MICROSOFT SHARPENS
BLADES IN CELL WAR
Copyright 2002 www.reuters.com
[ April 26th 2002 ]
The mobile
Internet has been slow to get off the ground,
according to new research, but software makers
are becoming ever more fanatic behind the scenes
to gain support in an industry they view ready
to take off. Just last week, Microsoft's Juha
Christensen invited the 20 biggest software developers
allied to arch rival Symbian to breakfast in an
effort to win them over, much to the chagrin of
Symbian executives when they found out.
It is
the latest stab below the belt in a battle that
is developing nasty edges as the two companies
fight to become the dominant software provider
for hundreds of millions of future mobile phones
and organizers that will be able to play games,
music and video clips and receive multimedia messages.
David
Wood, Symbian's man in charge of partnerships,
evangelism and research, said that had he been
Juha, he would also have been interested to talk
to Symbian's developers. But still, frustration
about Microsoft's infamous competitive behavior
slipped out. "Microsoft can invite our partners
to breakfast, but they can't buy the trust that
we have," Wood added.
It may
seem an unfair fight between David and Goliath.
But in this case Symbian, which employs just a
few hundred staff, is not alone. It is financially
backed by the world's four largest handset makers
and its software is licensed by even more. Symbian
is slowly learning Microsoft's tactic to shout
about every victory. "We're the industry's choice,"
David Levin, Symbian's new chief executive, boasted
at a conference this week. He "called to arms"
1,500 software engineers to write programs for
mobile devices that will link consumers and businesses.
The relevant
question, he added, is not how the market for
mobile data can grow, but how fast. "We already
know which operating system the device makers
will use: Symbian," he said. It is too early to
call a winner in an industry that is just starting.
European wireless carriers have been slow to promote
faster Internet service for cellphones, Britain's
research group Analysys found this week.
One year
after commercial introduction, only one million
out of some 300 million Western European cellphone
users subscribe to general packet radio system
(GPRS), the upgrade from the current standard
that gives always-on and fast access to data services
such as email and Web sites. They could have had
2.5 times as many GPRS subscribers had they offered
better services and handsets, Analysys's researcher
Katrina Bond said. But it is early days for the
system, and it is only now that handsets in Europe
are coming out that resemble those that have made
i-mode in Japan the world's most successful mobile
Internet.
The new
handsets include big color screens and Java software,
which allows users to download new games and other
programs and runs on top of Symbian or Microsoft
operating systems. Mobile operators and thousands
of mobile software developers flocked to conferences
in London last week, organized by both Symbian
and Microsoft.
Developers
demonstrated fast new games, including pinball,
shoot-em-ups, racing simulators and even Tomb
Raider, indicated the mobile phone industry is
everything but moribund. "Finally we see these
products coming to work," said Thor Gunnarsson,
director of strategic marketing at London-based
mobile software maker Ideaworks3D, which writes
programs for devices based on Microsoft as well
as Symbian operating systems.
Few are
so foolish to believe that Microsoft will give
up even before the market is here. They remember
browser-maker Netscape and word processing software
company WordPerfect, both of which owned their
market until Microsoft came along. "This is going
to be the biggest showdown between competing software
platforms in years," one software developer says.
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