REDMOND, Wash., June 19, 2001 — Today at TechEd 2001, Microsoft Corp.’s developer event dedicated to Internet developers and industry professionals, Microsoft announced the relaunch of its Mobile Solutions Partner Program (MSPP). Responding to the needs of the growing ecosystem around mobility products, the company revamped the MSPP to provide new technical, marketing and business development benefits to members of the program.
With its membership having doubled over the past three months, the MSPP now serves 2,600 member companies worldwide and is the fastest-growing offshoot of Microsoft’s broader Certified Partner Program. The MSPP is currently free for new members and is designed to provide partners that develop mobile solutions with the latest information and resources to help drive demand for their innovations and to help build a company’s exposure to prospective new customers, Microsoft product teams and fellow partners.
“Enterprises and consumers are adopting mobile lifestyles at a rapid pace. With growing interest in mobile solutions, it is critical that we offer mobile partners a central resource for their technical, marketing and business needs to help navigate this nascent industry,”
said Juha Christensen, vice president for the Mobility Division at Microsoft.
“The MSPP offers a tremendous business opportunity for solution providers interested in extending their services beyond the wired world.”
“In recent months we’ve seen an amazing increase in development interest for the Pocket PC and Handheld PC platforms, particularly in the enterprise space,”
said Jim Bampos, senior vice president of Testing for Lionbridge Technologies’ VeriTest Labs, the only lab authorized by Microsoft to perform testing and validation for the company’s ‘Ready for Microsoft Pocket PC’ and ‘Ready for Microsoft Handheld PC’ certification programs.
“In fact, we’ve witnessed more than a 60 percent growth in application test requests for these two programs in just the first four months of 2001 and have now validated more than 650 applications, with many built for the corporate environment.”
Microsoft’s goal is to work with mobile solutions partners to provide the most comprehensive and cost-effective end-to-end mobile solutions for delivering information and services to customers any time, any place, on any device.
“The MSPP has been a great resource for us as we work to grow our mobile solutions businesses,”
said Konstantin Guericke, vice president of marketing for Presenter Inc.
“Not only are the technical resources great, but the comarketing opportunities are a valuable perk for gaining visibility in a rapidly growing industry.”
Eligible MSPP applicants include enterprise developers, custom solution providers (SPs), global systems integrators (SIs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), independent software vendors (ISVs), independent hardware vendors (IHVs), content providers and application service providers (ASPs). Eligible applicants include companies that build applications and provide development and consulting services for mobile solutions using software and platforms including Pocket PC, Handheld PC, Microsoft® smart phone software (code-named
“Stinger”
), Microsoft Mobile Explorer software and Mobile Information Server.
Program participants are offered varying levels of support in three groupings and receive a combination of the following benefits:
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Technical and Product Information
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Device application development
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The MSPP offers free high-quality standalone tools and SDKs to target Microsoft mobile device platforms including Pocket PC and Handheld PC. eMbedded Visual Tools 3.0 is a Win32 API-based toolkit familiar to developers that allows for simple utilization.
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This extends the power of the Microsoft .NET Framework to a wide variety of mobile devices including cell phones, PDAs and pagers, and includes the following components: server-side controls that enable intelligent rendering of content for different devices, a drag-and-drop interface that works with the Visual Studio development system, rich device identification capabilities and a QuickStart Tutorial.
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Beta testing opportunities
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Access to Microsoft mobility white papers and technical developer information
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Enhanced technical support
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Marketing and Business Development
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Various levels of comarketing opportunities including support for communications, events, advertising and public relations
More information and application details for MSPP can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/mobile/partners/ .
About Microsoft in Mobility
Microsoft seeks to enable
“intelligent”
communications — not just by connecting devices, but also by connecting people to each other and their data so they can make informed decisions. Microsoft mobility solutions reduce the complexity and constraints that hobble the flow of personal and business communications, helping individuals and organizations achieve their productivity goals. Microsoft mobile solutions are a key component of Microsoft’s end-to-end wireless strategy to provide mobile Internet solutions that utilize technologies such as
Microsoft mobile devices, including the Microsoft Mobile Explorer and Pocket PC platforms, and the smart phone software currently code-named
“Stinger,” as well as Mobile Information Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, the BackOffice® family, Microsoft Windows Media™ Technologies and MSN® Mobile Service.
About VeriTest
VeriTest is setting new standards in global outsourced testing. With datacenter-equipped labs in North America and Europe, VeriTest delivers test consulting, test plan development and test execution services. With VeriTest services from Lionbridge, customers have a single global partner for outsourcing specialized technical services associated with global product releases, including software localization, quality testing and logo certification. To learn more, visit http://www.veritest.com/ .
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, Win32, Visual Studio, BackOffice, Windows Media and MSN 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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