Samsung to Offer Mobile Access to Oracle, Other Software

Samsung has developed a mobile CRM (customer relationship management) service, based on Oracle products, that it partially hosts from a data center in New Jersey.

It showed off the new service during CTIA in San Diego, but doesn't plan to officially announce it until Oracle Openworld next week.

While Oracle already offers a very basic version of its CRM system for mobile phones, Samsung's has many more features, said Jae Shin, senior director of mobile services for Samsung.

For instance, Oracle's mobile offering displays connections between customers in a spreadsheet. But Samsung has developed a hub-and-spoke graphic that shows users at a glance which customers know each other.

Sales people who use the software can click on a customer name in their contact list and find a record of historical contact with the customer.

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Opera Shows Off Updated Mobile Browser

Version 9.7 will offer faster download speeds and improved performance thanks to Opera's compression technology.

Opera Software showed off the latest version of its mobile browser, and the company said it will be able to offer users a high-quality, rich Internet experience regardless of network connectivity.

Opera Mobile 9.7 will take advantage of the company's server-side compression technology to offer mobile users quick Internet access while supporting Web technologies like Flash and Ajax. The compression technology, dubbed Opera Turbo, can compress data by up to 80% to improve download rates and overall performance.

"Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo gives our business customers the ability to bring a rich Internet browsing experience to their mobile device and to the end user without having to allocate new resources and development costs," said Rod Hamlin, senior VP for Opera, in a statement.

The browser maker said Opera Mobile 9.7 will have better standards, will be capable of hardware acceleration, and will be compatible with Google Gears. The browser will come preloaded on some high-end smartphones but can also be purchased directly from Opera. It will be officially released during the CTIA Wireless Show next week.

As more cell phone users browse the Web on the go, Opera is seeing increased competition. The company already has to compete with on-deck browsers like Apple's mobile Safari andMicrosoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Internet Explorer Mobile, but it's also seeing a crop of newcomers in the mobile browser space.

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SAP, Sybase plan iPhone, Windows Mobile software

BOSTON (Reuters) - Software makers SAP AG and Sybase Inc have teamed up to make it easier for businesses to run SAP's business management software on mobile devices including Apple Inc's iPhone.

SAP, the world's biggest maker of business management software, is already working with Research in Motion Ltd to develop programs for its BlackBerry devices. This is the first time the German software company has announced plans to customize its software for other devices.

Sybase, which already sells programs that let businesses "shrink" applications so they can more easily run on mobile devices, will customize its software to better work with SAP's complex business management programs.

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Microsoft to launch cell phone software store: paper

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is planning to offer new programs and services for mobile phones, including an "online bazaar" for software, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The online bazaar would be for phones running Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft will also soon offer its latest version of Windows Mobile, which the report said would have a "more sophisticated interface."

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Google launches software to track mobile users

U.S. Internet search company Google Inc released software on Wednesday that allows users of mobile phones and other wireless devices to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends.

Users in 27 countries will be able to broadcast their location to others constantly, using Google Latitude. Controls allow users to select who receives the information or to go offline at any time, Google said on its Web site.

"Fun aside, we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we've built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application," Google said in a blog post announcing the service.

"You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see."

Friends' whereabouts can be tracked on a Google map, either from a handset or from a personal computer.

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