Microsoft dials up emerging-market phone push
Microsoft on Monday announced plans for mobile software that aims to allow people in emerging markets to access various Internet programs using lower-end feature phones.
The software, known as OneApp, is due out later this year and should allow people in emerging markets to access services like Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger using the kinds of inexpensive phones most often sold for $20 or $30. Microsoft said Blue Label Telecoms in South Africa will be the first to use OneApp and will use it to offer phones that ship with a dozen mobile applications, including a mobile wallet program as well as the social-networking tools.
A mock-up of OneApp running on a feature phone allowing access to Facebook and other applications.
(Credit: Microsoft)While not an operating system, OneApp is a software environment within which many kinds of programs can run. The key to OneApp, Microsoft said, is the fact that the applications and data run largely from the cloud. That means that OneApp can run on phones with rather meager memory and processing abilities. OneApp itself takes up only about 150 kilobytes of memory, as opposed to the many megabytes often used on programs for smartphones. Individual applications can be as small as 10 to 15 kilobytes.
"When you launch an application, (OneApp) only loads the part of the application that you want," said Amit Mital, the corporate vice president in charge of Microsoft's "unlimited potential" unit, which focuses on emerging markets. "We use very intelligent and sophisticated caching. The rest of it sits in the cloud."
Microsoft has been working on OneApp for the past year and a half, noting that there are hundreds of millions of feature phones in emerging markets, most of which aren't being used to run software.
"People have used them just for voice and SMS" (Short Message Service), Mital said. "What we want to do is unlock their power so they can be used from a broader set of services and applications."
The move comes as Microsoft is also struggling to keep up in the smartphone race against heightened competition from the likes of Apple, Google, Research In Motion, and others. Microsoft said that OneApp is separate from its Windows Mobile efforts.
Mital stressed that OneApp is an adjunct to Windows Mobile, which is still the company's bet for smartphones, and is largely aimed at emerging markets, rather than developed ones.
OneApp is Microsoft's plan for developing markets for the here and now. Longer-term, Microsoft has been exploring a concept called "phone plus," in which a smartphone could be plugged into a television and keyboard to act as a sort of basic computer.
With OneApp, Microsoft will find itself competing against applications written for Sun's J2ME.
Mital said that the big advantage of OneApp is that programs written for it should run on most OneApp-enabled phones, something he said is often not the case with Java.
"If you build an app for one phone it may or may not work on another phone," Mital said. "The development cost is extremely excessive. You go through the development cycle over and over. That is just debilitating."
For now, Microsoft is working directly with select partners to develop OneApp, but eventually Microsoft plans to release a software development kit to allow others to write their own OneApp programs. Programs for OneApp can be written using tools like XML and JavaScript, Mital said. "The world does not need another new programming paradigm. We were very determined to use existing programming paradigms."
In addition to Blue Label Telecoms, which is launching shortly, Mital said that Microsoft hopes to announce one or two more carriers using OneApp before the end of the year.
Although there are plenty of feature phones still shipping in developed markets, such as the United States and Europe, Mital said Microsoft is focusing on emerging markets.
"Right now my team is extremely focused on emerging markets," Mital said. "There's literally billions of customers in these markets."
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Win Mobile is now fighting entrenched competition from the wrong end of the market share. It is looking to be an even more expensive proposition down the road. This OneApp thing, though, sounds like it could give them a chance to create their own market and rules.
Who could of guessed they were working on OneApp for developing nations. A surprising development that makes sense to me. They can now go after a market in a previously unthought of manner, and utilize cloud based (Azure) horsepower under development for years to augment the power of the phone bringing new functionality thats difficult to provide otherwise.
Heh - too bad the handset manufacturers are taking the opposite tack, eh? ;)
Voice and SMS are easy to set up... an Internet connection is another thing entirely (and IIRC, isn't South Africa currently hurting for International bandwidth?)
Most people around the world don't have a smart phone. It is just too expensive for most, and they don't need all the functionality that smart phones give the user.
That is utter rubbish!
Stop spreading uninformed, moronic FUD.
Lol, meanwhile other industries are doing something that is more compelling and more useful to today's mainstream. Grats MS on always be a year and a half behind everyone else. Kinda like your OS. lolz.
Like what for example?
Given that emerging markets like China alone account for more cell phone sales annualy, and a bigger cell phone install base than the entire US market, and by far most of those sales(over 90%), are NOT smart phones, there is nothing that is more "mainstream" than developing apps that can be easily used by non-smartphone users in emerging markets.
If anyone is behind here, it's Apple and Google, who have limted themselves to but a tiny sliver of the cell phone market taht is served by smart phones
This is something that some people here don't understand. Most people do not use and need a smart phone. Most people are looking for a device that allows the user to talk, send SMS, take some pictures, and have a calendar. They don't want to spend a lot of money on it.
Allowing these "dumb" devices to do a bit more is great, especially it allows you to interact with Facebook, etc.
Maybe smart phones are the future, but currently they are a niche in the cellular world. Nokia, Samsung and the likes are the big players (with their normal cells), while Apple and Palm are the smaller ones.
- by qooldude August 25, 2009 4:10 AM PDT
- Interesting. MS have always attacked from the top end of the market before, so this seems like a conscious decision to do the opposite and attack from the bottom end.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(16 Comments)