Mapping Microsoft’s mobile mission

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER — so long as it’s accessible. Mobile computing promises to arm companies with the tools they need to keep communication flowing, regardless of physical barriers. Among companies driving the wireless wagon is Microsoft, which aims to deliver the platforms and devices on which the mobile workforce will rely. InfoWorld Test Center Director Steve Gillmor, News Editor Mark Jones, Test Center Lead Analyst Jon Udell, and Editor at Large Ed Scannell recently sat down with Juha Christensen, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s mobility group, to discuss where the Pocket PC, Wi-Fi, and peer-to-peer fit in to Microsoft’s mobile vision.

InfoWorld: It seems that the Pocket PC Phone Edition is a subtle departure from what we were hearing from Microsoft. There was the Pocket PC skew and then there was the Stinger builds, and they weren’t quite synchronized. Are we seeing the Stinger effort sort of being subsumed by this composite product?

Christensen: No. We’ve moved to unify the code base between the Pocket PC and Stinger, so as we go forward, they’re based on the same code base. That’s great from an ISV point of view, it’s great from a partner point of view, and it gives us some efficiencies as well in building these devices.

InfoWorld: What is the relationship between the Wi-Fi efforts internally at Microsoft and these devices?

Christensen: As we move forward, we’re taking a lot of functionality we put into XP and going to have similar experiences on our handheld devices — in terms of how we discover a Wi-Fi network, how you get access to it, and what the security paradigms around it are. And so all of that we’re integrating into our next releases of Pocket PC and Stinger.

InfoWorld: Palm has said that Wi-Fi integration was the Holy Grail for them but that power considerations were a negating factor, the power drain. Do you share that assessment?

Christensen: No, actually we don’t and we have real experience with that because Toshiba has just brought out a device that has reached a very, very good level of integration. So power consumption is not a problem on that device and we’ve been using them for months on our campus.

InfoWorld: The iPaq is supposed to be coming out with an integrated model at the end of this year.

Christensen: Well, everyone is definitely looking at 802.11 as a key enabler because it is rolling out in enterprises; it’s really starting to happen even in Europe and Asia now. So whenever we talk to OEMs we certainly encourage them to look at Wi-Fi and we also know that, with a few notable exceptions, they’re all looking hard at it.

InfoWorld: What about using Wi-Fi devices as peer devices between these devices? Is that something you’re working on?

Christensen: We’re working on it. I won’t comment on when we might have it — A, because we want to sell what we have today, and B, because we have to determine whether it’s one release or another release. Fundamentally, the whole idea about having devices connect to each other over Wi-Fi, of course, is very interesting, not only between two Pocket PCs but between a Pocket PC and [other] devices on a peer-to-peer basis. Peer-to-peer is definitely on our road map.

InfoWorld: There are some of us who think that Wi-Fi is going to be a stepping stone.

Christensen: Exactly, and there’s an element of that in what I believe as well. Though I think we will — and we’re moving in that direction of seeing devices that integrate definitely in the short-term 802.11 and GPRS [General Packet Radio Service], and then as 3G starts becoming increased from a hardware point of view and from a battery life point of view, because they have some real challenges around that, that they are experiencing in Japan, for example, with the Foma phones on the 3G networks. But as this starts getting feasible, then a sort of grateful degradation from the best bandwidth you can possibly get down to the next level, based on where you are, so you at least always have some level of bandwidth.

InfoWorld: So there are two technologies. There’s the dynamic vertical switching so that you can do the handoff in motion. But then there’s also the degrading of the quality of performance, the richness of the information, having it degrade successfully while maintaining the core information at the lowest bandwidth. Is that being done by your team or is that two different projects?

Christensen: There’re lots of different data types that have to sort of step into — well, take streaming video, for example. Say you’re in the middle of a streaming video stream, you will be able to see a video, run in 802.11, as you switch into another network mode, the frame rate is going to change and the amount of data that’s displayed is going to be different, but you’ll see the stream continuing. If you’re watching Windows media on your PC today and something happens, it continues, but the worst that could happen is that the frame rate goes down or even disappears but the sound continues or whatever. It’s sort of a step down. So we already have this technology in all parts of the company.

But there’s definitely some interesting opportunities — well, maybe I should say challenges — for partners in understanding this area fully. When they build a solution for a workplace, for example, for a mobile worker who has 802.11 in some cases and only GPRS in other cases, and if there is some data in a SQL database that’s got to be populated, well you can set your setting so that once you see there’s an 802.11 at work, you suck down all the data you can and store it offline on the device. And then when you’re in 802.11 you really only go out and get data if there’s additional data that’s necessary and you don’t do a full sink in that situation.

InfoWorld: What’s your take personally and then how do you see the company dealing with Bluetooth?

Christensen: I believe that Bluetooth is a good enabler for some of the lower bandwidth applications that you might want to run — for example, attaching an earpiece to [a device]. You want something that you just plug on that’s almost like a hearing aid, actually, and unobtrusive. And that’s coming out. So I believe Bluetooth is great for these sorts of things, and having different accessories communicate with it, like a little camera, for example, I think that’s great. We support that.

InfoWorld: Are you talking about essentially a strategy of using Bluetooth for certain communication protocols between small devices, or are you talking about having potentially a handoff between a Wi-Fi signal and a Bluetooth signal?

Christensen: That’s interesting. I mean, we have talked much about switching between those two and for us, we’re a platform company so we build in so that OEMs can go out and put either or both into place, even if they wanted to do that. At the app level, we haven’t built too much stuff that takes advantage of this, but we’re exposing the APIs so other people can do that. I think the most important role we have is to create the enabler, make sure that OEMs can integrate around the hardware and build it in there. So I think it’s almost a question that you ask the OEMs because different OEMs have different preferences. Some of them believe they should build in both, some believe in one, some believe in another.

InfoWorld: What’s your relationship with Nokia these days?

Christensen: Nokia, of course, is entering this same market so I think it’s turning into a two-horse race in the smart phone and rich device market. They sort of believe that our standard approach to this market is going to be the PC model and we’re going to apply the PC model to smart phones, and I don’t know what the PC model is. I mean, if the PC model is to make sure that the devices are powerful and inexpensive for people to buy, yes.

InfoWorld: So what efforts are under way to keep .Net developers looped into what you’re doing on the mobile side and building out apps, particularly from the enterprise app space, and sort of tying it all together at the server?

Christensen: We run programs that are aimed at this space here and we recently announced our .Net Compaq framework, which is a Compaq version of the .Net framework for these types of devices, which enables you to pull your applications pretty quickly from the .Net framework over to run on these types of devices to help those guys get to market quicker with their applications. So that’s one of the key areas that we’re investing in.

Source: www.infoworld.com