Microsoft lets your IT manager wipe your phone

Just weeks after releasing its latest operating system for mobiles, Windows Mobile 5.0, Microsoft has unveiled a security and messaging features top-up.

Among the changes the new feature pack will bring will be faster access to Outlook, remote device wiping abilities and certificate-based identity authentication.

The feature pack, which will be available from the second half of this year, will also see the mobile version of Outlook get a makeover with a number of new features added. The pack will enable Windows' 'direct push' technology, where information is pushed from Exchange Server to a Windows Mobile phone or PDA without any middleware servers. Other updates include global look-up of contact information from a Windows device.

Outlook will also offer a feature that's been at the disposal of millions of phone owners for some time: synchronising a photo of an individual with their contact details. In addition the feature pack will allow users to embed the photo in their mail.

The snappily titled Messaging and Security Feature Pack for Windows Mobile 5.0 aims to pander to the vagaries of IT administration, with a series of updates designed to make the lives of techies managing Windows Mobile handsets easier.

IT managers can now mandate policies and password protocols, as well as exceptions. The feature pack will also allow the techie to better manage the all-too-familiar scenario of the lost device, with heads of IT now able to wipe lost or stolen devices remotely.

Scott Horn, senior director of marketing for Windows Mobile and Embedded Devices, said: "It's for that taxi scenario."

Horn added that IT managers are now thinking about expanding their mobile rollouts from a select few employees to an expanded workforce and are trying to manage their mobile devices like the rest of their tech infrastructure.

"What we're constantly hearing from IT professionals is that they want to manage their mobile devices in the same way they manage their PCs and servers."

Other additions include Outlook Mobile data compression, which the software leviathan reckons can reduce bandwidth required to download mail by 35 per cent, and the introduction of support for email encryption technology SMIME.