Along with the revealing of Windows Mobile 6.5 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft today also announced the expansion of its various Windows Live mobile services around the world. Most of the announcements involve the wider distribution of the Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail mobile services to customers of several telecommunications operators worldwide. Here's a quick overview of the news:
In Argentina and Paraguay, Personal are to extend their present deal with Microsoft (which gives its customers access to mobile offerings of Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail and Spaces through their mobile web browser) with a new product called SIMessenger. The SIMessenger application offers access to the Windows Live Messenger service and is made available to customers by being pre-installed on SIM cards in some of the operator's line of mobile handsets.
SIMessenger is the first Microsoft certified instant messaging SIM client solution in the world and offers an intuitive and easy-to-use interface which is somewhat similar to that experienced on a PC. A Java application version of the service will also be made available. The SIMessenger solution has been developed by Microsoft in collaboration with Gemalto. It is currently being used by the Oi mobile network in Brazil and Movistar in Peru as well as Personal. Gemalto has already produced nearly 5 million SIM cards with the instant messaging application embedded.
Orascom Telecom - which operates in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia - is to distribute Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail mobile services to customers in their "key markets", with a gradual rollout through their affiliate partners and subsidiaries.
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