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China's TCL to use Microsoft mobile software

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CIOL Bureau
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Tony Munroe

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HONG KONG: Software giant Microsoft Corp., scrambling for a share of the huge

global wireless market, said on Thursday that fast-growing China-based TCL

Mobile has signed a deal to use its mobile software standard in cellular phones

and handheld computers.

TCL Mobile, which is 30 per cent-owned by Hong Kong-listed TCL International

Holdings Ltd., sold 1.04 million mobile handsets in the first quarter of this

year, compared with 114,000 a year earlier, and is the biggest domestic player

in the world's largest mobile phone market.

Shenzhen-listed TCL Communications owns 40 per cent of TCL Mobile. Juha

Christensen, vice president of US-based Microsoft's mobility group, told Reuters

in a phone interview from Beijing that TCL is likely to begin producing a

version of Microsoft's voice-enabled Pocket PC Phone Edition by the fourth

quarter of this year.

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TCL's version of the Windows Powered Smartphone, which will have a bigger

screen and more data capabilities than an ordinary handset, will likely be ready

in the second quarter of 2003. "It's really up to TCL how quickly they do

their engineering and pre-production and quality assurance and so on,"

Christensen said.

He declined to provide production targets. While numerous handheld device

makers use Microsoft software, few cellphone makers have thus far signed on to

its advanced offerings, although the company as inked partnerships with several

major mobile networks in Europe and the United States.

In addition to TCL, Microsoft's mobile handset partners include Korean giant

Samsung Electronics and Britain's Sendo Ltd., and Taiwan's High Tech Computer

and Compal Electronics.

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Microsoft's rival in the handset space is British mobile software maker

Symbian, which was spun off from handheld computer maker Psion. Symbian's owners

include top cellphone makers Nokia, Motorola, Japanese-Swedish joint venture

Sony-Ericsson and Siemens.

"We believe that mobile devices with only voice functionality will end

up in the same category that pagers are in today," said TCL Mobile

president Wang Mingjian in a media release.

He said TCL's tie-up with Microsoft will help it reach its goal of being one

of the world's five largest makers of multimedia and mobile devices within three

to five years. Under terms of its non-exclusive deal with Microsoft, TCL will

pay the company a royalty based on the number of devices sold, Christensen said.

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