New Microsoft OS gets serious about smartphones

Microsoft this week unveiled the latest version of its core OS software, promising manufacturers a more customization-friendly platform and support for more new 3G access technologies emerging worldwide.

The development of Windows Mobile 5.0 targets two persistent weaknesses in Microsoft's PDA/Smartphone platform: its rather rigid hardware requirements and its more lackluster performance in the smartphone space compared to PDAs. Analysts have pointed to the similarity of Windows Mobile-based devices, which do not allow much customization from product to product or vendor to vendor. And while Microsoft has made many inroads into the PDA space against that sector's dominant player PalmSource, it hasn't enjoyed the same success against the dominant Smartphone software-makers, Symbian and Nokia.

The Mobile 5.0 upgrade, however, not only adds more customization options to the Windows stack, it also has built-in support for 3G technologies like UMTS as well as Wi-Fi and expanded Bluetooth features. The enhancements will allow manufacturers to directly integrate high-speed network capabilities into the Microsoft OS.

A host of vendors issued announcements today saying they would immediately support the new OS. Push e-mail developer Visto and enterprise synchronization software-maker Intellisync both hailed the new software release, saying the added functionality of the platform will enhance the reach and capabilities of their products.

While the smartphone market has made a slow start, its momentum is rapidly increasing. A study issued by IDC this week found that PDA sales have started declining relative to smartphone sales. Last quarter, PDA sales fell 12.1% when compared to the first quarter of 2004, while smartphone sales rose 135% in the same period. Recently, Nokia and Symbian upped smartphone stakes with new releases of their OS and middleware platforms, both geared at bringing smartphones from the high-end to the mid-range price brackets.