Major wireless carriers sign up
Andrew Mayeda, Ottawa Citizen
Sun
OTTAWA — Microsoft Corp. is taking dead aim at Research in Motion’s popular BlackBerry device with a new wireless e-mail system that will run on smart phones made by Motorola Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
The world’s biggest software firm unveiled the operating system, called Windows Mobile 5.0, at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona Monday. Major wireless carriers such as Cingular Wireless and Vodafone Group have signed on to offer the phones.
The system, which will be compatible with Microsoft’s popular Exchange server, will “push” e-mail messages to the phones in much the same way as RIM’s software sends e-mails to the BlackBerry.
RIM has posted stellar growth in recent years by jumping to the front of the wireless e-mail market and racking up lucrative fees from carriers and corporate customers to install the company’s e-mail software. At the end of its latest quarter, the company had 4.3 million BlackBerry subscribers.
But the cloud over the company has grown darker in recent weeks as a patent dispute with U.S. firm NTP Inc. comes to a head. A U.S. federal judge will decide later this month whether the BlackBerry will be shut down south of the border.
Meanwhile, big competitors such as Nokia and upstarts such as Good Technology have been developing their own e-mail software to supplant RIM’s moneymaker. Industry observers had been expecting a new Microsoft offering for months, said Research Capital analyst Nick Agostino.
“It didn’t just come out of the blue. Actually, it was a little behind schedule,” he said. “For Microsoft, this will certainly help validate [their technology] and push the market.”
The software giant is hoping the technology will help extend wireless e-mail beyond top executives to the corporate rank and file.
“We’re at the tipping point of seeing exponential growth in this area,” Pieter Knook, Microsoft’s senior vice-president for mobile and embedded devices, told The Associated Press.
But he acknowledged, in a separate interview with Bloomberg News, that it could take more than a year before Microsoft overtakes RIM in terms of subscribers.
To promote the phones, Microsoft plans to launch a print and outdoor advertising campaign geared toward business travellers in Germany, France, Spain, Britain and the United States.
Despite Microsoft’s heft, the new system faces a number of hurdles in competing with the BlackBerry, including questions about cost, security, bandwidth capability, and the ability to operate on non-Microsoft software platforms, said Agostino.
“It’s still early days, but the Microsoft solution has its limitations.”
Neil Strother, research director for mobile devices at the NPD Group, said the announcement hardly represents a “death blow” for RIM, which has been “attacked from all sides for some time.”
“RIM has a pretty good installed base that’s fairly loyal,” he said. “The term ‘crackberry‘ was earned for a very good reason.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2006