Microsoft’s Stinger to power new smart phones

The next generation of smart telephones are likely to be powerful
computer-like devices offering a number of multimedia capabilities, including
playing video and music. And the company that is pushing for setting a new
software interface standard in future mobile communications is no other than
Microsoft.

The software giant this week announced its "Stinger" Windows-based
software that OEMs will use to power new multimedia smart phone devices that
could hit the market this fall at a cost of about $800.

Microsoft said at least three mobile phone makers, Samsung, Mitsubishi and
Britain's Sendo have agreed to help push Stinger software as a new industry
standard. Others, Vodafone, Australia's Telstra, Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobil and
Spain's Telefonica Movile are planning product trials.

The new phones will make extensive use of the Internet to pull information
from Web sites, receive email and download images and music files. Microsoft’s
Stinger software will compete with similar offerings under development at Psion-owned
Symbian, Silicon Valley’s Palm, and the i-Mode platform from Japan's NTT
DoCoMo.

The next-generation smart phones will be a blend of mobile phones and
hand-held personal digital assistants such as the Palm. Although PDAs are
starting to be equipped with phone options, the new smart phones are designed as
a mobile communications device first and foremost.

Microsoft's Stinger software is a scaled-down copy of the software developed
for Pocket PCs, which in turn is a slimmed-down version of Microsoft Windows for
personal computers. Stinger includes a familiar and easy ''drag-and-drop''
system that allows computer programmers to quickly transform their Windows-based
applications into Stinger-based applications.

Microsoft claims Stinger devices will run all applications that are written
in open standards-based software, such as WAP and XML. But the best performance
will be achieved by using Stinger-specific applications, the company said.

Stinger-based smart phones would require 8 Megabytes of memory and are
expected to operate with data speeds of 100 to 150 kilobytes per second.

These speeds can be achieved on 2.5 generation GPRS mobile networks late this
year or the beginning of 2002.