Having tried for some time in recent months to make a recent, high spec, windows mobile phone do anything well, the idea of using one on (as) a desktop or hooking it up to my TV and getting it to work satisfactorily makes me queasy.

This from a company that has spent god knows how many years getting ActiveSync badly wrong.

Cant wait.

Paris wouldn't want one, even she isnt that daft

Isn't Redfly from Celio Corp. the same thing?

>It’s too early to tell if Microsoft plans to

>mass produce its smart cradle anytime soon.

I doubt it.

The purpose of this patent is to prevent any of their competitors from producing such a device.

Or, if they do, Microsoft are probably hoping to skim a percentage.

Rather than encouraging innovation and invention patents are now used to block the development of technology.

As an example, when PSION first produced their Organiser, they had to pay a percentage to an American lawyer who had patented the general term 'electronic diary', obviously without any idea of how such a device might be implemented but in the reasonably certain knowledge that someone would build such a device and they could then cash in.

I think Microsoft's intentions here are similar.