PDA rival, Palm, as well as Symbian, a popular platform among European handset and PDA makers.

Kyocera recently released a much improved update to the Qualcomm PDQ Smartphone, which merges the Palm operating system with a mobile phone. And Symbian's operating system already has the support of a host of big-name handset players such as Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Sanyo, and Sony.

While Sendo is a relatively unknown handset maker, Microsoft's Holden notes that Sendo's carrier partners, including Virgin Mobile, are major players.

Microsoft Microbrowser

Besides unveiling the Stinger beta, Microsoft has updated its Mobile Explorer, a microbrowser for Web-enabled phones that supports more WML (WAP), HTML, and CHTML (imode) content. Just released to manufacturers, version 3.0 of the browser adds security including SSL and WTLS protocol 3 (WAP 1.2.1 specification). Samsung is expected to demonstrate a phone using the browser at the show. But while Mobile Explorer is already available in Europe, its U.S. debut remains uncertain.

"We're hoping to see Mobile Explorer on the Samsung phone in the U.S. this year," Holden says.