BELLEVUE, Wash.-Samsung Telecommunications America Inc. and VoiceStream Wireless Corp. have agreed to develop GPRS phones using Microsoft Corp.’s Stinger smart phone platform and Mobile Internet Explorer microbrowser software for VoiceStream’s GSM network.
VoiceStream has stated it plans to launch GPRS services sometime next year. The carrier said initial handsets on the network will use WAP microbrowsers but will migrate to Microsoft’s dual-mode WAP/HTML microbrowser.
The addition of Microsoft’s Stinger platform will allow these phones to access Microsoft Outlook applications.
In addition to being the first implementation of Stinger in the United States, it also would mark the first major shipment of GSM handsets in the United States by Samsung, which is a large manufacturer of CDMA phones in the country.
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The Stinger platform gained further support with Texas Instruments Inc., which introduced a solution designed to support next-generation GSM networks enabled with GPRS by combining the company’s digital signal processor-based GSM chipset technology and the Stinger smart phone platform.
The combined solution is designed to deliver broadband-enabled wireless applications such as m-commerce, mobile Internet access and corporate e-mail to wireless devices. The companies said the addition of TI products will result in higher performance and longer battery life for supported devices.
In other Microsoft news, the company has teamed with longtime partner Compaq Computer Corp. to offer wireless carriers Microsoft’s Mobile Information Server software loaded on Compaq’s ProLiant servers.