Andy Sjostrom
04-24-2002, 10:12 AM
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/apr02/04-17christensenqa.asp">http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/apr02/04-17christensenqa.asp</a><br /><br />This inteview with Juha Christensen, Microsoft Vice President of mobility, is a couple of days old but I still recommend reading it if you are interested in how the thinking goes in the upper room. The interview was made in the developer-ish setting of the recent developer conference held in London. Here are some quotes:<br />"The .NET Compact Framework greatly reduces the development cost of writing applications and services that run on devices such as smartphones and PDAs. ... This is the year that integrated, wireless Windows Powered devices, including the Pocket PC Phone Edition and the Microsoft Smartphone 2002 will come to market, and we hope they will be a catalyst for the wireless data economy."<br /><br />I choose to provide you with a larger quote related to Microsoft's view on carriers, a view that I first wouldn't have thought of but have started understand the brilliance of:<br />"Carriers have an extremely important role to play in the distribution of wireless devices and services over their networks and in their knowledge of and interaction with the end customer. We see carriers as a very important partner to us. We want to help them attain and retain customers through the availability of high-value wireless devices and services. On the device side, our approach allows carriers to partner with a hardware manufacturer to customize and even brand the phones and handhelds they offer. We believe this approach will bring about much wider consumer choice, device proliferation, and enable the operators to create segmented solutions to their customers, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all phone. On the software side for carriers, we will support industry standards and work to ensure the quality of wireless applications and services so they are network-ready and reliable."<br /><br />Juha also talks about working with other types of partners, and mentions my favorite mobile device software company Handango:<br />"For example, partners like Handango and Veritest will expand their business around certifying applications; application vendors will have a new customer in the wireless carrier, and wireless carriers can provide value and derive new revenue from these wireless data applications."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/juha.jpg" />