Microsoft and Ericsson announced a joint venture to develop and market mobile Internet products. In addition, Microsoft introduced its dual-mode microbrowser, called Mobile Internet Explorer, which Ericsson will adopt into with WAP stack on certain phones. Ericsson will hold the majority stake in the joint venture.
Motorola announced it will license the Palm operating system from Palm Computing for use in future wireless products. In addition, Motorola and Nokia, as well as America Online, have invested a minority equity stake in Palm, which parent company 3Com plans to spin off through an initial public offering next year. Motorola already is a stake holder in the Symbian venture, which aims to use the EPOC operating system of Psion to power next-generation smart phones.
The WAP Forum and the World Wide Web Consortium announced a formal relationship to define next-generation Web specifications that support the full participation of wireless devices on the Web. The groups are working to develop a common process of producing next-generation XML-based Web specifications, define testing and implementation processes and promote the specifications.
Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard and Telia announced a joint pilot project involving Wireless Application Protocol-based e-services on HP’s e-speak electronic services platform. In the pilot project, Telia will deploy the e-speak platform in its mobile network. Ericsson is contributing its WAP equipment and terminals. Following the pilot project, the companies plan to launch the first of a series of wireless e-services, an automated scheduling service and a corporate directory service to engineering firms with field engineers.
ICL, a U.K.-based wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu, announced a US$161.7 million e-business expansion initiative, including a focus on wireless services.
