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Microsoft puts Bluetooth and .Net in SmartPhone 2003

Bluetooth will be part of the next Smartphone. Microsoft kicked off its Paris Mobility Developers Conference with the promise that the .Net compact framework would be shipping in ROM on the next generation of Smartphone devices.

This is very nearly an unofficial announcement of the new Smartphone 2003 platform, which is due for launch to the networks this summer, with new hardware due out by the end of the year.

Also due out in a month or two, is the 2003 edition of Pocket PC software and reference designs, said Charles Fitzgerald, general manager of .Net strategy.

The .Net software gives enterprise-level capabilities to designers of mobile devices, and Microsoft is shipping the new Windows Server 2003, which supports these services, this week. However, nobody should get too excited waiting for the next hardware.

Dates for the new SmartPhone, are being kept close to corporate chests.

Annemarie Duffy, Mobility Marketing Manager, Mobile Devices division wouldn't make any comment about when new hardware would be available, beyond acknowledging that Bluetooth would be on the road map. As with FitzGerald, she conceded: "We will support Bluetooth in the next version," but she refused to make any comment about what the timing for that next version might be.

Meanwhile, she was showing the updated HTC 2002 smartphone version, with brighter screen and easier keyboard. Orange will ship this as the SPV E100 in April/May - in Scandinavia.

Sources close to Microsoft revealed that in fact, the delay before the Bluetooth phone could be considerable.

Part of the problem facing Microsoft is that there are still several people developing versions of the 2002 Smartphone, who are in advanced negotiations with phone operators. They're doing network testing, or customisation of the phone, before announcements, but it has taken longer than expected to finalise.

If it reaches the point that Microsoft is announcing Smartphone 2003 before, say, Samsung or Mitac has announced a carrier for its Smartphone 2003 edition, consumers may well get confused.

But software for the Bluetooth Smartphone edition of PPC 2003 isn't due to be given to the builders till September, and most networks would want another two months to test it, and to roll out the new models.

The other delay is UK/France based. The biggest seller of SPV phones until the E100 comes out, is Orange, which isn't going to switch to the E100 until it has shifted existing stocks. In Scandinavia, that would probably be this month, or at latest, May.

In the UK, at current ship rates of around 3,000 a month, it could take three months to do that - and if people delay buying in expectation of the Bluetooth model, it could take even longer; so there is a real chance that Orange - both in France and UK - could skip the E100 altogether, and launch the Bluetooth model in December for the Christmas season.