
Image courtesy of Microsoft
The line has blurred that separates the smartphone from the feature phone. Feature phones are those cheap carrier phones that don’t have the capability to download and run sophisticated apps. Microsoft has blurred the line even further, and announced a new cloud service, dubbed OneApp, that brings the ability to run apps like FaceBook and Twitter to these feature phones.
OneApp will provide a small (150k) application, that is run on the feature phone that taps into the OneApp cloud for running applications using the computational power of the server. Such phones could, thus, run a myriad of applications with just the OneApp connection, which is powered by a Java app for feature phones. The OneApp service will be offered through carrier partnerships, and Microsoft is touting that OneApp will focus on emerging countries.
There is already a list of phones compatible with the service:
- Nokia 3555, 5320, 6300, 6500, 6600, E50, E51, E63, E65, E66, E71, N70, N72, N73, N78, N80, N81, N82, N85, N95, N96
- Samsung U900 Soul
- Sony Ericsson C510, C902, C905, G705,K610i, K800i, K805i, T650i, W200i, W580i, W595, W660i, W980
It is not surprising to see quite a few Nokia handsets on this list, given the recent alliance between Microsoft and Nokia. It is surprising that while promoted as a service for feature phones, some of those Nokia handsets are firmly in the smartphone category. It is not clear what impact (if any) OneApp will have on the Windows Mobile business.
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