Microsoft and Vodafone Work to Link PC-Wireless Transactions

Microsoft Corp. and Vodafone Group PLC are working together on technology standards that would allow personal computers to exploit wireless networks for functions ranging from user authentication to payment to text messages. A company that sells online games, for instance, could use the new mobile Web specifications to accept micropayments for its games by connecting its servers to a mobile network's billing system. The game company would avoid having to develop a micropayment system and the wireless network would get a piece of the transaction fee. The two companies will introduce a “roadmap” for the specifications later this month at a professional developer's conference in Los Angeles hosted by Microsoft. Later, they hope to make the specifications an industry standard, leading to the introduction of applications next year. According to the U.K.-based PC Advisor, some industry observers laud the effort but are critical of the two companies for working apart from established consortia. They also fear the technologies may be written to favor Microsoft products. The U.S. software giant and U.K.-based Vodafone counter that their intent is to bring competing software and network companies into the effort to work toward standards. Microsoft's aim is to sell more software to companies that develop applications based on the new standards, and network operators like Vodafone would be able to peddle services in new markets. Programmers can use existing technologies to connect PCs with mobile networks, but what's missing are specifications that give definition to certain functions, such as how a wireless network operating on a standard such as GSM would exchange authentication data with a computer application running Web security protocols.