MSN Direct requires a Windows Mobile phone user to have an unlimited data plan, since updates are pushed to a phone regularly. After installing the application on their phones, customers will find customizable weather, news, and stocks channels on their device's home screen (seen below). They'll also find links to relevant areas of the MSN Mobile portal, Microsoft says.
The MSN Direct application adds weather, news, and stock channels to a device's home screenThe MSN Direct technology competes with many existing methods of pushing snippets of information to Windows Mobile phones. These include
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) readers, the "widgets" available in recent web browsers such as
Opera and
NetFront, and the "tiles" in
Zumobi.
Microsoft says its new service marks the first time that MSN Direct content has been available to mobile phones. Previously, the service was available for
SPOT watches and other SPOT devices via Microsoft's
DirectBand Network. Described as a "cost-effective and power-efficient" system for wide-area wireless data delivery covering more than 70 percent of the U.S. population, the network piggybacks on FM radio signals and transmits content every few minutes, according to the company.
SPOT technology has also been offered in
weather stations from Oregon Scientific and a
coffee maker from Melitta. And, the SPOT Group's client-side embedded software technologies evolved into
.NET Micro Framework, Microsoft's low-end software product that targets highly resource-constrained embedded devices.
AvailabilityThe free MSN Direct client for Windows Mobile is available now from Microsoft's web site,
here.
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