Windows Mobile at CTIA

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PC Magazine posted an interesting article about CTIA. I had a lot of fun at CTIA this year. The first day "pre-show" was very busy for me as I had the opportunity to participate in a panel at the Smartphone Summit, made a presentation at an Ingram Micro event on mobility, attended the AT&T / Accenture enterprise mobility summit and afterwards went to a channel event at the AT&T park.

There were two big things that happened at CTIA:

FIRST -  what most people expected: a number of new phones were launched,

  • The Balckjack II by Samsung - faster, stronger, sleeker (and with GPS) - more info at https://www.samsungmobileusa.com/blackjackII/
  • The Sprint Vogue (HTC Touch) was announced just before CTIA and was held by Steve Ballmer during the keynote
  • Of course the AT&T Tilt has been around for a few days and has received great reviews. It is the first WM6 phone for AT&T's portfolio
  • The Samsung i760 is Verizon's first WM6 Professional (PocketPC) phone
  • The Motorola Q9 Global is coming soon and one of my all-time favorite phones
  • iMate announced a number of new phones in their Ultimate line. One really nice feature is VGA out connector.  Nichole Buchannan from iMate gave her presentation direct from her phone at the Smartphone Summit. Take a look at the specs for the Ultimate 8150:
    • Windows Mobile 6 Professional
    • 520 Mhz processor + nVidia GoForce graphics accelerator
    • 128 Mb RAM + 256Mb ROM
    • Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA, WiFi, Stereo Bluetooth, Infrared radios
    • XGA Video Out (1024x768) and FM Radio tuner

Here si the best aprt - we are not done yet - a few more very exciting Windows Mobile 6 phones are coming soon! and I promise, the WM6 upgrades for the Blackjack, 8525 and Treo 750 are coming very very soon too.

SECOND - Microsoft made an important announcement during Steve Ballmer's keynote. If you missed the keynote you can watch it on demand here . We announced Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 - or "SCMDM08" for Short :-)

This is a server product for large companies thinking about deploying large numbers of Windows Mobile devices. These are the key features:

  • Security and Device Management - Over 100 policies to manage anything from application white-listing to turning off the camera on a phone. Software inventory, on-device encryption for email, instant remote wipe, etc. etc.
  • OTA Provisioning and Updates - software distribution and device provisioning, all based on group policy
  • VPN - This is a fast-reconnect persistent VPN that makes broad line of business applciation deployment a reality 
  • Active Directory integration - this is huge for large companies. now Windows Mobile phones are first-class citizens in a corporate network and get the same treatment, group policies and management tools as users, PCs, servers, printers, etc.

Why is this annuncement important? First, Windows Mobile is no longer "catching up" to anyone in terms of security and devuce management. There are no other solutions in the market that can do AD attach and this level of integration with an existing organization's management tools. Second, this technology enables large deployments for mobile devices using many LOB appalications. This is really going to impact the enterprise market. We have many customers in beta today with large numbers of devices. Bottom line - wireless, welcome to the enterprise. To learn more about this new product please visit https://www.windowsmobile.com/mobiledevicemanager 

Last but not least, Microsoft announced a partnership with Enterprise Mobile, a company that provides a one-stop-shop for organizations looking to deploy Windows Mobile devices: from strategy assesment to device deployment processes to SCMDM08 beta services. In other words, a single throat to choke. Check their website to learn more.

Whew! it's a lot - very exciting stuff. 2008 is going to be a fantastic year for Windows Mobile.