Microsoft Corp. introduced its long-awaited dual-mode microbrowser last week, which allows wireless phones to access Internet content written in both Wireless Application Protocol language and traditional Hypertext Markup Language.
Kevin Dallas, group product manager for Microsoft’s Wireless Telephony unit, said the Mobile Internet Explorer browser accesses HTML content through filtering on both the server and in the device.
The first step takes place at the server, he said. Internet servers follow the instructions given by the browser. Desktop computer browsers can be configured to tell the server to send only text information and eliminate any graphics. The Mobile Internet Explorer is configured in this manner.
The next level of filtering takes place in the device, where the software pulls only the needed information to display on the screen.
“This filtering takes place on the Web server and less on the client,” Dallas said.
Aside from microbrowser technology, the Microsoft Mobile Internet Explorer is a modular software platform that can support many levels of functionality, depending on what the handset manufacturer licensing it wishes to create, the company said.
“The unfortunate truth is that the wireless industry has been a story of a lack of compatibility,” said Bob Muglia, group vice president of Microsoft’s Productivity Group. “One of the focuses we have with Mobile Internet Explore is to support different modes.”
The software contains a version of Microsoft’s Windows CE Operating system designed specifically for mobile phones-allowing such features as over-the-air data synchronization, third-party application hosting and new multimedia content delivered from third-generation networks.
A vendor wanting to create a basic Internet phone may activate only the microbrowser function. Should that vendor want to create a smart phone capable of running both network and local applications, it can tap into the Windows CE functions of the software.
“It allows you to do rich application processing on the device,” Dallas said. “It’s like a library of modules.”
Looking to the future, Dallas said Microsoft also hopes to target the wireless space with server technology designed to transmit Internet content to wireless devices.
“We are evolving Exchange so that it is an optimal messaging server for mobile devices,” he said. “We’re also committing ourselves to evolving our products for carriers, and Exchange is our primary offering in that space.”
Microsoft is not disclosing how it plans to license the software yet, but Dallas said the company wants any agreement to be part of a more broad-based partnership between it and the licensee, not just a software licensing deal.
