Tech Talk: Cellphones and More
Thursday, June 15, 2006SCOTT GURVEY, NBR CORRESPONDENT: The countdown has begun for Microsoft's Windows Vista, the operating system update now due to reach the consumer market early next year. A test version is now available and Microsoft is urging everyone who can download the product. To do so and give it a good work over.
KEVIN KUTZ, DIRECTOR, WINDOWS CLIENT, MICROSOFT: The message to the hardware community as well as to the IT professionals and technicians around the world is to really test this hard. This is the time to go into the heavy evaluation process phase.
GURVEY: We'll check out this test release and report back.
Also out for testing is Office 2007 which is a really major overhaul. Just one of many new features expected would let Office users create files in Adobe's portable document format. But Microsoft has gone public to complain about what it calls a break down in talks with Adobe on the feature.
Neither company has asked me for advice so here it is. Adobe should let Microsoft include the technology which is near the top of customer wish lists. And Microsoft, which has a history of extending other people's standards and fragmenting the market should promise not to monkey with the PDF format in any way.
Motorola has a hit with the Q cell phone, a lightweight beauty with a full keyboard which operates on Verizon's high-speed data network and costs only 200 dollars with a service contract.
MONICA ROHLEDER, MOBILE DEVICE MANAGER, MOTOROLA: This is not just for the business person anymore. There is a whole wealth of consumers out there that range from soccer mom to the artist for the athlete that want that want to stay connected.
Unfortunately, Microsoft's SmartPhone operating system does not do the Motolora hardware justice. It requires many steps for functions the Palm OS can do with one or two keystrokes.
Now here's something new I can recommend without reservation. Verizon's Navigator service runs on your cell phone and costs three dollars for a day, ten dollars for a month. Perfect for someone like me who only needs directions occasionally. In our tests it performed as well as any of the handhelds we've tried. Those dedicated units cost 500 to one thousand dollars. And there's more.
DAVID SAMBERG, PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER, VERIZON: Fuel finder is another service treat we offer for travelers. You just put in your location and it will give you a range of gas stations in your immediate area and what they're charging for different grades of gas.
GURVEY: This is the first new service that has me ready to upgrade my four year old cell phone. All of Verizon's cell phones will have the Navigator capability by the end of the year. Scott Gurvey, Nightly Business Report, New York.
