MICROSOFT FIRST TO MARKET WITH CDMA SMARTPHONE

Microsoft beat rival software makers Symbian and Nokia to the CDMA market last week when Samsung launched the first CDMA smartphone using the company's Windows-based operating system. Verizon Wireless has agreed to sell the device.

Although Symbian-based devices have been proliferating over GSM networks around the world, the U.S. CDMA market has remained relatively untapped. While the Palm operating system has an estimated 90% market share of all CDMA converged devices, most of those handsets have been PDA hybrids such as the Treo line released by PalmOne. Until last week, the market had yet to see its first true smartphone.

Samsung is a licensee of both the Symbian operating system and the Nokia Series 60 middleware, in addition to being a Microsoft licensee. Samsung also owns a small equity stake in Symbian. While Samsung is launching GSM-based Symbian/Series 60 devices, the vendor decided to favor Microsoft for its bread-and-butter CDMA product line. Samsung has not announced any plans for a Symbian/Series 60 CDMA smartphone, nor could Samsung officials be reached for comment last week.

With a one-year head start over Microsoft, Nokia and Symbian still have a lock on the GSM world. Figures provided by analyst firm IDC showed that Nokia sold 60% of all converged devices globally in the second quarter. Yet Microsoft officials said they do not feel they are starting from behind.

“This market is so new, you really have to look at it more as a marathon than a sprint,” said Ed Suwanjindar, lead product manager for Microsoft Mobile Devices. “The various early measurements for penetration and market share don't mean as much now as they'll mean five years from now.”

The CDMA market will also be an interesting testbed for smart devices. By definition, smart devices aren't intended to be bandwidth-intensive, but the higher capacity data streams of CDMA 1x and 1x EV-DO will support heftier online applications than the current GPRS networks.

“CDMA 1x is a really exciting data set,” Suwanjindar said. “It provides high-value data experiences, which helps our customers fully take advantage of everything on the Windows Mobile platform.”

Samsung's i600 features Microsoft's full Smartphone platform, including scaled-down versions of Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger and Windows Media Player, as well as over-the-air wireless synchronization software designed to link the mobile software to its desktop equivalents. With the new phone, Microsoft now has two Smartphone-based devices in the U.S., the other being Motorola's MPX200, sold by AT&T Wireless.