Yahoo lands Moto in second major deal

Handset maker Motorola has chosen Yahoo’s mobile services to embed into millions of its phones.

In a deal that binds the two for several years, Moto will host Yahoo’s Go for Mobile applications on its mid to high-end phones. Similar to Microsoft’s range of ‘Live’ products, the Go applications include Yahoo e-mail, search and address book functionality.

The deal is a significant boost for Yahoo which on Tuesday caused concern in the financial markets as its profits dived nearly 14 per cent after the company forecast slower than expected growth for 2006 and announced that an upgrade to its search engine advertising system would be delayed. The tie-in with Moto indicates confidence in the company’s media strategy as it comes under intense pressure from the likes of Google, Microsoft and AOL, all of whom are frantically working to get their desktop communications applications onto mobile devices.

At the beginning of this year, Yahoo secured a similar deal with Nokia, giving it unrivalled access to the world’s two leading mobile manufacturers.

No details of the phones Motorola has chosen to run the embedded applications were given.