Via Windows Live

Feb 16, 2009 17:10 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft is pushing mobile phones into the Cloud via Windows Live. The Mobile World Congress 2009 proved to be the fertile soil for the Redmond company to ink a variety of agreements with members of the telecommunications industry, designed to connect mobile phones with the Windows Live suite of applications and services. The software giant has partnered with Orascom Telecom, Telefónica, Gemalto, América Móvil, and Personal.

With América Móvil, the Redmond company will supply Windows Live, MSN and Live Search to 17 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, Puerto Rico and Uruguay. In this context, it has a chance of tapping no less than 172 million customers of América Móvil with services and apps including Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Spaces.

“We’re excited to partner with América Móvil to extend the Windows Live experience to such a large portion of our customer base in Latin America,” Brian Arbogast, corporate vice president of Mobile Services for Microsoft, revealed. “Our customers want to communicate and share while mobile via Windows Live, as well as search and access mobile-optimized content via MSN. This partnership will make it easy for customers to take advantage of Microsoft’s great suite of mobile offerings.”

The Mobile World Congress 2009 was also the stage for an alliance between Microsoft and Orascom for the Middle East market. Orascom customers will be able to take advantage of Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger.

“With Orascom, we will be able to tap the great growth potential of the mobile market in the Middle East,” Tom Bailey, senior director of product management for Windows Live for Mobile services at Microsoft, explained. “Through our new alliance, we have the ability to extend the mobile Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger experience for our mutual customers.”

In addition, Microsoft and Telefónica have expanded their existing partnership with a new agreement focused on Windows Live for Mobile client application services. 100 millions of Telefónica's customers in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Perú, Uruguay and Venezuela will be able to download and install a Java client that will open up Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Spaces for them. On top of this, the IM client is bound to come preinstalled on SIM cards.

“We are extremely excited to extend our strong relationship with Telefónica and make Windows Live mobile offerings available to our mutual customers,” Arbogast pointed out. “By enabling customers to choose the best solution for their mobile needs, we are opening the door for many of our 500 million global customers to extend their Windows Live experience to their mobile phone.”

Microsoft also extended the reach of Windows Live Messenger via Gemalto and SIMessenger. Details on this partnership are available here. Also with SIMessenger, Personal will target a customer base of 14.5 million in Argentina and Paraguay, a move focused on the instant messaging client.

“Our collaboration with Personal is an important part of fulfilling our vision to mobilize our broad Windows Live PC customer base,” Bailey stated. “By offering the services in several formats, we’re tightly integrating with our partners and eradicating some of the top barriers for consumers to try to adopt a full suite of mobile entertainment options.”