MS Office on Airtel mobile phones now

Telecom services provider Bharti Airtel on Monday, announced a strategic tie-up with Microsoft to introduce a new technology platform that will give Airtel users access to a host of Microsoft Office applications and other multimedia products on their mobile phones.

To avail the service, a user has to purchase Personal Digital Assistants like I-Paq and I-Mate, which range between a price tag of Rs 16,000-Rs 65,000 and take the service package that could be Rs 399 (for 100 MB), Rs 599 for 1 GB and Rs 799 for 1.5 GB of data per month. For enterprise users it would depend on the number of users with the basic price of the service at Rs 399.

Targeting an estimated four million Small and Medium Enterprises potential user, the new business solution portfolio with Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 will help Airtel users access MS Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Internet Explorer), multi media functionalities like camera, MP3 and video recording and line up business application like self-force automation on their mobile phone.

The Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 will be available to Airtel customers on the latest HP I-Paq and I-Mate handset, Bharti Airtel President Manoj Kohli said, adding that this tie up puts Bharti Airtel among 115 existing mobile operators, who currently offer the Windows mobile solutions worldwide.

Bharti Airtel chief marketing officer Hemant Sachdeva said the company's relationship with Blackberry continues and it was doing very well. He said in India 7 per cent of all handsets are above Rs 15,000 and seven million mobile users use internet on their mobile.