MADRID, Spain, and REDMOND, Wash., Oct.16, 2000 — Today, Luis Lada, president of Telef
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viles, and Paul Gross, senior vice president of Microsoft Corp.’s Mobility Group, extended their current agreement — to deploy a new generation of mobile Internet services for corporate and consumer customers — by establishing a joint executive advisory team to rigorously assess and plan new mobile products and services for Telef
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viles’ corporate and consumer customers. The advisory team deepens the relationship between the two companies and creates the opportunity for senior representatives from both companies to work side by side on developing new and innovative services for Telef
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viles’ customer base.
The joint executive advisory team will evaluate market potential and obtain detailed information on user profiles. The team’s results and recommendations will help determine which mobile products and services Microsoft develops for trial on Telef
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viles’ networks before the commercial launch planned for spring 2001.
Luis Lada, president of Telef
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viles, said of the agreement,
“Our collaboration with Microsoft will enable us to speed up the process of creating the right services for mobile use as, for the first time, an operator can influence priorities in R & D to ensure that the new products are the ones most in demand and of greatest use for our users. The new products are designed to make the most of the ubiquity, customization and continuity of mobile services, enabling the whole community of Microsoft developers to easily create new Internet-Mobile businesses with little extra effort.”
“Microsoft’s vision is to work with mobile operators to provide end-to-end wireless solutions that enable knowledge workers and consumers to gain better control over their communications,”
said Paul Gross, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Mobility Group.
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As an example of this, we are working proactively with Telef
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óviles to make our idea of accessing information any time, anywhere and on any device a reality.”
Today’s announcement builds on an agreement between the companies signed in March 2000 to collaborate on the deployment of new products, services and applications for mobile device users. In June 2000 it was announced that the companies had begun trials of new corporate and consumer advanced wireless Internet services.
The services are being developed based on industry standards including GPRS, WAP, HTML and XML, giving users unparalleled access to Web content via their mobile phone and enabling developers to use their existing knowledge to develop innovative mobile intranet and Internet applications.
The joint trials in progress are operating using Microsoft technology including the Microsoft® Outlook® messaging and collaboration client, Exchange 2000, Mobile Explorer, Microsoft SQL Server™ and the Windows® 2000 operating system, and will be tested on Telef
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viles’ networks. The trials are being carried out using mobile handsets powered by Microsoft Mobile Explorer, Microsoft’s modular software platform for mobile phones, which allows users to access a wide range of mobile and Internet services.
Telef
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viles is also one of a limited set of leading carriers that will run trials of the Microsoft Mobile Information Server Beta 1, which was announced at the Microsoft Enterprise 2000 launch in San Francisco on Sept. 26, 2000. Mobile Information Server is a scalable and reliable mobile applications server that will provide enterprise customers and mobile network operators with a rich platform for delivering real-time mobile data services to any wireless device. Mobile Information Server enables applications for Windows and the Web to be mobile-enabled and securely accessed from any mobile device, thereby extending the corporate communications infrastructure to users when they’re away from the office and putting critical intranet information and applications within their reach.
About Telef
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viles
Telef
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viles, a Microsoft technology partner, has over 20 million customers in Spain and Latin America, and has a presence across Europe through the new UMTS licenses.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft, Outlook and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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