Blackberry sponge

Microsoft's next-generation message-hub software will let companies and phone operators offer instant email delivery to mobiles in a service similar to that available on the Blackberry handheld we reviewed last month.
    In fact Exchange Server 2003, due for release later this year, offers more features than the Blackberry service run by Research in Motion (Rim), according to Microsoft Mobility products manager James Langridge. It supports attachments on files and folders, and the ability to delete and sort email held on the server.
    Mobiles, or at least those running Microsoft software, will have a number of email options including scheduled or instant delivery. But Exchange has to send an SMS message to 'wake up' the mobile, though a GPRS link is theoretically always on.
    Langridge admitted that the Rim system does not require this call, which could prove costly for companies talking frequently to hundreds of devices. But he claimed that Rim could not 'scale up' like Exchange to serve many thousands of users because its system needed to maintain an IP link with devices. He said deals would be done to get a good rate for the SMS calls.
    A spokeswoman for Rim said: 'We do not comment on rival products.'
    Microsoft has a long history of absorbing good ideas from rivals. Laplink developer Traveling Software, which invented plug-and-play PC links, and Symantec, owner of the once must-have Norton Utilities, have had to reinvent themselves over the years as their features got copied and absorbed into Windows.
    Last month alarm bells rang in the anti-virus industry, including at Symantec, when Microsoft announced that it was buying Romanian AV specialist Gecad. Microsoft has long said that it would rather leave anti-virus work to third parties, but the continual updates required fit neatly with its more recent attempts to sell software as a service rather than a product.
    It is keeping quiet about its plans for Gecad but many analysts believe the next-generation of Windows will include AV features.
    * Microsoft has unveiled a road map detailing how it intends to evolve .Net Framework and the Visual Studio .Net development platform. A new version, codenamed 'Whidbey', will allow faster code development and enhanced debugging.