Vodafone and Microsoft gang up for phone software

Vodafone has announced it is working with Microsoft for future handset development, with a view to ramping up new services.

According to the operator, the pair will now work on software designed to speed up the development of new services and applications for Windows Mobile devices, as well as get them up and running more cheaply.

The first device to be built using the software will come from handset vendor Samsung and is due to be released in the first half of 2007.

A Vodafone spokesman told silicon.com the company had inked the deal to make service development "a lot less code writing and lot less kerfuffle".

Over the next five years, Vodafone will be committed to three smart phone platforms - Linux, Microsoft and Symbian. However, the operator's spokesman said it won't necessarily mean it will exclude supporting other OSes.

He said: "We're not going to say if it's on another platform it's out the door: it's not that dictatorial. There's room for other proprietary platforms."

Of the smart phone OSes, Microsoft remains very much the minnow - 2005 saw it sell around five million devices. Symbian sold almost seven million in the first quarter of that year.

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However, the deal with Vodafone may well indicate that the operator will be adding more Microsoft-based handsets to its portfolio, including consumer focused devices. Linux handsets are also likely to make a more significant appearance in future, following its decision to join a project to further standardisation of mobile Linux.

Vodafone is not the only network to back standardisation. Fellow operator Orange has also picked a favoured operating system. Last month, it announced it was to standardise development on the S60 platform, which is synonymous with the Symbian OS.