Robert Levy
09-02-2003, 06:43 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pocketpcmag.com/_top/article.asp?artid=396' target='_blank'>http://www.pocketpcmag.com/_top/article.asp?artid=396</a><br /><br /></div>The latest issue of Pocket PC Magazine includes a great introductory article on the Smartphone platform. If you're trying to figure out why Smartphones are a big deal or what makes Microsoft's approach unique, this is a good read.<br /><br />"Recognizing that a certain group of users was especially interested in PDA functionality, Microsoft created the Pocket PC Phone Edition OS and software, allowing manufacturers to create devices that were primarily PDAs and secondarily mobile phones. The devices have a large, color touch screen in place of a conventional telephone keypad, and a full suite of Pocket PC software. However, Microsoft also recognized that there was an even larger group of cellular phone users that wanted advanced data features on their mobile phones, but did not want to compromise its primary purpose—which is to be a phone. So Microsoft developed the hardware specifications and software for a new class of devices, which they called "Microsoft Windows Mobile Smartphones" to distinguish them from similar products."