Microsoft Smartphone OS moves into Ericsson and Nokia's backyard

Microsoft has struck two new agreements for the use of its Windows Smartphone operating system and denied it suffered a major set-back in Europe days ago.

Scandinavian operator TeliaSonera is to use the mobile OS on phones from Taiwanese manufacturer HTC. These will initially be aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises as part of a bundle that includes connection to Exchange servers for email and software that allows the viewing of applications including PowerPoint, Excel and PDFs.

Peter Wissinger, marketing manager, Microsoft Mobile Devices EMEA, denied the company has ceded the consumer market to local rivals Nokia and SonyEricsson, saying a consumer launch could follow.

Last week, a representative for T-Mobile - one of the world's largest mobile operator's - told Reuters that his company had shelved plans to use the Microsoft OS, which competes with software from Palm and Symbian.

However, Wissinger said Microsoft and T-Mobile are still moving forward together and that he "wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of other [Microsoft European] wins soon".

Also today, Microsoft announced Hong Kong-based operator CSL will also use the HTC phone, under the brand name Qtek7070. Previously signed contracts include TMN in Portugal, AT&T Wireless and Verizon Communications in the US, and most famously Orange across several countries.

Microsoft's Wissinger said that, as compared to rival handsets such as the SonyEricsson P800 smart phone, his company's "big differentiator is the end-to-end offering" - painting a picture of other OS and handset makers only providing parts of a broad enterprise solution.