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Magneto: not a Mutant X-Man, but a shocking secret windows Mobile OS with legal problems

We expected the newest version of a Microsoft operating system last month. We predicted it. The day arrived - February 16th; and no Magneto - the latest version of Windows Mobile. Why not? "Lawyers!" is the latest theory.

In short, the mystery of why Magneto was pulled from release at Cannes may be solved: it's something which Microsoft fears will get it into legal hot water, because it may well appear to breach intellectual property rights - of an American email firm called Visto.

The new version of Windows Mobile was, originally, scheduled for release on February 16th - third day of 3GSM Congress - and when this was reported, Microsoft went into an unprecedented melt-down.

The web site which reported it took the report down. All that's left is a note which says that "at the request" of Microsoft, the information was removed.

Naturally, speculation went wild. At the 3GSM Congress, people offered outrageous whispered speculation, knowing hints, and even flat invention as fact. There was going to be a European anti-trust suit against Microsoft, said one, positively. "And with the release of Magneto, Research in Motion and Blackberry are dead. So Microsoft is holding back until the lawsuit is resolved."

It's sort of plausible, in a weird way; if Microsoft were (for example) in the final stages of a dispute with the European Community over Windows Media then (as I suggested to  eWeek.com readers, it would be tactful to wait till the customs men left the shed before breaking out the contraband.

But it doesn't make sense if that's all there is to it. After all, how on earth would Magneto kill RIM? And if it will, how will delaying it avoid the inevitable?

Well, if people think RIM is involved, that points to email. Just what is going on in the email world, right now, as far as mobile users are concerned? What's in email for the mobile user

"Nobody in the market has a proper 'push' mail solution, except for RIM" explained a Merril Lynch consultant. "The IT world isn't happy with getting alerts for email over SMS. It's not secure. And equally, they aren't happy with an "always-on" connection from a smartphone over GPRS via a virtual private network - it's not always on, it's costly, and a lot of carriers won't support VPN properly anyway."

Does Magneto have a push email solution?

"Yes, it does. Well, no, not really. Well, yes, but you have to understand, it's complicated..." So I sat down and put my best Grasshopper face on. My tutor, an old guru of the mobile business said: "The problem with Microsoft email isn't just push. They have a push solution, but the first version of Magneto won't really have proper push. But it will have better integration with Outlook and Exchange Server."

So (I said, trying to show how intelligent a Grasshopper I was) later in the year, Magneto will have full push email from Exchange Server?

"That's the plan, but there are problems. First, the Open Mobile Alliance is preparing a push solution. Microsoft's Magneto solution will have to be OMA compliant, and I don't think it is, yet," said my guru.

But it can be made to be, surely? Just a small delay, of the sort we're seeing?

Oh, easily, said the guru. "But that's not the problem. The problem is Visto."

Visto has proper push email? "Yes, it does, and actually so do a few others. But that's not the problem! The problem is, Visto is suing everybody over its software patents on push email."

Back in February, Visto announced that it was suing Scandinavian mobile email pioneer  Smartner. Smartner has a mail system called Duality. And where did Smartner get Duality from?

Back in April 2003, Smartner bought Cambridge email expert, Commtag  which developed Duality. At that time, outgoing CEO Geoffrey Baird predicted great things for Duality, which had just won the 2003 3GSM Congres award for "best mobile data product" and remarked that it had absolutely no competition.

And at that time, that was true. Visto did have a very similar product, but it was true to say they didn't compete. The reason it was true was not that Smartner and Visto were doing different things. It was far simpler: Smartner was operating in Europe, and Visto was operating in North America.

Visto has been pretty hot on keeping its intellectual property rights well protected. April last year was in fact when Visto sued Seven Networks - a suit now settled with money passing from Seven to Visto, say my sources. And later last year (September) Visto settled with Infowave. Same lawsuit: infringements of IP on email push to mobile.

What happened to bring Smartner into the frame? Easy: it launched into American markets. This week, in fact, it showed up at CTIA announcing that it was offering "always-on email for common cellular telephones."

Visto (says my guru) looked at Smartner for the first time in any depth, and decided that it had a valid claim to "prior art" and sued

Interesting! That explains (perhaps) why Smartner and Visto are at loggerheads. Who will win? Well, the courts will decide. But how does this affect Microsoft?

"Oh, come on, Guy," said the guru, with his best Grasshopper-squashing grin. "Guess what happened to all the staff at Commtag when Smartner took them over?"

I dunno. They went to Microsoft?

"Bingo!"

And now (says the guru) Microsoft has some rather nice software, but it's not at all clear exactly what the status of the intellectual rights inside it are. Are they similar to Commtag Duality? Oops. Are they similar to Visto? Ouch.

What say we wait till the Visto-Smartner lawsuit is settled, before launching Magnet? And in the meantime, let's reverse-engineer all that push email stuff, and check it against Visto's patent list (which, helpfully, Visto has published in its  publicity announcement - and make sure we aren't walking into crocodile-infested waters.

When Magneto ships, of course, it will be the best way of integrating Exchange and mobile. Or, perhaps, it'll be just another Microsoft kludge which won't work properly until version 4.1 - but either way, what Microsoft can't afford to do, is launch a major new operating system - Windows Mobile 2005  which instantly becomes the subject of litigation.