Motorola Partners with Microsoft on Enterprise Smartphone

Motorola today announced its intention to drive demand for ruggedized smartphones specifically designed for enterprise applications.

Based on a Microsoft operating system, the ES400 is the first smartphone that will make use of a new Windows Embedded Handheld operating system, which today is based on the technologies that Microsoft previously called Windows Mobile 6.5. In the consumer space, the Windows Mobile name will also disappear in favor a simpler Windows Phone moniker.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also said that a new version of Windows Embedded Handheld that will be based on Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight technologies will be available next year.

David Kelley, product unit manager for Windows Embedded, said Microsoft has not decided to what degree, if any, the company will support HTML5 on this platform. But he did say that Windows Embedded Handheld can run Flash applications.

Gene Delaney, president of Motorola's Enterprise Mobility Solutions group, said the richness of the Microsoft platform in terms of building enterprise applications is the primary reason that Motorola continues to partner with Microsoft on the development of a smartphone that Motorola is positioning as an enterprise digital assistant.

Delaney said corporations need an enterprise -lass smartphone because consumer smartphones are not designed to run enterprise applications or stand up to the rigors of enterprise usage.

According to Motorola, consumer smartphones used in enteprise environments typically see failure rates in the range of 15 to 20 percent in the first year, and 35 percent failure by the second year. As a result, Motorola said IT organizations should look past the initial cost of the smartphone to focus more on the total cost of ownership. The ES400 is priced at $750.

For the ES400, Motorola created a Motorola Enterprise User Interface (MEUI) designed specifically to run multiple enterprise applications at the same time on a smartphone.

Other key features of the ES400 include integrated scanning, Push-to-Talk support, the ability to connect to mutliple types of wireless networks, a barcode scanner, fingerprint authentication and integrated camera.

The ES400 is initially available on Sprint wireless networks, with support from other carriers to follow.