Symbian gets enterprise boost from Nokia, Microsoft deal

Tech giants Nokia and Microsoft have revealed more details about their partnership to target the enterprise mobile market.

Under the alliance announced late Wednesday, the two companies will collaborate on the design, development and marketing of mobile enterprise platforms including Microsoft Office Mobile and other business communications, collaboration and device management software for Symbian devices.

The initiative will look to introduce software for a broad range of Nokia smartphones starting with the business-focused Eseries range. The two companies will also market these offerings to businesses, carriers and individuals.

The announcement builds on the existing partnership between Nokia and Microsoft to optimise mobile access to email via Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.

New business products are expected to appear in 2010 and dedicated teams will be set up in both companies to work on the new initiative.

Microsoft business division president Stephen Elop said the deal would focus on email, collaboration, Web 2.0, SharePoint, Instant Messaging, presence and other rich office mobile applications, including the ability to view, edit, create and share Office documents with mobile-optimised versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft OneNote.

Given that the focus is on the Symbian platform, this deal should sink the rumour that Nokia is seeking to decrease its reliance on Symbian and start developing more devices on its Maemo Linux-based platform which is used for tablet devices like the N810.