Microsoft launches UK Internet cellphone trial

Microsoft has selected recently acquired British technology as a key component of its strategy to provide Internet access via mobile phones.

Starting this month, Microsoft and BT will trial a specially developed GSM mobile phone equipped with an operating system independent microbrowser developed by Microsoft and UK start up STNC, which it bought in July.

The microbrowser allows Web browsing and email on "low end" mobile phones. Microsoft is also working on a version of its Windows CE operating system for more sophisticated phones, called smart phones, with first products expected this month.

During the trial, around 1,000 staff at the BBC, Credit Suisse First Boston, KPMG and Nortel Networks will trial new mobile phone handsets that let them send and receive email, browse the Web and make calls.

The trial will use the BT Cellnet mobile network in the UK and Telenor Mobil in Norway.

The handsets, developed with French company Sagem and Samsung Electronics, include the microbrowser and are compatible with Microsoft's Exchange Server and Windows NT server running Microsoft's Internet Information Server technology.

BT and Microsoft said internal trials have already proved successful and they anticipate a "sizeable deployment" of the technology to their international partners early next year.

STNC's microbrowser emerged earlier this year and was initially seen as a threat to CE after being adopted by Microsoft's rival mobile computing consortium Symbian, backed by vendors including Nokia and Ericsson. Microsoft started working with STNC itself, before purchasing the company in July.

Windows CE marketing manager Greg Levin said Microsoft will be producing a range of software products for both low and high end mobile phones.

"We will have an operating system for every type of phone - an operating system as well as a microbrowser. We're very committed to contributing to this marketplace with a lot of technology. This autumn time we will see a lot of activity from Microsoft," he said.

But Microsoft may have a problem getting its technology out in the mobile phone marketplace. The handset market is dominated by Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola, which are at present committed to the Symbian platform for mobile Internet. This includes the outstanding contract with STNC for a microbrowser, which Microsoft will honour.

Microsoft said it is designing its microbrowser and micro-OS technology to work on all hardware platforms.

"We'd certainly like to work with everybody and will promote this technology broadly," said Levin.