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The enhancements to the operating system are to include a sample Telephony User interface that OEMs can easily customise for their products, a VoIP application interface layer that includes an API layer and application suite, and Enterprise Infrastructure Integration services with support for the .Net Compact Framework along with 'key new security and network technologies', including IP Security and 802.11a protocols.

The enhancements will also integrate with Microsoft's Greenwich communications suite (in beta) that includes its corporate instant messaging.

Todd Warren, general manager of the Embedded and Appliance Platforms

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Group, said: 'VoIP is creating new opportunities for the communications industry to offer greater convenience and productivity to its customers. Windows CE .Net 4.2 will provide the industry's most integrated and extensible standards-based VoIP device platform.'

Microsoft says that device manufacturers including Casio, NEC, Hitachi, Samsung and Tatung are already onboard. Chip makers Texas Instruments, Intel, AMD, ARM and others are also optimising their processors and building reference designs for VoIP kit running CE.

VoIP telephony offers two-way audio over a packet-switched network. In real terms, this translates as a very cheap way to make international phone calls - because calls are made over IP across the Internet, rather than via circuit-switched telephone networks.

Although the technology got off to a rocky start, dogged by poor audio quality, it is now much improved and is finding favour in the US, with a 10 per cent market penetration. It is only 2 or 3 per cent in Asia but its popularity is booming. In Europe it is slower still, but French telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel believes the era of Internet telephony is not far off, even though its core products are voice-based.