The deal is the first for Ericsson Microsoft Mobile Venture, a joint effort with phone and telecom equipment maker L.M. Ericsson. In late 1998, the company joined with Qualcomm Inc. to fund Wireless Knowledge Inc., a San Diego company that has developed Workstyle Server, which lets users access Microsoft Exchange 5.5 and Outlook via any wireless device or network. Workstyle Server for Exchange will be the underlying technology in Microsoft's branded wireless messaging server, the Microsoft Mobile Information Server that's being tested by a num-ber of companies and wireless carriers, and is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2001, Gode says. Despite the competition, it's hard to avoid working with Microsoft. Determining a clear winner at this stage is difficult.
Most analysts expect businesses to use several kinds of mobile devices and applications.
But Rubenstein adds that TD Waterhouse also is developing apps for Palm, Research In Motion, and Wireless Application Protocol-based products. He predicts that in five years, half of customer stock trades through TD Waterhouse will be via wireless devices. Things change all the time, there's money at stake, and you need to stay in touch. Microsoft's third area of mobile focus, the Windows CE operating system, also is its most publicized. Early versions of Windows CE tried to be too much like a desktop browser and thereby used too much power and too many processing cycles, resulting in slow performance.