Internet Explorer miniaturized for Microsoft handheld devices

Posted: March 27, 2000

By Andy Walker, Cyberwalker Media Syndicate 

SEATTLE -- The next Microsoft web browser has shrunk in size, won't run on a conventional PC and excludes Java support.

If this sounds odd, it's because the Microsoft Pocket Internet Explorer is slated to ship as the default browser on the mid-April release of Pocket PC, the renamed micro-operating system for handheld devices.

Pocket PC is the new name for Windows CE, which competes with Palm, Inc's PalmOS and runs on devices such as the Compaq Aero and the Hewlett Packard Jornada.

"We wanted to create a tool that lets you view all of the web today," said Dave Glowacki, program manager of Microsoft's Mobile Devices Division during a preview of the technology here. "This is a real browser. Type a web address and go."

Almost all key web technologies are supported by the browser, but one notable exception is Java, technology that allows programmers to develop software for any computer platform. Microsoft has had legal fisticuffs over implementation Java with inventor Sun Microsystems.

"We just decided not to support Java," said Glowacki. Asked why, he
declined to comment, but said Microsoft won't stand in the way of any third party developers who want to program software that will support Java on the new platform.

Pocket Explorer is preinstalled as part of the Pocket PC operating system and is a full-featured web browser that can display full Internet Web pages.

This is achieved on a small screen by scrolling through a window across the expanse of the Web page. This is not a comfortable method of browsing the Web, but Microsoft has built page compression technology that shrinks the page and associated fonts to run on smaller handheld screens.

Like Internet Explorer, its big brother on the PC, Pocket Explorer
functions as a full-blooded browser. It supports HTML 3.2, the lingua franca of the Web and also can handle Web pages with technologies such as frames, Jscript 1.1 and Microsoft's ActiveX technology.

The browser also has 64-bit SSL encryption which allows secure connections to shopping pages.

The browser will work with any Pocket PC device connected to a corporate network, through a handheld modem through a cell phone connection and even via an infrared connection to a portable phone. 

The forthcoming Bluetooth technology which will allow limited wireless connections will also be supported.

Microsoft is also working with web content company AvantGo, to provide information from third parties that is optimized for the small screen.

Internally, Glowacki said, the Pocket Explorer team will be working with
Microsoft programmers to integrate small screen support in the Microsoft FrontPage web design tool.

ActiveSync, the program that allows the Pocket PC device to synchronize with a desktop PC, will also fetch Web pages so that they can be copied to a handheld device and be browsed off-line.

Going in the other direction, if a user views one of these offline pages
saved on their Pocket PC device, they can order a product without connecting to the Web.

"You can be on a bus and order a book from (Web retailer) Amazon.com on an off-line Web page," said Glowacki. "The next time you synchronize it with your PC it will be ordered on the PC's (Internet) connection."

The browser also supports XML, an emerging web standard that simplifies data-sharing across the Internet.

While past Microsoft web browsers have been make available on other
non-Microsoft platforms, Glowacki said the company has no plans to provide a version for the PalmOS platform, the market leader.

"I don't think that the Palm platform would be able to handle Pocket
Explorer. I have talked to some very bright developers and they say it would be very difficult to implement in the Palm operating systems present form," he said.

Details of the Pocket PC operating system and the new features that
supplants the previous Windows CE functionality will be announced in April.