Mobile World Congress opens

In today's podcast: Mobile World Congress opens; Microsoft upgrades Windows Mobile; and Adobe revamps Flash for smartphones.

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Microsoft is introducing an application store with its newest version of Windows Mobile software, launched Monday at the giant Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Windows Marketplace for Mobile will come with Windows Mobile 6.5, the newest version of the operating system, and will give users access to thousands of applications, said Scott Rockfeld, group product manager for Windows Mobile. Microsoft is introducing Windows Mobile 6.5 at the show, saying the software should become available on phones early in the second half of the year. Microsoft has plenty of competition in the mobile platform arena, including Symbian, the Google-backed Android, as well as the iPhone. Supporters of all these competing mobile technologies are vying for the spotlight at the Barcelona show.

Also at the Mobile World Congress, Adobe is showing off progress on its Flash Player 10 for smartphones, and plans to deliver a new software development kit that should make reading documents on small screens easier. While Adobe has demonstrated Flash Player 10 on the Android G1, at Mobile World Congress it will also show it running on Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile phones. While Flash Player 10 won't display absolutely everything developed for the Web, even on high-end smartphones, it will come closer than its predecessors, said Anup Muraka, director of technology strategy and partner development in Adobe's platform business unit.

Yahoo's Build Your Own Search Service, otherwise known as BOSS, will have a variety of commercial models including revenue sharing on advertising and co-branding of sites, apart from a fee-based model that the company announced last week. David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo, said in an interview in Bangalore that Yahoo Is looking at a variety of options. For example, advertisers on Yahoo Search will be given the option to also advertise on Web sites of Yahoo's BOSS partners, Filo said. If developers are not interested in revenue-sharing on advertising, then they can opt for a traffic fee to use the Yahoo platform, he added. Yahoo has hundreds of engineers working on search, but the company wants thousands of other developers outside the company to start innovating on top of Yahoo Search. Filo was in Bangalore for Yahoo's Open Hack Day, a developer event with about 360 participants.

A special electronics show aimed at enticing people in Taiwan into spending special economic stimulus vouchers ended Monday in Taipei with many people picking up new gadgets on the cheap. The Taiwan government last month started handing out NT$3,600 (or US$106) in vouchers to every adult citizen in the nation to get them out shopping again and stimulate the economy. The multi-billion dollar program was aimed at stimulating growth by getting people out and shopping. To that end, the government gave vouchers instead of cash to ensure people used them ahead of their expiration dates, instead of handing out cash that might be put in the bank. The voucher program prompted fair organizers in Taipei to open a computers, consumer electronics and communications shopping exhibition at the Taipei World Trade Center.

And those are the top headlines from the IDG Global IT News Update brought to you by the IDG News Service. I am Marc Ferranti in the New York bureau. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.