Microsoft sends a message to BlackBerry

A couple of more articles on Microsoft's partnerships with Vodafone, Cingular, Orange and T-Mobile to offer push e-mail services. In the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Ben Wood at Gartner predicted Microsoft should gain in the market, but can't see them catching RIM. He said, Microsoft still has "some issues in the functionality they can offer. RIM's solution is richer in terms of some of the security and management features."

In Bloomberg.com, Kevin Burden at IDC noted the announced handsets will appeal to business users, which "plays to Microsoft's strength in business software." He said, "The general public doesn't have a lot of use for a phone with a high-end operating system like Windows. That's not critical to young adults, stay-at-home moms and a lot of other people."

According to the article, IDC estimates "that of 823 million phones sold last year, about 56 million were smart phones with more complex software."