The US technology giant will debut OneApp in South Africa and hopes to swiftly roll it out in India, China and other countries where millions of people use feature phones instead of powerful smartphones.

"We designed OneApp from the ground up on feature phones with very limited memory and processing capabilities," said Amit Mital, corporate vice president of the Unlimited Potential Group and Startup Business Accelerator at Microsoft.

"OneApp will be able to help people do things they couldn't do before with their feature phone -- anything from paying their bills to helping diagnose their health issues or just staying connected with friends and family."

Feature phones typically combine calling capabilities with one or two other functions such as playing music or games.

Such devices rely on General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks with users unable to browse the Internet and typically paying as they go to download data.

In contrast, smartphones are essentially pocket-sized computers with wireless Internet connectivity.

"With a GPRS-enabled cell phone, consumers can now be part of the app experience, which is taking the world by storm," said Mark Levy, joint chief executive of Blue Label Telecoms.

Microsoft teamed with Blue Label Telecoms to make OneApp part of a new "mibli" mobile service to be offered free in South Africa, according to Mital.

"We're particularly excited by the technology's capacity to transform nearly any cell phone into a highly sophisticated, cost-effective and user-friendly transactional device," Levy said.

Feature phones are far more common than smartphones in emerging markets, according to Microsoft.

"Right now you have smartphones that are really expensive and feature phones that are free or near-free, and there is a gray area in the middle," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.

"This could close the gray area. It's a win for folks who didn't think feature phones were capable enough for them but didn't want to spend the money on a smartphone."

The rate of mobile telephone adoption in places such as India and China is meteoric, with a clear hunger for access to popular Internet services such as social networks and microblogging, Mital said.

OneApp hosts software "in the cloud" -- as a service on the Internet -- so a feature phone's scant power can be devoted temporarily to whichever applications people opt for, according to Microsoft.

"Think of it as a caching mechanism where the Internet is the place your data is stored and then, when needed, downloaded to the phone," Mital said.

"It means resources are only being used for a single application at any moment, lowering data charges, which is especially important in markets where people don't have all-you-can-eat data plans."

A standardized OneApp platform for applications should let developers take advantage of economies of scale, opening flood gates for new programs for feature phones, according to Enderle.

Currently, applications need to be customized for each model of feature phone. OneApp offers a standard for crafting applications.

"OneApp is first to allow an open market for common apps on a feature phone," Enderle said.

"It's the first time a feature phone can behave as though it had a real OS (operating system). Third-world residents just love this; they can't afford smartphones."

India added 15 million new mobile telephone service subscribers in January alone, while China has more than a half-billion mobile telephone users, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft is talking with potential OneApp partners worldwide and did not disclose how it plans to make money from the feature-phone platform.

"We have heard from mobile telephone operators around the planet," Mital said. "We certainly believe more customers for all participants in this ecosystem will result in substantially more business opportunity."

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