Microsoft and Nokia form Global Alliance for Mobile Productivity Solutions

This article will describe the most important facts of one of the largest global alliances in mobile industry between Microsoft and Nokia to Design, Develop and Market Mobile Productivity Solutions. The articles mixes slides, press information and own thoughts abouth this announcement, and possile implications.

Yesterday we could already read on the Microsoft PressPass website: “Microsoft and Nokia to Hold Teleconference“, while Mobile Crunch reported that “Microsoft Office coming to Nokia handsets“,  followed today by a New York Times article “Microsoft to Put Office on Phones From Nokia”  just before the official annoucement.

“Today, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop and Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices Kai Öistämö announced the agreement, outlining a shared vision for the future of mobile productivity.”

According to the speakers it will be a long term global alliance to design, develop and market mobile productivity solutions starting from today. It is probably the largest global alliance in mobile indrusty by bringing two industry giants together and work on wide range of user experiences.

“This announcement builds on the existing work Nokia is doing by optimizing access to e-mail and other personal information with Exchange ActiveSync. Next year, Nokia intends to start shipping Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile on its smartphones, followed by other Office applications and related software and services in the future.”

Starting on the left side, Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile is covered in the article “Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 updated with significant improvements!” while new updates of Microsoft Exchange 2010 are covered in the article “Microsoft Exchange 2010 updates for Windows Mobile“.

At first it is great to see that Nokia continues to buy a license for Exchange ActiveSync, but more licenses will be added for Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile, and Microsoft Office Mobile which is by standard loaded on every Windows Phone now. But the alliance goes even further with addressing user collaboration via Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft System Center to easily manage mobile devices.

Both the companies address the advantages by combining both companies visions, as outlined today by Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop and Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices Kai Öistämö:

“Today’s announcement will enable us to expand Microsoft Office Mobile to Nokia smartphone owners worldwide and allow them to collaborate on Office documents from anywhere, as part of our strategy to provide the best productivity experience across the PC, phone and browser.”

“Together with Microsoft, we will develop new and innovative user experiences for employees of small and large businesses alike, ensuring Nokia’s smartphones are an integral part of the office and home-office environment, and addressing the significant opportunity in mobile enterprise productivity.”

The Microsoft applications and services will be first rolled out in the business aimed Nokia E-series and expand to other Nokia devices over time.

“Both Microsoft and Nokia possess a rare combination of enterprise experience and consumer understanding and, in addition to the collaboration on existing software and services, will use these assets to jointly design a range of new user experiences for future Nokia devices. These experiences will be identified together, and will be created by dedicated teams inside both companies to better meet the growing needs of the mobile professional.”

And despite that this collaboration agreement will also affect the underlying networks of partners and the surrounding ecosystem, I’m very curious how the Intellectual Property (IP) rights will be  ”used”.

“With more than 200 million smartphone customers globally, Nokia is the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer and a natural partner for us”

In addition the latest figures of Gartner Research show that Nokia has a marketshare of 45% in WorldWide Smartphone Sales to End Users in Q2 2009 leaving all the competition far behind. If you start to calculate a license fee per shipped device, this business deal could become a great cash cow for Microsoft (assuming Nokia will continue to be shipping the same percentage of smartphones world wide).

“If you are going to provide a seamless and integrated productivity experience on a mobile device, Microsoft is an ideal partner”

In the latest Microsoft related articles I have been addressing the Microsoft three-scree-strategy, in which computer, internet and mobile phone are connected and make it possible to access your information anytime from anywhere. The announcement today and the fundamental global alliance is perfectly in line with this strategy, with the difference that Symbian powered Nokia devices are one of the three screens. However the reasoning stays the same, and this will also help in the development of new user experiences.

Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop and Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices Kai Öistämö, furthermore addressed the main goal of the alliance of providing “more choice“. And while being competitors in certain niches, Microsoft and Nokia will be close partners when it comes to business productivity solutions. Nokia end users will be happy to make use of the rich Office Mobile applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) on the Symbian powered devices and become “more productive“.

“The scope of the alliance between Microsoft and Nokia, and potential value for the enterprise and individual is significant,” said Stephen Drake, VP of Mobility & Telecom at IDC. “By bringing Microsoft’s productivity solutions to Nokia’s large customer base, the two companies should be better able to serve the needs of the growing mobile worker population, which IDC estimates to reach 1 billion worldwide in 2011.”

Additional information van be found on the Microsoft PressPass website or the Press section on the Nokia website.  If you like to have short summary please have a lok at the video below:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAuepUyUMjk

Side-notes

1. Microsoft will be strongly commited to its Windows Mobile platform, while Nokia concerns Symbian to be the best mobile platform for its mobile devices. Speculations about Nokia devices running Windows Mobile are not true !
2. The embedded slides used in this article are extracted from the free public downloadable Microsoft Office Live Meeting recording of the Microsoft-Nokia teleconference available here.