Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Vodafone & Microsoft to offer SMS Search for Indian Customers

Vodafone and Microsoft India yesterday unveiled the launch of SMS Search for Vodafone customers in India powered by Live Search.

“Vodafone customers will now have a complete search experience with this first of its kind service. After providing our GPRS users the ease and convenience of Windows Live Search, SMS Search was the natural next step forward,” said Harit Nagpal, Marketing and New Business Director, Vodafone Essar.

Live Search on Vodafone mobile offers users a complete search experience by allowing them to search On-portal/deck content like ringtones, images, articles, Local / directory information like restaurants, Mobile sites (WAP sites) and the World Wide Web (WWW)

“We are offering some very unique features like local results based on the user’s city location, keeping track of user’s search session for 24 hours and delivering results formatted to match the user’s phone capabilities – seen in India for the first time,” said Gurpreet S. Pall, Director of Live Search and Emerging Markets at MSIDC.

According to Microsoft, this is one of the several Live Search services targeted at emerging markets currently being developed at theMicrosoft India Development Center (MSIDC).

Currently, the local search/directory information is available in 8 major cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad. In addition, 21 more cities are expected to go live soon.

Vodafone subscribers can simply type in their query as a SMS text message on their mobile handset and send to 55060. The mobile originating SMS will be charged 30 paise per query.