Microsoft and Deutsche Telekom have teamed up to offer business customers access to their companies' data through mobile phones.

Deutsche Telekom hopes that combining personal organisers with the handsets will reinvigorate interest in third generation mobile phones and give it an edge over its competitors.

"This will give us an important head start in marketing UMTS," Deutsche Telekom chief executive Ron Sommer at a news conference with Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-mobile will adopt the Microsoft.NET software platform to offer access to e-mail, scheduling information and other data, the two companies said at CeBIT, the world's largest technology show.

They will also collaborate on operating systems for mobile devices, with Deutsche Telekom using Microsoft's Smartphone and Pocket PC software to offer service on phones built by handset providers.

The alliance is part of Microsoft's effort to extend its dominant position in software to the next generation of cell phones and personal data assistants.