Sierra Wireless shows the Voq

I got a sneak peek at the Voq (pronounced “Vock”) smart phone from Sierra Wireless. As Homer Simpson would say, “Aaarghhllllllll” (droooool).

Finally, a smart phone that is targeted at the mobile business user! The Voq runs on the Microsoft Smartphone operating system, and includes wireless e-mail features similar to a BlackBerry device (Sierra Wireless calls it ‘push emulation’). Because the OS is from Microsoft, there is back-end integration with several Microsoft applications on the PC side, but also integration with Microsoft Exchange. Sierra Wireless says its e-mail integration offering requires no additional software on the Exchange server, and no desktop re-director.

The e-mail feature is enhanced by the Voq’s ability to expand its phone keypad to reveal a small QWERTY-style keypad (you open the keypad like a door). This gives the user to type out e-mail and SMS text messages a lot easier than a typical cell phone. The device itself looks and feels like a cell phone, it’s slightly bigger than the average size of a cell phone (but not much bigger).

The phone is a tri-band GSM / GPRS phone, and the company expects to offer a model in North America and Western Europe in the early part of 2004. Other features include 48M bytes of storage space, Secure Digital expansion slot (for up to 1G bytes of additional storage), and MP3 player, voice recording feature, stereo/mono headset, and an infrared port. The phone can also connect to a PC via USB cable for data synchronization (can synchronize with both Outlook and Notes).

Carriers and pricing have not yet been announced, Sierra Wireless officials said.