Common Platform: Ravi Venkatesan, chairman of Microsoft Corporation India, flanked by Bharti Airtel president Manoj Kohli (right) and director (marketing & communications) Hemant Sachdev in New Delhi on Monday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, Aug. 21: Bharti Airtel has formed a strategic partnership with Microsoft to introduce a technology platform that will give Airtel users access to a host of Microsoft Office applications and other multimedia products on specific mobile phones.

Manoj Kohli, president of Bharti Airtel, said, “The new business solution targets an estimated four million small and medium enterprises (SME) potential users.”

The Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 platform will help Airtel users access MS Office — Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Internet Explorer, multi media functionalities like camera, MP3 and video recording and business applications like sales force automation on their mobile phones.

Microsoft India chairman Ravi Venkatesan said, “With 98 per cent of business travellers checking their email on the move, Windows Mobile 5.0 is the perfect solution for the global mobile workforce to work in an always ‘on’ environment and better organise their work and personal lives.”