Motorola and Mercedes-Benz have teamed to offer an integrated version of Motorola’s Timeport digital phone in all model-year 2001 Mercedes-Benz vehicles, the companies said. The CDMA phone is equipped with an Internet mini-browser and on most Mercedes-Benz vehicles, a voice-recognition feature also is available.
Motorola and GoAhead Software Inc. have joined in a five-year, $45 million deal to incorporate GoAhead’s SelfReliant software into Motorola’s Aspira wireless Internet architecture platform. The addition of the SelfReliant software is expected to increase Aspira’s service availability reliability to the magic 99.999-percent figure, a common milestone in the industry.
Motorola’s Computer Group has teamed with Red Hat Inc. to make the Linux operating system ready for telecom applications. The agreement, announced at Linux World Expo, calls for Motorola to package and market Red Hat’s Linux OS with Motorola’s Advanced High-Availability Software for Linux. The product will be shipped with Motorola’s carrier-grade embedded computing platform. As a result, various software tools and application enablers supported on Red Hat Linux will be available to telecom OEMs building wireless, wireline and Internet infrastructure applications.
Motorola introduced its i550plus multi-service digital wireless phone integrating Internet access, text paging and two-way radio capabilities into one handset. Motorola said the handset features extended battery life and supports keypad lock, backlight timer, speakerphone, last 10 numbers sent/received, a missed call indicator and “plus dialing,” providing faster access for international calls.
Youth-oriented lifestyle network Thirsty.com said it will offer 50,000 Motorola Wordline FLX pagers free to new members registering on its site through its On The Go Promotion this September in conjunction with PageMaster. The arrangement will allow Thirsty.com members to receive Thirsty.com content on the devices, the company said.
