Microsoft and Nokia outlined an extensive alliance Wednesday under which a wide range of Microsoft productivity, communications and collaboration software will be adapted to run on Nokia's smartphones.Microsoft and Nokia executives, in a conference call, stressed the broad nature of the relationship. Published reports prior to the announcement indicated that the deal largely consisted of plans to port Microsoft's Office applications to Nokia smartphones running the Symbian operating system."It's the first time Microsoft will develop rich mobile applications for another smartphone platform," said Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division.
The two companies also will be marketing Nokia phones with Microsoft applications to their channel partners. "This is much more than just putting Microsoft software on Nokia smartphones," he said.There are more than 200 million Nokia smartphone customers worldwide, the companies said.
Elop and Kai Oistamo, Nokia executive vice president of devices, noted that both Microsoft and Nokia have a combination of enterprise business and consumer expertise. The alliance builds on work Nokia has already done with Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync to improve access to e-mail through Nokia's smartphones, according to the two companies.
Starting next year Nokia will begin shipping Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile on its smartphones, followed by other Office applications and related software and services. That will give Nokia smartphone owners the ability to view, create, edit and share Office documents using Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
The two companies also plan to make it possible for Nokia smartphone users to access intranet and extranet portals built on Microsoft's SharePoint Server, and even perform IT management tasks using Microsoft System Center.
Nokia's Symbian operating system for smartphones competes with Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. "Microsoft and Nokia compete in some areas and will continue to do so," Elop said, noting that the next release of that software, Windows Mobile 6.5, is about to hit the market in mobile devices from multiple manufacturers.
Symbian was originally developed by Symbian Ltd., which Nokia acquired in December.
The deal makes sense for Microsoft because the company is trying to make its Office suite as ubiquitous as possible in the face of increasing competition from open-source alternatives such as OpenOffice and browser-based applications, especially Google Apps.
Both Windows Mobile and Symbian are facing stiff competition from devices running other mobile operating systems including the Apple iPhone, RIM BlackBerry and devices running Google Android.
