Fresh off the heels of last week’s blockbuster deal with Yahoo!, Microsoft announced a new partnership with Finnish cell phone manufacturer Nokia, another attempt to go after the top player in the space. While the Yahoo! deal was about tackling Google’s dominance of the search market, this newest collaboration takes aim at Research In Motion’s (RIM) grasp on the corporate mobile phone world.
As Fast Company reports, the industry will “most probably see Office productivity apps being included on cellphones made by Nokia, which is the world’s largest maker of cellphones, albeit not necessarily the world’s hottest-selling smartphone maker.” RIM currently holds that distinction.
Microsoft plans to implement its new Mobile Office software in new Nokia smartphones, a move reminiscent of the particulars within the fine print of the Yahoo! agreement. Under that contract, Microsoft’s new Bing search engine would power all Yahoo searches, in exchange for Yahoo! keeping 88% of the ad revenue generated on those searches.
This announcement sheds further light on Microsoft’s new strategy in the technology market. Rather than trying to compete head-to-head with the leader in each specific technology sector, the company is attempting to leverage its software within the framework of already established brands. Arguably a blueprint for survival, given Microsoft’s well publicized losses during the recession.
The partnership could also be viewed as a preemptive strike on Google’s expansion into new sectors. According to the Financial Times, “Google’s Android operating system for smartphones is gaining ground, and giving the US technology company the chance to put its web-based software on handsets.” This would loom large on Microsoft’s bottom line.
RIM’s success in the smartphone market has been “partly because the Canadian handset maker’s Blackberry devices have user-friendly e-mail.” But with Microsoft’s Mobile Office platform, Nokia phones – which now operate with Symbian operating systems – will be able to perform word processing and spreadsheet functions. This fact alone should make the combination an appealing option within corporate space.
Smartphones are the fastest growing section of the mobile phone market, and have proved to be resilient in the face of economic trouble. In fact, smartphones are “the one part of the mobile phone market that continues to grow in the recession. Mobile phone sales fell 6.1 per cent in the three months to June 30, to 286.1m units, according to figures released on Wednesday by Gartner, the research firm. But smartphone sales increased 27 per cent to 41m units.”
Only time will tell how Microsoft’s new partnering strategy works to combat Google’s rapid rise to the top of the technology heap, but it’s not unlikely that there will be more partnerships in the future. It will be interesting to see if these recent developments impact Google’s long term plans or if the juggernaut will simply stay on course.
[image via Tjeerd]