Windows Mobile for Partners : Announcements

CoPilot 6 announced

stevecla01 — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 19:25:32 GMT

They powered the Gumballers across Europe and now the boys over at ALK have been busy updating CoPilot and have announced the arrival of v6. I *love* this application as it just works - it's easy and powerful and if you're a business, you will love the Live element that allows you to track units in the field. Check out the business solutions site from ALK where they highlight their recent partnership with TBS

The benefits of Microsoft mobile messaging

stevecla01 — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 19:36:46 GMT

Our partner in crime,Jason Langridge, has just posted a great piece on a paper by IDC outlining the benefits of Microsoft Mobile Messaging solution.

The headlines were that companies implementing Microsoft Mobile based solutions:

Paid back the cost of implementation in 4.3 months
The one-year return on investment (ROI) of implementing the mobile solution was 129

Business Travel Stops Here

stevecla01 — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 23:28:43 GMT

Well it made me laugh

Visual Studio Hosted training

stevecla01 — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 14:15:48 GMT

If you're a developer you may want to check out the Visual Studio hosted labs - a great way to learn more about VS2005

Implementing Mobile Solutions with Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and Windows Mobile 5.0: online training

stevecla01 — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 20:57:13 GMT

Great news for Microsoft Partners working with Exchange - we now have a Hand on Lab (HOL) available on the Microsoft Partner Program site. As many of you will know, SP2 for Exchange is shipping soon (very soon!) so now is a great time to get fully up to speed on how this mobility features work and how to administer them. The Community Tech Preview of SP2 didn't include device wipe but these labs do so well worth checking out.

Enjoy and remember the mobility competency launches very soon so get yourself ready for that be checking out the requirements!

Intro to Blogging

stevecla01 — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 23:04:24 GMT

Hopefully this blog is proving useful to some of our partners out there (let us know if not). We decided to use a blog instead of the bi-montly Windows Mobile kitbag we were previously issuing as a blog allows you to opt in rather than us indiscriminately send you email. It also allows a better drip "feed" of information in an area that is pretty fast moving.

Blogging is somethign Microsoft has really taken to in a big way and employees are encouraged to share their views and thoughts and in that spirit king of the bloggers, Robert Scoble, has an upcoming Technet webcast to introduce you to this rapidly growing and evolving technology. There is also a great intro from the BBC

Microsoft Partner Program 2006 Live Meetings

stevecla01 — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 22:07:54 GMT

Regular readers will be well aware that we're about to launch our Mobility Competency as a new competency within the Microsoft Partner Program. We'll be hosting a Live Meeting on November 2nd to discuss the MSPP 2006 and the new competenices. Worth checking out to find out about the new stuff

WindowsMobileTraining

stevecla01 — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 13:56:45 GMT

You may think from the title of the message that I have a broken space key on my PC - thankfully not :) WindowsMobileTraining is a website that has a terrific set of resources to learn more about the Windows Mobile OS and the devices on which it runs. Windows Mobile 5 training just got added too!

There is also some great content on Windows Mobile vs. competitive devices.

Upgrade Exchange 5.5 Customers before Time Runs Out! - Partner Readiness

stevecla01 — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 22:34:20 GMT

My colleague John Westworth has posted a useful link to Partner Readiness around the impending end of support for Exchange 5.5
Worth a look to learn more about how to leverage the upgrade campaign

A Guide to Windows Mobile Programming for Palm OS Developers

stevecla01 — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:07:03 GMT

With the announcement yesterday of the Palm Treo running Windows Mobile, there is a useful article on MSDN for folks with Palm experience looking to develop with on the Microsoft platform.

Summary: Learn how to help the Palm OS developer make a transition to programming for Windows Mobile. This article describes how to produce powerful software on a variety of Windows Mobile–based devices and how to use existing knowledge to master Windows Mobile programming. (15 printed pages)

Announcement coming on Monday....

martinb — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 13:05:00 GMT

There has been lots of speculation about certain hardware manufacturers and Windows Mobile on the web for a while now. Mike Hall from the MED product group in Redmond has posted a little teaser video on his blog that hints at an announcement coming on Monday from the Windows Mobile group, Verizon and a certain well known hardware manufacturer.

Check out the video at http://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2005/09/23/473531.aspx

TBS Mobility partners with Anite

stevecla01 — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:45:36 GMT

Another great validation of the partnership approac this week - TBS announced a partnership with Anite Mobile that allows the latter to take the TaskMaster Field Mobility solution in to local and central governments, complementing Anite's Enterprise Mobility solution. Anite will act as the exclusive reseller into UK public sector for TBS Taskmaster, whose unique ‘push’ capability will allow real time delivery of jobs; mostly in the housing sector responsive repairs field

Vodafone & Windows Mobile

stevecla01 — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:07:02 GMT

I've worked with Vodafone for a long time on Windows Mobile and it's a pleasure to now see a range of devices bearing a Window Mobile OS on their UK site. The QTEK 8020 smartphone is there along with the QTEK2020i Pocket PC Phone Edition and the VPA Compact (aka Jam). That round out the major operators in the UK now all offering Windows Mobile devices - O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Hurrah!

On a BusinessTime 200 tariff you can get the 8020 for £25 with a monthly charge of £22. For many organisations, a shared user plan is useful and Vodafone offers this with their ShareTime tariff's.

Westcoast: mobility in action

stevecla01 — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:27:38 GMT

Our friends over at Westcoast have a great newsletter that hopefully you receive already but if not check out their site They have a great offer on the HP 6515 Pocket PC Phone Edition which includes GPS in the unit. They also offer special pricing for partners on Windows Mobile devices!

XBOX 360

stevecla01 — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 16:59:35 GMT

Okay, apologies for going off topic again but I thought you may like to know that XBOX 360 day in the UK is going to be Dec 2nd. Start saving those pennies and informing Mr S.Claus :)