Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Cingular to sell phone with Microsoft software


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. cellphone service provider, said on Wednesday it would begin selling a mobile phone running the latest Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) software for mobile phones.

The Cingular-branded 2125 Smartphone, made by High Tech Computer Corp. (2498.TW) will go on sale for $199 on Wednesday. Cingular, a venture of AT&T Inc (NYSE:T - news) and BellSouth Corp. (NYSE:BLS - news), is aiming the phone at both business and consumer customers, spokesman John Kampfe said.

It will be the U.S. first phone based on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 software that has a typical cellphone dial pad instead of a tiny computer-style keyboard.

Palm Inc (Nasdaq:PALM - news) and UTStarcom Inc. (Nasdaq:UTSI - news) already sell phones in the United States using Windows Mobile 5.0 but these are aimed mostly at business customers and have small computer-like keyboards.

In the first half of the year Microsoft plans to provide a software upgrade that will let the phone automatically deliver e-mails from Microsoft's office e-mail system, potentially helping it compete better with Research In Motion (Toronto:RIM.TO - news).

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