Nokia announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its alliance with Microsoft, enabling another 80 million Nokia smart phone users to access email and other services via Microsoft's Exchange Server. The announcement was made last night just before the start of the CTIA tradeshow in San Francisco.
"Nokia owners whose companies use Exchange can set up Mail for Exchange for free on their devices in various ways without paying additional services or subscription fees," the company noted in a statement.The deal expands on a previous Nokia/Microsoft agreement, and will bring the ActiveSync license to all 43 Nokia smart phones that run on the S60 Symbian operating system.
Spurred by product leaks, Microsoft on Monday announced details about its third-generation Zune digital media platform. The announcement came a day before Apple reveals upgrades to its market-leading iPod and iTunes products.
"With the combination of subscription, wireless access to millions of tracks, and powerful discovery features like personal recommendations and the ability to buy music from FM radio, Zune is taking the digital music experience to the next level," said Zune general manager Chris Stephenson.This time around, Microsoft isn't dramatically changing the Zune hardware as they did a year earlier.
Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled its 2008 hardware lineup, with innovative new mouse technology leading the way. The company also unveiled new keyboards, Web cameras, and an online video service aimed at users of those cameras.
It is the mouse, however, that steals the show. Powered by new Microsoft BlueTrack Technology, the 2008 Microsoft Explorer Mouse and Microsoft Explorer Mini Mouse go where no mice have gone before, working on far more surfaces than traditional optical and laser mice. Microsoft also unveiled its fashionable new Arc Mouse, which features a unique folding design and resembles an elegant crescent when it use.
Although I enjoyed the first Windows Vista ad featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, I was clearly in the minority. But the second ad has now debuted, and this one is absolutely classic. It's so funny, in fact, that if you don't enjoy it, you may literally have something physically or emotionally wrong with you and will need to seek professional help. (Actually, that's true of many Apple fans.) Check it out at Windows.com.
Microsoft still isn't quite ready to release its new mobile browser, but I did get an advance look at Internet Explorer 6 for Windows Mobile at a Microsoft event Wednesday night.
The biggest benefit will be the fact that it is the full IE 6 rendering engine, meaning that any page that renders properly in IE 6 on the PC should do just fine on Windows Mobile. Tim McDonough, a senior director in Microsoft's Windows Mobile unit, showed me the browser running the standard MSN home page.
Microsoft on Friday described its next service-oriented architecture solution -- BizTalk Server 2009 -- which is "on track for availability during the first half of 2009," according to the company's announcement.
Microsoft is giving advance notice because many organizations plan their SOA projects as much as five years in the future, according to Oliver Sharp, Microsoft's general manager for BizTalk Server. Sharp provided some additional details, as described in Microsoft's press release.
As part of its strategy for model-driven software development, Microsoft on Wednesday announced it has joined the Object Management
Group.
Microsoft views model-driven technologies as a main pillar of its "Dynamic IT" vision for aligning business and IT. Other
pillars include service enablement, virtualization, and the user experience. In addition to UML backing, Microsoft plans to support BPMN in Oslo and its Visio drawing and modeling tool.
Microsoft confirmed plans Tuesday to use a new type of tracking technology in its mice that will replace the red lasers now common in the industry.
The company says the BlueTrack technology is designed to let mice work on a variety of rough surfaces, not just flat desks or mouse pads. The technology will be introduced in selected mice this fall, but eventually "flow through" to the rest of the product line, said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division.
"This is a big step forward that will reinvent the mouse business for us and really challenge others to keep up," Bach said.
Microsoft says it will forge ahead with its Zune music device despite capturing only a sliver of the market since launching its challenge to Apple Inc.'s dominant iPod two years ago.
"Market share is something we pay attention to, and we try to grow, but it's not the sole measure of how effective we are in the business," Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division, said in an interview Tuesday. The comments came as Apple's Steve Jobs unveiled a refreshed iPod lineup, a day after Microsoft showed its third-generation Zune players.
In the latest attempt to further differentiate itself from the iPod, the Zune will now be able to tag songs from FM radio and purchase the music directly from its marketplace. Microsoft's latest enhancements to its forthcoming Zune models take advantage of two previously included features: the wireless connectivity and built in FM tuner. Called "Buy from FM," the listener will be able to use the RDS data to identify tracks and download it if a wireless connection is available.
Microsoft is also making the Zune Marketplace accessible directly from the device via a Wi-Fi connection. Like the iTunes Music Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, users will be able to browse and buy from featured releases and top songs sorted by genre.