Symbian, Microsoft ink Exchange deal

Symbian today announced it has licensed rival smartphone OS-maker Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol, filling a key gap between the Symbian's popular phone OS and the ever prevalent Exchange e-mail servers.

While many of Symbian's licensees are targeting their phones at business users, they've had to rely on third-party synchronization solutions to allow their customers to sync e-mail, calendar items and other PIM functions with Microsoft's practically ubiquitous line of office software. As an ActiveSync licensee, Symbian can now develop a protocol that will plug in directly to the Symbian stack that will create a direct over-the-air bridge with a corporate Exchange server. The end result is Symbian vendors and carriers can now market their phones to enterprises with the promise of direct synchronization with the corporate e-mail network.

The deal is the latest in a series that shows more direct cooperation with the Symbian camp in Europe and Microsoft back in the states. While both companies are pursuing their own OS platforms, Symbian and its licensees are looking to Microsoft to provide many of the core applications that will run on top of their platforms. Last month Symbian licensee and majority owner Nokia signed a deal with Microsoft to jointly develop a music download service that bridged wireline and wireless networks. As part of the deal, Nokia agreed to make the Windows Mobile Media Player standard on many of its handsets and use the WMA format for the individual songs.

Microsoft and Symbian did not reveal any details of their licensing arrangement.