Last week, Microsoft launched its beta version of Mobile Manager that allows PC Outlook users to automatically filter, prioritize, and deliver their Outlook based information, such as e-mail, calendar, and reminder information, directly to their wireless devices. Microsoft Outlook users can take advantage of the mobile version only if they utilize the Microsoft Exchange Server (5.5 or 2000) as their network-messaging platform along with a text-based wireless device.

Features to combat information overload

• Users can create and manage up to four unique profiles, such as home, office or vacation, each with different notification rules.
• Notification control settings allow users to customize time intervals, such as after a specific number of messages have been accumulated, or after the PC has been idle for sometime.
• Based on artificial intelligence, Mobile Manager can determine from the user's selections to deliver only those messages that the user considers urgent, while storing others.
• Utilizing natural language processing, Intellishrick, the software compresses large messages so that the user only receives the most relevant information, by removing spaces, auto converting well recognized terms to abbreviations, removing punctuation marks and vowels.

Eventually the application will be integrated with Microsoft Mobile Information 2001 server as well as the upcoming releases of Office XP, expected later this year.